Pilot Ken Gillis rebuilds craft for air and sea

By Rose Hooper

Ken Gillis straightened some cables on top of his slick black Buccaneer SX sea plane to keep them from flapping around in the breeze.

Pointing to the aluminum tubing wings of this kit-built plane, Gillis said their construction was "like building a ship in a bottle... the fabric is sewn to shape. Then you take your various aluminum pieces and assemble them loosely in the cutout wing material. When you iron the fabric, it stretches taunt, securely protecting your aluminum tubing."

Most aircraft construction dates back to the war, said this 64-year-old pilot.

"There haven't been a whole lot of improvements. Most of the methods used are 'tried and true' construction," Gillis said. "Except nobody built wings like this until ultralights became popular."

Ever since he was a child growing up in Jackson County, Gillis loved to tinker and build. He especially loved to restore old things, like cars. In his later years he advanced to airplanes and still has in his collection: two 1942 L-2 Grasshoppers, a 1945 L-5 Sentinel, a 1950 L-19 Birddog and a 1957 182.

Nobody ever said getting into a Buccaneer SX seaplane was easy, pilot Ken Gillis demonstrates. The plane, built from a kit, uses wings based on ultralight principles. Due to the open panels, in actual flight Gillis wears a snowsuit to keep warm. One of Gillis's co-pilots in his other planes has been his half-sister, the famed Fay Gillis Wells of The Ninety-Nines. - Herald photos by Rose Hooper

The famed Fay Gillis Wells, his half-sister, has flown as his co-pilot. Wells, now 92 and a resident of Alexandria, Va., is one of six surviving members of a group of 99 women pilots who met on Long Island in 1929 to form the Ninety-Nines. She was the first American woman to pilot a Soviet civil aircraft and the first woman to own and fly a glider in Russia.

Wells helped establish the Ninety-Nines Amelia Earhart Scholarship Fund and was one of the women responsible for the Amelia Earhart stamp issued in 1963.

"Many people know Fay for her flying ability, but she was perhaps better known as the premier White House correspondent for the Storer Broadcasting Co. during the administrations of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter," said Gillis, noting that her age has certainly not slowed Wells down or stopped her from jetting across the world.

Although he was raised in Jackson County, Gillis was born in Russia while his father, Julius, worked as a mining engineer for a major consulting firm employed by the Soviets. During the war, Julius Gillis built a copper mining operation at Hazel Creek, which was later shut down by the TVA.

"The reason he came to Jackson County was mining, " said his son. "First it was the nickel mine at Old Settlement, then olivine mining."

When he came to Jackson County, Julius Gillis brought with him the remaining stock at the company store at Hazel Creek. The building that is now Jack the Dipper ice cream shop on N.C. 107 served as the Olivine Products Corp. Co. Office and Country Store, while the basement was used as a laboratory. The Gillis family lived nearby on River Road.

"Ken was the smartest boy I ever met out of Jackson County; he was a true genius," said retired barber Wimpy Hyatt. "He was always making things; he even built his own gun and made his own camera and built a motorized go-cart of a car that he drove."

Sylva author Gary Carden, who was in the seventh grade with him, recalled Gillis as "the smartest student in the class" and went on about "that contraption with no headlights and huge metal wheels that he drove down River Road" in a recent story he wrote for The Herald.

Recognizing Gillis' genius, sister Fay helped send him to private school in Detroit. Gillis received his master's degree from MIT and went to work for General Electric's synthetic diamond operation where diamonds are manufactured for abrasives, not gem stones. Along the way he "got a few patents," as this inventor modestly puts it.

No matter where he lived or what direction his career took, Gillis maintained his interest in tinkering, building and fixing up old things. For Gillis, who received his pilot's license in 1965, old things turned into airplanes.

"I'd hear about somebody who had an old Grasshopper stored in a barn and I couldn't resist checking it out. I do my own maintenance work on my planes. For all the maintenance I've done, I could have probably built several planes," said Gillis, who has utilized the Jackson County Airport since it opened in 1978.

Now retired, Gillis alternates between residences in Michigan and Jackson County.

"He's flown everywhere and done everything," Ron Gamble, airport operations manger, said of his friend. "I'm always glad when he's in town because he brings such good ideas and stories with him... not to mention interesting planes."

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