Pappy Spinks Is Posthumous 2022 Inductee to International Aerobatic Club Hall of Fame

We’re highlighting each of this year’s EAA Sport Aviation Halls of Fame inductees in eHotline. Check out next week’s edition for another profile on one of this year’s inductees.

Maurice Hunter “Pappy” Spinks, a legendary aerobatic competitor, organizer, and aircraft designer, will be posthumously inducted into the International Aerobatic Club Hall of Fame on November 10 as part of the annual EAA Sport Aviation Halls of Fame program in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Spinks is one of five individuals to be honored that evening with various EAA halls of fame inductions.

Spinks (1906-1982) was the president of the Aerobatic Club of America, an active competitor, and the sponsor of the U.S. National Aerobatic Championships from 1967 to 1971 at the Oak Grove Airport in Texas that he founded. Moving the championship to Oak Grove from Reno, where it was sandwiched in between air races, brought skilled aerobatic legends such as Pancho Barnes, Alan Bean, Charlie Hillard, and Harold Krier to the competition. Spinks also helped draft some of the first rules for aerobatic contests prior to the IAC’s formation in 1970 and was a major supporter of the 1970 U.S. Unlimited Aerobatic Team.

Spinks built his own airplane at age 15 and taught himself to fly. Later in life he produced two aerobatic aircraft: the Spinks Akromaster and a Model 10, as he sought to create uncomplicated flying machines. The Spinks Aircraft Industries building was built in 1968 at Oak Grove for the construction of the Akromaster, a design that placed third in the 1970 World Aerobatic Championships flown by Charlie Hillard, who would later win the World Aerobatic Championships in 1972 in his 200-hp Pitts Special.