Page 8 - August 2023

Despite buying and selling many aircraft over the years, Jim Kirvida says his 1980 King Air F90 has survived trade-off for the past 25 years of ownership, in part because it has never left him stranded.
to branch into Specialty Vehicles and Industrial Fire Protection product lines.
“Now, 40+ years later, both of my sons, Wayde and Ryan, are carrying on the tradition of manufacturing fire apparatus,” said the 75-year-old Kirvida. They also are carrying on a family legacy of flying.
Kirvida said his passion for aviation came from his father, who grew up on a farm in Gackle, North Dakota, and told his son of being thrilled every time he saw an airplane. Kirvida started flying while on active duty in the Navy, just nine months out of high school. He was assigned to training at the Naval Air Reserve Training Unit-Memphis in September 1966, and on the weekends he would take flight lessons at the Navy Memphis Flying Club, not possible on his airman recruit’s income but with the financial help of his father. He first soloed in October 1966, flying a Piper Colt, and once he had a job and money, he received his private pilot’s certificate in 1972.
“My father was just as excited as I was,” Kirvida said. “Only a year later, he purchased N4919B (a 1955 Beechcraft Bonanza F35), and a few years later my wife and I gifted him his first lessons. In 1979, my father and I flew N4919B to Wichita and ordered a new A36 Bonanza, and we had Olive Ann Beech assist with color selections.”
Kirvida’s father purchased the F35 for the business, and since Kirvida was the only pilot in the family at the
Mitch Kirvida bought this 1955 Beechcraft Bonanza F35 in 1973 and his son Jim Krivida flew it as the first aircraft for the family busi- ness. The aircraft has remained in the Kirvida family for 50 years.
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6 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
AUGUST 2023