Grover McCall

Grover first caught my attention back in 2018. Longtime club member Martin Walker got cancer and could no longer fly his Xenos motorglider. Grover volunteered to be his safety pilot and they flew all over. (Here's a picture of the two of them at Berryvale during the 2018 poker run.) This extended Martin's beloved flying career by about three years.

But Grover was always eager to serve. In fact, I don't know anyone who's as cheerful, enthusiastic and giving as Grover. When it came time to recruit a CFI to teach our members in our new airplane, Grover instantly volunteered. More, he volunteered to be the chief instructor, which meant coming up with a standard curriculum and training other CFIs in it.

His enthusiasm and eagerness might fool you into thinking he was cavalier. He was not. To equip himself to fly the Club's Breese, Grover went down to Alabama for four hours of instruction with Breese designer Paul Mather. In other words, he didn't just say Yes - he took a task seriously and got himself trained to do it.

That care shows up in his flying history - Marine aviator, with 160 hours as PIC in jets before his 1,440 civilian hours. Commercial pilot, instrument-rated, CFI. He taught classes to the Civil Air Patrol and was active with the EAA's Young Eagles program.

Outside of aviation, Grover had a PhD in cybersecurity. He taught at West Point for three years and for more than thirty years was a college professor teaching Computer Science and Information Systems with the University of Maryland.

He met his wife April during one of his tours in Korea, which explains his email address: kimchi57. (That was also his birth year - he was 67.) During a West Point posting, they would host Korean-American cadets, giving them a good home-cooked Korean meal far from home. He and April have stayed in touch with them for decades. Their home is always open.

Grover and I spent the morning together the day he died, driving out to Culpeper, pre-flighting the Club's M–Squared Breese, and planning the flight. Honestly, he did most of the talking since he had so many stories I wanted to hear. We did the pre-flight inspection together, going by the checklist. The plane looked to be in perfect condition. This was to be a gentle flight, just him getting comfortable with the plane. Perhaps he would do some stalls. The air was calm. A thick overcast meant no thermals. It was perfect weather for getting to know the plane. He took off, turned west, and disappeared from my view behind the trees. He crashed fatally a few minutes later. The cause of the crash is still a mystery (summer, 2024).

His death is such a loss to so many people - to himself, of course, and to April. But also to their church, to Flying Club 1, to the CAP, the EAA, and to all of the many people he had befriended. I know of no one like him.

——Steve Beste, May 2024