Retired sergeant, mechanic to receive national recognition

All in the family: From right, Norm Faith Jr., left, with sons James and Norman III in 2016.
All in the family: From right, Norm Faith Jr., left, with sons James and Norman III in 2016.

Retired Air Force Master Sergeant and aviation mechanic Norm Faith Jr. has had a lifelong passion for airplanes.

In fact, one could argue that that passion is encoded in his DNA.

Faith’s father, Norm Sr., fought in WWII as part of the U.S. Army Aircorps.

Working alongside his father and grandfather — both of whom piloted, maintained and repaired aircraft — while growing up in his native Miami, Faith’s love of flying machines blossomed, and he knew he was destined for a career in aviation.

“I’ve been involved in airplanes from day one, from birth. I was born into aviation. That’s all I’ve done my whole life. I’ve done odd jobs, but my main career has been aviation,” Faith said.

Now, that career — which includes extensive military service and teaching — has spanned more than 50 years, and Faith’s work in aviation maintenance and repair has been nationally recognized with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award.

The award is named in honor of Charles Taylor, the first aviation mechanic in powered flight.

Taylor served as the mechanic for the Wright brothers, and he is credited with designing and building the engine for the brothers’ first successful aircraft.

The Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award highlights the achievements of senior aircraft mechanics.

Faith will be presented with the award during a ceremony at 2 p.m. Monday in the corporate hangar at South Arkansas Regional Airport at Goodwin Field, where Faith and son James run Faith Aviation, Inc., an aircraft maintenance and services business.

“I like to say that award has two meanings: it recognizes the work you’ve done and it reminds you how old you are,” Faith joked when describing his reaction upon hearing that he had won the 2018 award.

Professional career and military service

Faith’s professional career in aviation began even before he graduated from high school in 1965.

He worked for several airlines in Miami, including Eastern Airlines, where his father was employed.

“But he didn’t help me get the job. I had to get it on my own,” Faith emphasized.

He continued working for the airline at night while attending Miami Dade Community College during the day to study what else? Aviation.

For a year and a half, he juggled a full course load and a full-time schedule in the jet overhaul engine building at Eastern.

“I also operated a bead blasting machine and cleaned parts for Air Force engines,” Faith explained.

He then took a job with Aerodex overhauling plane engines for the Air Force, and when the grind of holding down a full-time job and attending school became too demanding, Faith dropped out of MDCC.

Just as he had always known he would pursue a career in aviation like his father, Faith followed in another set of his father’s footsteps by joining the military.

Naturally, he gravitated toward the Air Force and was shipped to basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

From there, he was assigned to the Dover Air Force base in the capital city of Delaware.

“Because of my prior aviation experience in school and the work that I had done, my classification was structural repair technician,” he said.

The Vietnam War was raging during that time, and Faith volunteered to fight in Vietnam immediately after enlisting in the Air Force.

He would volunteer three more times and would receive transfers to Dyess, Texas, and Tachikawa, Japan, before landing an assignment in Udorn, Thailand, which was 30 miles away from heavy fighting zones in Vietnam.

That was in March 1969, and Faith remained in Thailand until January 1971.

His job was to patch bullet holes and repair battle damage for aircraft that flew countless missions to Vietnam.

“It was an experience. We flew 50 to 60 bombing missions a day. Our base was attacked twice while I was there,” he recalled. “I never came under enemy fire, but I was exposed to a lot of airplane losses at the base.”

He said many planes that returned to the base were so heavily damaged that they were unable to land properly and would crash into the airfield.

“A lot of planes didn’t make it back at all. There were helicopters that rescued downed pilots, and a lot of pilots didn’t make it,” Faith somberly recounted.

“My job was to fix the planes so that would not happen again. We lost several planes while we were there, but you had to press on and do your job and my job was to repair airplanes,” he continued. “If I had it to do all over again, I would not do it any other way.”

While his stay in Thailand was mentally, physically and emotionally taxing, Faith’s experience there was also filled with major high points.

It was there he would meet and marry the love of his life, a young Thai woman named Wongduan who had a colorful nickname, literally, and a personality to match, he said.

“Her nickname is ‘Daang.’ You know what ‘Daang’ means? The color red, and next year, we’ll be married for 50 years,” Faith said with a laugh.

A new career

Upon leaving Thailand, Faith was sent to Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and with his new assignment, he embarked on another career path that he would grow to love as much as aviation.

“That’s where I started my teaching career. We had a lot of foreign students at that time, and I started training Asian military personnel how to work on planes — Cambodians, Japanese, and a couple of Middle Easterners from Iran,” Faith said.

“I found a niche that I really enjoyed. I enjoyed training people and showing them what I knew. Some went on to serve full military careers,” he added.

Over the next several years, he would split his time between Eglin and temporary assignments, two of which took him back to Thailand.

In December 1972, Faith participated in the largest, strategic aerial bombing campaign the U.S. had launched since WWII.

Operation Linebacker II was an 11-day bombing mission (Dec. 18 — 29) that was coordinated from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

B-52 bomber strikes targeted military complexes in the major cities of Hanoi and Haiphong in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam).

It was a joint effort with other bombers that were stationed in Thailand.

“They bombed Hanoi until they went to the peace table. It brought an end to the war,” Faith said, noting that he mostly worked on B-52s during his tenure in the Air Force.

New business

In 1980, Faith left Eglin and returned to Andersen.

By this time, he and Wongduan had three children — two boys and a girl, ages 10, 7 and 5, respectively.

Faith served as supervisor in an Air Force, B-52 structural repair shop for four years before he was sent to the Eaker Air Force Base in Blytheville.

“I was supposed to go back to Florida, but they were having some managerial problems in Blytheville, and I guess they pulled my name out of hat, and I took over as fabrication branch supervisor,” he said. “I had about five different maintenance facilities under my command and about 200 people.”

He retired from the Air Force in 1987, and he and his family settled in Blytheville.

Faith took jobs working on civilian airplanes until 1993 when he was presented with a job offer that would bring him to El Dorado.

“I met a very famous El Dorado resident. (The late Charles Hays, founder and owner of Systems Contracting) hired me as his flight mechanic. Systems had a Mitsubishi MU-2 aircraft, and I flew on that airplane everywhere it went,” Faith said.

He left Systems in 1997 to start his own aircraft repair business at Goodwin Field.

“My oldest son James came to work for me as an apprentice, and my youngest son (Norm III) and (late daughter Mary Catherine Faith) worked for us off and on,” he said. “My wife knows as much about planes as anybody. She helped me remove and repair engines.”

Six years later, Faith’s professional life took another turn that led him back to teaching. He accepted a years-old offer to teach aviation science and technology at Southern Arkansas University Tech in East Camden.

“We moved the business to Camden, and my son (James) became the manager,” Faith said.

The move placed Faith in a position to share his love of aviation with his students and prepare for careers in a field that he holds dear.

“My average class size was 10 to 15 students, and my students are working all over the U.S. right now, and they’re doing quite well. One young lady is working in Memphis at FedEx, and she’s doing really well,” Faith said.

He incorporated life lessons into his class curriculum — an extra touch that made quite the impression on his young charges, many of whom were fresh out of high school.

Faith said he noticed one student would often scribble in a small notepad during class. He later learned that the student was attentively recording what the student coined “Norm-isms.”

“He would write down the things that I would say. I would tell them that if you put your heart and soul into something, you’ll never have to look for a job. It’ll come looking for you, and he wrote that down,” Faith recalled with a laugh.

“The most rewarding thing for me is hearing from former students who thank me and when they call and say, ‘What you told me has come true,’” he added. “Over and beyond working on planes, I really, really love teaching. I miss it.”

Faith’s teaching post at SAU Tech also afforded him the opportunity to accomplish a goal of completing his own college degree.

Having taken classes over the years with the Air Force, Faith was just two classes shy of obtaining his AAS degree by the time he went to work for SAU Tech.

“I needed a computer class and a math class, and I knocked them out at SAU Tech,” he said.

And with that, Faith retired, well, for the most part.

Semi-retired

Faith Aviation returned to Goodwin Field in the spring of 2017.

James Faith is face of the operation, with Norm working behind the scenes, consulting and doing some repair and maintenance work.

He raced a stock car for several yeas in Webster Parish, Louisiana.

He flies model airplanes in competitions in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma and is a restoring two classic cars.

Faith’s pride in teaching began at home with his own children. James Faith wrote and submitted the nomination to the FAA for Charles H. Taylor Award.

To be eligible for the Charles Taylor Master Mechanic Award, nominees must:

• Hold a U.S. Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) or Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mechanic or repairman certificate.

• Have 50 or more years of civil and military maintenance experience. ◦ Up to 20 years may be U.S. military experience.

◦ Nominees may have also worked as an uncertified person in a U.S. aviation maintenance facility that maintained U.S. registered aircraft, either domestic or overseas or as an uncertified person in the aircraft manufacturing industry in the U.S., producing U.S. type-certificated or U.S. military aircraft.

◦ The 50 years may be computed consecutively or non-consecutively.

• Be a U.S. citizen.

• Have not had any airman certificate revoked. Revocation of any airman certificate will disqualify a nominee for this award.

Johnathan Estes, manager of South Arkansas Regional Airport at Goodwin Field, commended Faith on his win.

“Norm Faith is an all around great guy and an experienced A&P (airframe and/or powerplant certificate) mechanic. Wherever Norm and his son, James Faith, are located, you can guarantee they are making aviation safe by preforming quality work,” Estes said.

“It is always to the benefit of any airport to have an onsite A&P for any problems small or large,” Estes continued. “I am thankful to have not only two skilled A&P mechanics based at our airport, but one who is receiving the prestigious Charles Taylor Award.”

On Monday, Faith said he will experience a full-circle moment that harkens back to his military days.

“The man who read my discharge papers in 1987 — Mike Wilson, a retired Air Force chief master sergeant — is the one who will present the award,” he said.

Tia Lyons may be contacted at 870-862-6611 or by email at tlyons@ eldoradonews.com.

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