John D'Ottavio / PAMPA HoF

[peabody]

John D., who will be 90 in January, accepted his PAMPA Hall of Fame plaque at the GSCB Swap Meet Sunday. Buddy Weider, PAMPA District II rep, made the presentation.

[Joseph Patterson]

        Congrats. to Mr.John!! He is most deserving and a mighty fine gentleman!
            Doug

[Dennis Adamisin]

OVERDUE!  God Bless John D!

[Allen Brickhaus]

Great person and a how so neat of a guy.  Congratulations.

[Larry Fernandez]

GOOD FOR YOU JOHN!!!!
I met Mr. D'Ottavio at the 2000 Nats and the thing I remember most is the fact that John treated me like he had known me for years. What a pleasant gracious man.
It just so happens, I was looking at an April '61 Model Airplane News yesterday and there was an article on Johns J D Falcon.
I think you will all enjoy these pictures from the article.

Larry, Buttafucco Stunt Team

[Frank Imbriaco]

A rare man who put the careers of young  stunt pilots and anyone who asked  for or needed  help before his own.

[Frank Imbriaco]

A rare man who put the careers of young  stunt pilots (or  anyone who asked/ needed  help) before his own .

[Frank Imbriaco]

Sorry for the double post, but John deserves it.

[Tom Niebuhr]

John is my Second father. Like Bud Wieder, I have known John since my early teens. He is my coach, mentor and above all, close friend. I knew this honor was in the works, and am glad that it finally happened.

The second M.A.N picture posted by Larry has two teenagers with John. On the left is Bud Wieder, who presented the award to John. George Jones is on the right.

I am posting two of my favorite pictures of John. The first is of John holding two airplanes that I did in his honor: the "Falcon" that I kitted, and the "Jerseyan" that we published in Model Aviation. The second picture is on thanksgiving at my house in Texas. That's my son Craig with John and me.

[john e. holliday]

Congrats to John.   I did not get to meet the man until I tried flying stunt at the NATS.   But I like the pics of Buddy awarding the plaque and down a little further a pic of them at a much younger age. 

[Shultzie]

Congrats to John! "You've come a long way baby!"

[John Sunderland]

About 12 years ago I was catching a few practice flights at the AMA field before going to a competition at the old Muncie club field at the park in town.  Cant remember the name of the park but, as I was rolling up my lines a fella drove up in his van and asked if there wasn't a contest here today and introduced himself as John D'. It was then that I went fuzzy inside because I had read about him as a kid and was so tickled to meet him. So I said , "Hey Jersey is a long way from here, you drive all this way to fly?' and hes says "No no!". He had been in Tennessee doing a carpet job and now lived in Texas! I was impressed to say the least! An guy over 75 years of age installing carpet, alone, and driving an extra 300 or 400 the same weekend just to compete! I was already a fan of sorts but that was the icing on the cake. Very impressive guy with an obvious zest for life and for modeling. Had a fine time with him and the others that hot humid afternoon. A hearty Congrats to John! Much deserved too!

[Joe Gilbert]

Outstanding, a great choice and well deserved, congrats  John.