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BY MEALAND RAGLAND-HUDGINS
SMYRNA A.M.

Ed Lowe, an innovator and safety pioneer of American aviation, died March 29 at age 87 due to complications of chronic emphysema.

    He grew up in Murfreesboro and at age 15 joined his father working his father in the Sky Harbor Airport maintenance shop on Nashville Highway near Florence Road. Having grown up in the shop, he was already a skilled mechanic, and at the age of 16 he was U.S. certified as both an airframe mechanic and an aircraft engine mechanic. Prior to World War II he worked with a local company rebuilding Stearmans, the primary trainer aircraft for the pre-war military.

Smyrna Airport Executive Director John Black, left, talks in October with Ed and Kathleen Lowe, founders of Stones River Air Service, now Smyrna Air Center. Lowe’s business was one of the first fixed-base operators to locate at the airport when Sewart Air Base closed in the late 1960s.

   “ I n the early days of flying, they never could quite figure out whether a crash was caused by pilot error,” said his friend, Greg Tucker. “It’s hard for the average lay person to understand his contributions, but the structural aspects of commercial jets today reflect his work. What’s amazing to me is that he did all he did with virtually no formal education.” Lowe installed the first instrument landing and radar systems in airports across the southeast, while working with the U.S Civil Aviation Authority: He also developed the process of using aircraft reconstruction to determine the cause of an aircraft crash.

   In 1970, he and wife Kathleen moved from Miami back to Rutherford County to open Stones River Air Service at the defunct Sewart Air Base, now Smyrna Airport. In an October 2007 interview, Lowe said he often questioned the decision. “I thought I’d lost my mind because for about five years, there was nothing here. Then the push started,” Lowe recalled.

   Stones River Air Service was renamed Smyrna Air Center (SAC) II years later when Lowe sold it to John and Connie Boatman. SAC is a fixed-base operator (FBO) servicing private jets flying into the airport. “It was just a handshake and John just took over. That man, his-handshake was his word,” Connie Boatman said of how the deal was finalized. “He helped John though the transition and hung around for a long time. He was a real prince.”. She also said her husband was the first person to hangar with Lowe when SRAS opened. On Aug. 31, 2007, the Boatmans sold the business to Robert Fields, Erick Larson and Corey Gillard. Though his health had been failing, Lowe showed up to the ribbon cutting last fall. “Ed was a pioneer at Smyrna Airport. With the formation of Stones River Air Service, he was one of the businesses that started the re-birth of Smyrna Airport as a civilian airfield after the close of Sewart Air Force Base,” said airport Executive Director John Black. “His legacy lives on today as Smyrna Air Center is one of the top aviation businesses in the eastern United States. He will be missed by all in the aviation community:”

Mealand Ragland-Hudgins,
(615) 459-3868,
mragland@dnj.com