PROFILE
ALBERT E. (BUD) LEONARD
R&D MECHANIC/QUALITY CONTROL PIASECKI AIRCRAFT
ON JANUARY 10 OF THIS YEAR, FRIENDS, FAMILY AND AVIATION PEERS PACKED THE CORINTHIAN YACHT CLUB IN ESSINGTON, PA. THEY WERE THERE TO CELEBRATE FAA PRESENTATION OF ITS CHARLES TAYLOR MASTER MECHANIC AWARD TO ALBERT E. (BUD) LEONARD, R&D MECHANIC/QUALITY CONTROL FOR PIASECKI AIRCRAFT. THE PRESENTATION CELEBRATED 50 YEARS OF WORKING AS AN AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE PROFESSIONAL. I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO ATTEND THE PRESENTATION AND INTERVIEW LEONARD. THIS IS HIS STORY.
Bud Leonard didn’t grow up
around aviation. He jokes that he, “didn’t know a helicopter from a duck.” He grew up on a farm on the Chesapeake Bay in Saint Michaels, MD. Maintaining tractors around the family farm honed his mechanical skills. His wife Chris says, “If you see pictures of him in his younger days or in his school pictures, there’s always a tractor in the background because tractor maintenance was always going on. We have tractors here in our yard to this day!” Leonard was introduced to aviation in 1964. That’s the year he was drafted in the Army. He was at Fort Holabird in Baltimore and was told he had 21
6
DOMmagazine.com | feb 2020
days to report to Fort Bragg. “Whoa, I can’t do that,” Leonard said. “I have a new car and all these girlfriends whose boyfriends are overseas. 21 days is not going to happen!” Then the recruiter said there
was another option. He informed Leonard that the Marine Corps had a delayed entry program — an aviation delayed entry, and he qualifi ed high enough for it. He said that Leonard could go into aviation in the Marine Corps and wouldn’t need to leave for 120 days. Leonard replied, “That sounds like a deal!” “I tell people that the Army wanted me for two years, but I outsmarted them and went in the Marine Corps
for four,” Leonard likes to joke. “But I’m so glad that I did!” The Marines taught Leonard how
to work on aircraft. “I don’t want to blow my own horn, but I got pretty good at being a mechanic,” he says. “But it also taught me lessons that have helped me over the years — discipline, respect for others, teamwork and no man left behind.” Leonard and his fellow Marines
worked in some sticky situations in Vietnam. He recalls the time his team went out to salvage a helicopter. Their mission was to remove the engine and pull the blades and pylon off a helicopter so a CH46 could hoist it out. It would take them
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60
