In a special ”Exploring Aviation’ program, retired TWA pilot J.D. Clarke to recount aviation career that took him from the Granite State to the globe’s farthest reaches
The year was 1947 when James David Clarke (known more frequently as “J.D.”) experienced flight for the first time. The airport was Parlin Field in Newport, N.H. The pilot was Harold Buker, Jr., his uncle and a recently released World War II prisoner of war.
That first flight lit a fire that evolved into many more over the course of 62-year career in aviation, including time Clarke spent as a pilot for Trans World Airlines (TWA) and teaching aviation history at Hawthorne College in Antrim.
Clarke, now 85 and retired, will reflect on his decades of flying in a live discussion moderated by Jeff Rapsis, executive director of the Aviation Museum of N.H.
The program will take place on Thursday, Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. at the Aviation Museum of N.H., 27 Navigator Road, Londonderry, N.H. It’s part of the museum’s Exploring Aviation presentation series, sponsored in part by Grappone Auto.
From his humble childhood in N.H., Clarke pursued a commercial aviation career that literally took him to the far ends of the earth.
While flying for TWA in the 1970s, one memorable trip took Clarke literally around the world in 12 days: from New York to London, Rome, Athens, Tel Aviv, Mumbai, Bangkok, Guam, Honolulu, Los Angeles, and then back to New York.
TWA was a major U.S airline founded in 1930 that was granted rights to fly overseas after World War II. The airline was acquired by American Airlines in 2001.
The program will cover Clarke’s personal memories of his adventures as a pilot: the piston and jet aircraft he flew, the places he visited, the people he served with, and how deregulation changed the airline business starting in the 1970s.
“This is a great chance for aviation enthusiasts to hear first-hand tales of the airline business from the 1940s through the 1980s—what many consider a golden age of aviation,” Rapsis said.
Clarke will also recount tales of his uncle, Harold Buker, Jr., a major figure in New Hampshire aviation who served as the director of the state’s Bureau of Aeronautics from 1986 to 1996. Buker also was a founder of the N.H. Aviation Historical Society, which operates the Aviation Museum of N.H.
Clarke will take questions from the audience as part of the program. Also, the presentation will be recorded as part of the Aviation Museum’s oral history series and will be preserved in the museum’s archive.
Clarke served as a long-time volunteer for the Aviation Museum of N.H.
The program starts at 7 p.m. at the Aviation Museum of N.H. and is open to the public. Admission to the event is free for Aviation Museum members and $10 per person for non-members.
The Aviation Museum, a non-profit 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization based in the 1937 art deco passenger terminal at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, is dedicated to preserving the Granite State’s rich aviation past, and also inspiring today’s students to become the aviation and aerospace pioneers of tomorrow.
The Aviation Museum of N.H. was named “Best Place to Take Kids” and “Best Place to Geek Out” in southern New Hampshire in the 2024 HippoPress Reader’s Poll.
The Aviation Museum is located at 27 Navigator Road, off Harvey Road, in Londonderry, N.H.
For more information, call (603) 669-4877 or email ldearborn@nhahs.org.
