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Silvio Cavalier Library

Barnstormer Honored

by Russ Lockwood


The New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum at Teeterboro Airport will name its new library after Silvio Cavalier, barnstormer, stunt pilot, WWII transport pilot, and Eastern Air Lines pilot, as well as a contemporary of Amelia Earhart, "Slim" Lindburgh, WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker, and WWI aircraft maker Anthony Fokker. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1987.

Cavalier inaugurated Eastern's air service into Atlantic City in 1948, flying into Bader Field, where lore says it was the first place to be called an "airport." The event is recorded in a letter from Rickenbacker to the pilot. He later managed Bader Field during the Depression, and toured the country offering rides for a dollar with a group that included a barker, ticket taker, and parachutist.

Of Earhart, with whom he had lunch often, he had nothing but priase for her unassuming ways, as opposed to Lindburgh. And he doesn't believe the spy theories and Japanese fighter attack stories about Earhart, noting the planes didn't carry electronic equipment. He contends she just got lost and ran out of gas.

Teeterboro Airport is off Interstate 80, approximately 10-15 miles NW of New York City. Once a thriving center for aviation, Fokker set up shop after WWI here and it served as a jumping off point for transatlantic flights. The museum is housed in an old tower, the stairways lined with photos and rooms with exhibits.

The library is scheduled to open in June.

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