Elgin Wells Sr.

News Obituary Article

DULUTH: Elgin Wells Sr., 89, thrill of flying a lifelong love

By HOLLY CRENSHAW

After 30 years of piloting planes for Delta Air Lines, Elgin Wells Sr. hadn't lost his taste for the breathtaking expansiveness of the open sky. He still wanted to shake off his earthly bonds and soar.

Which is why --- at an age when many would have preferred the gravitational pull of a La-Z-Boy recliner --- the retired Delta captain took up aerobatics and started putting his plane through stomach-churning maneuvers that would have made his commercial passengers cringe.

"This is just exhilarating, moving in three dimensions," he said in a 1997 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, when he was 79.

After three decades of flying passenger jets as uneventfully as possible, he faced an endless blue canvas ready to be filled with loops, rolls and spins.

"That three-dimensional freedom was his favorite thing," said his son, Elgin Wells Jr.

Elgin Miles Wells Sr., 89, of Duluth died Feb. 19 at Hospice Atlanta of complications from a hiatal hernia. The body was cremated. The memorial service is 10 a.m. March 10 at Gwinnett County Airport/Briscoe Field's EAA Hangar 1. Wages & Sons Funeral Home, Gwinnett Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.

The Jackson, Miss., native graduated from Mississippi College in 1938, did graduate work in physics at Duke University, enlisted in the Army Air Corps and earned his wings in 1941.

He trained pilots stateside for several years, then served as a fighter pilot and photo reconnaissance squadron commander in World War II.

At Delta, he started flying DC-3s in 1947 and retired in 1977, having witnessed "the transition from the propeller age to the jet age," his son said.

His favorite route was to the West Coast.

"He always said he was a cloud freak," his son said. "That long flight allowed him plenty of time for that coast-to-coast panoramic view, where he could see the entire mid-belt of the country in a whole afternoon."

"Dad commented that most pilots really love what they do, but occasionally there are some who are just punching the clock, and he just could not understand that," his son said. "The glorious visuals, the fact that people are actually leaving the ground and going great distances --- that awe never left him."

One night in 1993, every ounce of his piloting skills came into play when he was forced to make an emergency landing on Ga. 316. When his yellow 1976 Bellanca Decathlon's engine suddenly cut out, Mr. Wells --- then 76 --- followed the lights below, aimed for a traffic-free lane, dodged power lines and landed safely.

"He hit a traffic light with the left wing, but because it was green, they couldn't even give us a traffic ticket," his son said. Still, the elder Mr. Wells exclaimed, "Damn, 50 years of flying and that's the first time I've scratched a plane."

Until recently, Mr. Wells was still lifting weights and completing an aerobic workout before heading to Briscoe Field to fly with his son, also an aerobatic pilot.

He took photographs of wildflowers and butterflies that his late wife, Girl Scout executive Geraldine Wells, used in nature lectures, and he tinkered and schemed with dozens of inventions.

With his flying buddies, "we'd be discussing the physics of aeronautics and he'd bring up an equation from 50 years ago," said his friend Dr. Leonard Pace of Lilburn. "The man was just amazing, and not just mentally but physically.

"I mean, I didn't meet him until he was 74, when most people are in their waning years, but he would come out there and fly aerobatics with us all day long.

"There was no one sharper than Elgin Wells."

Other survivors include his two granddaughters.

© 2007 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution