UNITED STATES
NAAHOF INDUCTEE SPOTLIGHT
National Agricultural Aviation Museum’s Hall of Fame
Jack Colley Father of the Colley Super Stearman
John W. (Jack) Colley Clarkston, Washington. Inducted —1993 Active in aerial application from 1950-1987 in Washington, Montana, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana and Central America, and fire control in Idaho. Modified and rebuilt Stearman aircraft (Colley Super Stearman) and sport aircraft. Member of several state agricultural aviation associations. Born May 23, 1923, Jack Colley grew up and attended school in Edmonds, Washington, playing B 28 | agairupdate.com
the clarinet in the school band, basketball, football and baseball. He had a paper route and raised homing pigeons; two major interest, airplanes and motorcycles. In Jack’s senior year of high school he left to join the National Guard, completing a one year military obligation. He attended night school to graduate from high school. After war was declared in December of 1941, Jack was called to duty, applying for Aviation Cadet training in early 1942. The program had him in preflight in Montgomery, Alabama, primary in Americus, Georgia, basic in Newberg, New York, graduating from pilot training at Turner Field in Albany, Georgia. He was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and became a flight instructor at Turner Field training French students in B-25s for the remainder of the war, attaining the rank of Captain in 1945. After the war, Jack returned to Seattle and started a motorcycle delivery business. He joined Cossack’s Motorcycle Stunt and Drill Team, winning the Pacific Northwest Championship in 1947, a successful motorcycle racing career. Jack began crop dusting in 1950, treating wheat with a Stearman in eastern Washington and Montana. He later began dusting cotton in New Mexico and Texas during the summer and fall. In 1953 he had went to Central America to spray cotton, which began in September and ended in late December. By 1953 he developed a schedule that had him flying over wheat in the Pacific Northwest, cotton in Louisiana and cotton
