Page 18 - April 25

FEATURE
King Air Hall of Fame 2025 Inductees
by MeLinda Schnyder
Fame induction ceremony
The 2025 King Air Hall of
took place during the King
Air Gathering in Phoenix,
Arizona, with both recipients and
their families present.
The third class to be inducted
since the HOF was introduced in
2022 is comprised of Jim Allmon
and Ed Pardi, with each taking home
a custom award made from a King
Air propeller.
Ed Pardi
The flying King Air salesman
Ed Pardi (pronounced par die)
graduated from high school in 1957
in Boulder, Colorado, and after
finding college didn’t suit him, his
natural sales instincts landed him a
job at a local Chevrolet dealership.
In 1961, his first full year of selling
Chevys, he made $11,500. “My dad
was only earning $6,500 and had
spent several decades in his career,
so I knew I was on to something
with sales.”
The dealership’s used car sales
manager changed Ed’s life when in
1964 he asked the young salesman
to partner with him on buying an
airplane they could use for personal
travel. Ed’s first time in that 1947
Stinson 108, dubbed The Flying
Station Wagon, was his first time
ever off the ground in an airplane.
“I’d saved enough from selling
cars and could afford to halve the
$2,800 cost for that Stinson,” he
said. “I really wasn’t that interested
in flying or owning an airplane, but
I was married by then and my wife
thought it sounded like a great idea
so we could fly to vacations and
pancake breakfasts.”
When it was time for the airplane’s
first annual under his ownership,
the service shop’s owner told Ed he
should consider selling airplanes.
“He lied about how much I could
make selling airplanes, and I lied
about how great of a saleman I was,”
Ed recalled. “I went to work for the
shop in Broomfield, Colorado, and
it took me six months to sell the
first one. It was a little Cessna 150
that sold for $2,100 and I made $25
commission. But I hung on because
I was having so much fun flying the
airplanes.”
By the mid-1970s, Ed was hired
by Bill Fry, the manager of Denver
Beech, the Beechcraft distributor
for the Colorado area. Ed showed
an innate skill at selling Beech
airplanes, especially the King Air
series. In addition to great selling
talent, Ed also became an excellent
pilot, especially in King Airs and,
later, Citations. For many years Ed
was honored at the annual Beech
factory sales meeting for his volume
of sales.
Ed met his second wife at the
Beechcraft Training Center at
the factory in Wichita, Kansas.
The two eventually moved to Las
Vegas, Nevada, and then Scottsdale,
Arizona, where Ed went out on his
own as the owner of Aviation Sales
International. Ed also became the
pilot for an individual Citation II
owner in Phoenix, and he made
numerous Atlantic crossings either
delivering or bringing back a King
Air or Citation that he had sold.
Tom Clements presented Ed Pardi
(right) with his Hall of Fame propeller.
“One of the things that set Ed
apart as a salesman was that he flew
the airplane,” said Tom Clements,
who presented the Hall of Fame
award to Ed. “Rather than sit in the
back of the airplane talking about
financing, he was up front flying the
King Air when he was selling them.”
Ed’s award read: For the decades
of excellence he has provided as a
King Air salesman, both for Beech
and on his own.
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­ KING AIR MAGAZINE APRIL 2025