Homebuilders Hall of Fame

Nomination Form

2022 Inductees

Budd Davisson

Budd Davisson, a native of Seward, Nebraska, received a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Oklahoma where he used the Thorp T-18 as the class subject in structural analysis. John Thorp then recommended him for a job in California where he experienced his first homebuilt flight. That flight was in Bill Warwick’s 180-hp T-18, the first Thorp flying.

In 1966, while in college, he attended his first of 53 EAA conventions by hitchhiking from Oklahoma to Rockford. In a quirk of fate, homebuilt designer Leeon Davis picked him up and had him fly 15 hours in five-minute DA-2A demo flights around the airport.

While finishing his master’s degree, he instructed more than 1,000 hours for OU, graduated, and then instructed at an aerobatic school in New Jersey and formed a group to buy the sixth factory-built Pitts Special. Today, nearly 7,500 of his 10,500 hours are landing instruction in a Pitts, which he still does in Scottsdale, Arizona. He is a CFII/MEL and is type rated in the B-25 and the P-38.

His 1969 monthly column for Air Progress magazine, which went on to run for 46 years in three aviation magazines, was the first of nearly 4,000 magazine articles. About half of his nearly 300 pilot reports have been on experimental amateur-built aircraft. EAA magazines have run close to 400 of his articles beginning in the late ’60s. They range from welding to picking out designs, as well as his monthly homebuilt Shop Talk column. Additionally, he has averaged giving a forum a day at AirVenture, mostly covering homebuilt subjects, since the early ’90s.

For Curtis Pitts’ 75th birthday party, Budd organized and led the building of a replica of the original Pitts Special. After flying and writing a story on the Bearhawk, Budd licensed the design rights and helped start the factory in Mexico for the Bearhawk kit, teaching the workers welding and other skills.

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