Don Roberts of Noblesville High School, Noblesville, Indiana.
Mr. Roberts built or rebuilt 10+ aircraft in the high school program he led, involving hundreds of boys in the process.
Mr. Don Roberts was a Navy man, serving on the aircraft carrier USS Essex as an aircraft maintenance technician.
He describes his ring-side seat at the Bay of Pigs invasion.
I was at Noblesville High School from 1972 to 1976 and worked on this plane. Mr. Roberts approached the school board several years before I became a high school student and convinced the board to allow him to put together an aviation program. The Dauntlas was the third plane the school built. Don was able to scratch together funds to allow us to build this plane and it was one of the greatest experiences I had. The program he put together was three years, the first was a ground school, the second you learned how to work on airplanes, (welding, riveting and general maintenance), and in the third year two students were selected to supervise the rest that worked on this plane. He took a group of us to Oshkosh two years in a row.
All Aero 