As they watched the giant ore boat arriving at the Duluth, Minnesota, entry, the three youngsters were distracted. Staring up, they pointed at the strange aluminum airplane passing over their heads. 

“What is it, Dad?” they pleaded of the parents nearby, who also were transfixed by the loud noise and relatively slow flight.

“Hey, kids, that’s Don Macor in his Republic Seabee,” I volunteered. 

This triggered their obvious question: “Who’s Don Macor?”

“A very special man,” I replied. “He has kept dozens of airplanes in the air safely for 50 years. He holds both pilot and instructor licenses and is an airframe and powerplant licensed expert.”

As they turned back to watching the ore boat, I resisted adding that the airplane is incredible living history. These amphibian birds - at home on water or on an airport runway - were a dream coming to life in the wake of World War II, some five decades ago. They were meant as inexpensive opportunities for private pilots and those with a blossoming interest in flying. The useful planes were popular with bush pilots but went out of production when the prices couldn’t be kept low enough. Less than 250 of these Seabees are still registered in the United States.

Don Macor’s Republic Seabee still plies the skies above Duluth, Minnesota. COURTESY OF DON MACOR

Don has owned this special Seabee for many years and usually flies it several times a week. This 1947 version was made with mechanics in mind, he says, something most airplane producers didn’t do and something this long-time mechanic appreciates.

Don Macor was born in Duluth on March 26, 1929, a few weeks before the economic crash that would change the world and herald the Great Depression. His interest in planes started at age 12, launched with untold numbers of gliders and rubber-band powered models. Don graduated from Denfeld High School in 1947, keeping his family in groceries with mechanical work at the Ceyborski Brothers service station in West Duluth. Don’s dream was to join the just-forming U.S. Air Force and to go to mechanical schools.

Don Macor, second from left bottom row, celebrates graduation from Airframe & Powerplant School with classmates in January 1949. COURTESY OF DON MACOR

He signed up for military service with an assurance of entry into the Airframe & Powerplant school at Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, after basic training.

Graduating with the second highest grades in his A&P class, Don declined the offer to teach. What he really wanted was to work on active aircraft. Assigned to Forbes AFB in Topeka, Kansas, he marveled at the fleet of huge B-29 bombers and was soon involved in maintenance.

Don poses with his Republic Seabee. COURTESY OF THE BOND AIRPORT

He also served at Chanute AFB in Illinois and Rhine-Main AFB near Frankfort, Germany, where he finished his four-year enlistment.

Don actually got into flying after leaving the Air Force. Back home in the Twin Ports and after marrying his high-school sweetheart, Marilyn Rice, who had waited through his service tour, Don and a buddy bought a Piper J3 Cub for $385 and learned to fly.

A lucky break came when a friend told Don that North Central Airlines was looking for A&P grads for its growing company. The airline had a fleet of Douglas DC-3s, and Don started on night shift in 1953. This gave him free time during the day to expand his skills. He earned private and commercial pilot’s licenses and then an instrument rating. All of this, plus a desire to get ahead and some constant pestering to get into the cockpit, put him in the co-pilot’s seat of a North Central DC-3 in 1956.

It wasn’t smooth flying. Don and Marilyn had purchased a small home in the Twin Cities, but his piloting required reassignment to Chicago and to Detroit. Then, with low seniority, he was laid off during a business slowdown. Returning home, he eventually took over management of the Superior, Wisconsin, airport, which he had managed before. He was offered a chance to go back to flying for North Central, but found his licensed mechanical and flight instruction skills were always in demand. 

Don and Marilyn’s marriage took flight 48 years ago. COURTESY OF DON MACOR

From across the bay, Don next settled at Sky Harbor Airport on Duluth’s Park Point. He became deeply involved in aircraft maintenance and flight instruction, averaging more than 50 annual aircraft inspections each year.

We are accustomed to standing in awe - or at least being impressed - when we see a flyer climb into his plane, start it and roar away. What seldom earns our attention are the hours of careful and sometimes tedious effort involved in keeping that plane airworthy. It usually is done so well that we seldom think about it even as we board a modern airplane.

The Federal Aviation Administration does think about it. The FAA recently honored Don Macor with its highest award, a Charles Taylor Master Mechanic certificate. The award acknowledges Don’s 50 years of licensed quality aircraft care. 

The award puts Don into high-flying company … like the man after whom the award is named. And who, you are thinking, was Charles Taylor? Pretty simple, really. 

In 1902, Charles Taylor built an airplane engine with simple tools. He created it for a pioneer aircraft … an aircraft built and owned by Orville and Wilbur Wright. It was Charles Taylor’s engine that powered their first flight!

So as those children on the shore concerned themselves again with the big laker, I continued watching Don and his flying machine. At age 71, he is retired from working for other people, but for Don it’s a kind of busman’s retirement. He continues working on some favorite old plane classics and regularly flies his Seabee. 

His wife, Marilyn, as always, supports her husband’s high-flying passions. 

“She stuck with me through thick and thin,” Don recalls of their 48-year marriage. 

“There should be some type of award for wives like this.”

A selection of Jim Marshall’s columns of lake lore and his inland sea voyages has been published as Lake Superior Journal: Views from the Bridge by Lake Superior Port Cities Inc. Follow this link for more information.

Feedback: jrm@lakesuperior.com