Naming Terminal for Aviation Pioneer Martin

John Wayne always made a good actor. But in real life he didn’t fly airplanes.

There was a wonderful open house recently at Martin Aviation on the Orange County Airfield. Sitting there, bigger than life itself, sat the real barnstormer and founder of Orange County Airport, Eddie Martin.

Martin not only recently has written the history of Santa Ana and Orange County, he is the history of aviation in Orange County.

This gentleman has flown and fathered the development of air commerce since 1923. Martin’s knowledge of winds, fields and canyons shared so willingly was the reason we now have the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and the Marine helicopter base in Tustin.

Martin served our country as a test pilot for the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. At the close of WWII, when civil flying was again available, it was the Martin family that relinquished the Orange County field to become our county airport.

We all can take pride in our airport as we harvest the economic benefits and convenient pleasure and business flights in and out of the county.

“John Wayne” is the thought of well-meaning but misinformed council people of city and county, who are attempting to ignore Eddie Martins’ legacy in Orange County.

Pilots across our country think it is shameful to even think of calling on a name that doesn’t have a pilot’s license. The name Eddie Martin is more fitting for all of the aviators across our vast country and especially the general public.

Let’s give thanks to Eddie Martin in a manner deserving of an aviator and founder of the airport. Let’s name the new terminal “The Eddie Martin Terminal,” Orange County Airport.

JACK PRENTICE

Balboa Island