NEOPA Mulligan's Dinner- Come hear about flying in support of the disaster area in North Carolina

Join us for the NEOPA Dinner meeting at Mulligan's Restaurant & Pub, 4118 Belden Village St NW, Canton 44718 on Wednesday January 29, 2025. Social time begins at 6:00 PM with dinner at 7:00.

We are going to hear Joe Marshall talk about his experience flying disaster relief in North Carolina in his 182.

Joe’s aviation obsession began early on a farm in West Virginia, with a Cox E-Z Flyer control-line model airplane. After countless hours of “tinkering” (or as his Grandpa called it, “breaking things with enthusiasm”), the engine finally roared to life. The plane soared for a breathtaking half-circle before Joe expertly nosedived it straight into the barn. The resulting mini fireball marked the end of that model—and the start of Joe’s lifelong love affair with aviation.

Like every kid in 1986 who watched Top Gun, Joe was 100% certain he was destined to become a Navy Tomcat pilot. Tragically, reality disagreed. Lacking key ingredients like physical fitness, visual acuity, and the ability to keep both feet on the ground without getting dizzy, Joe’s dreams of flying inverted over the Indian Ocean were grounded. Oh, and he’s also afraid of heights—a small detail the Navy might not have appreciated.

Fast forward a few decades and Joe’s aviation journey really took off (literally). After setting a record for the most expensive way to turn R/C airplanes into high-speed dirt plows with the Alliance Balsa Bees R/C club, Joe finally got serious. In January 2022, Joe decided to give real aviation a try, thinking, “How hard could it be?” With Avit Flight Academy’s guidance—and what can only be described as divine intervention—he earned his private pilot’s license in 2023. Emboldened by this miracle, Joe kept going and added an instrument rating later that year. Now, he’s working toward his commercial certificate, proving once and for all that stubbornness beats common sense every time.

Joe and his wife Holly, who is also pursuing her private pilot’s license (likely to prevent Joe from being the family’s sole airborne decision-maker), own a 1983 Cessna 182R, hangered at CAK. The couple lives in Green, Ohio