ISTAT Jetrader - Summer 2020 - 46

AVIATION HISTORY

A Tribute to Jack B. Feir
This issue marks Jack's last Aviation History contribution to
Jetrader magazine. For years, Jack and his column have been a
highlight for many ISTAT members.
by Neil Whitehouse, ISTAT Certified Senior Appraiser and Fellow
We stand on the shoulders of the giants
who came before us. For me, Jack is
among the giants of this industry.
Along with William H. Bath
(Bill), Jack was one of the
foundational creators of the ISTAT
Appraisers Program (IAP). It was
over many years that Bill, who
passed in 2012, and Jack created
the substance of the IAP. They
conceived the exams structure,
formulated all the initial frustratingly
challenging questions, reinforced the
importance of high ethical standards and
deliberately set the bar very high to achieve
the status of ISTAT Certified Appraiser (and even higher to
achieve Senior status).
Bill and Jack also managed to guide and manage a highly
independent group of professionals while the IAP became
the world's preeminent commercial aircraft appraisal
organization. Until Bill retired and became the first program
administrative director (followed in 2012 by Jack), they
did it all as unpaid volunteers. They created new exam
questions, administered the program and the exams, oversaw
grading, and created and issued certificates. They were fully
committed to the development and health of the program
and to building a solid and enduring foundation for a new
professional organization that aspired to and insisted upon
the standards and respect of an elite professional society.
Jack Feir is a Canadian by birth and demeanor. He was
born and raised in the small town of Uxbridge, Ontario, in
1938. In 1957, Jack became an aeronautical engineering
student at the University of Toronto, where he earned both
bachelor's and master's degrees and was a member of the
Canadian Regular Officer Training Program (ROTP). Jack
was on track to become a fighter pilot in Canada's most
prestigious developing aircraft program, the Avro Arrow,
which was canceled in 1959 when Jack was just 21 years old,
diverting him from becoming a future elite military pilot to
becoming an aeronautical design engineer. Jack served three
years in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

46

* T H E O F F I C I A L P U B L I C AT I O N O F I S TAT

Even as a young man training in the North American
Aviation T-6 Texan (also known as the Harvard, famed as the
training aircraft of RAF and Commonwealth Spitfire pilots in
World War II), you can see his calm strength of purpose and
commitment that won him such a coveted training spot and
which he bought to the creation, development and growth of
the ISTAT Appraisers Program.
After graduation, Jack was hired by Boeing to join a small
group in the aerodynamics preliminary design department,
contributing to the creation of the 747. After Boeing, Jack
became head of the aerodynamics group at Fairchild Hiller
in Maryland, designing the 50 passenger FH227 and various
military projects. Jack was then recruited for Speas Associates,
as a senior associate, to work on aircraft selection, aircraft
performance studies and issues relating to the supersonic
Concorde program. This is where he started appraising aircraft.
It was in 1983 at Dixon Speas' next firm, Aviation
Consulting Incorporated, where I, too, was hired as a senior
associate and met Jack. He was the first person to ask my
opinion of the future value prospects of a commercial aircraft.
He had a piece of graph paper with a hand-drawn chart with
many little penciled x marks and a curved line. His slide rule
and French curve were nearby. We became instant friends.
Jack became the first elected chair of the IAP Board of
Governors in February 1991. In 1992, Jack invited me to join
the ISTAT Appraisers Program and has been my appraisal
mentor, supporter and dear friend ever since. Jack has
always been ready and willing to continue my education as
an appraiser; answer questions (whether difficult or simple
things I really should have already known); and review long,
complex work products for me and find the issues (and often
too many typos) with his keen eye, precise intellect, and
boundless knowledge of aircraft and appraising. For all his
brilliance, Jack is a quiet, humble, self-effacing, generous,
giving man, long married to the lovely Glenna.
ISTAT Certified Appraisers, ISTAT and the industry as
a whole have benefited, and will continue to benefit, from
Jack's decades-long contributions to the ISTAT Appraisers
Program. Jack is an Appraiser Emeritus and was made an
ISTAT Member Emeritus, a much deserved and rarely given
honor. Thank you from us all for all you have given us.
ISTAT Jetrader - Summer 2020

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