Hinds Community College hosted the presentation on Thursday, February 26 of a Master Pilot award to Ron Davis, Vicksburg’s Municipal Airport Director. The presentation took place at a one-day training session for airplane inspection and repair mechanics
The Department of Transportation (DOT) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) designated Davis a Master Pilot earlier this year after examination of records of his work in aviation. Only those pilots who have completed and provided verified documentation of at least 50 years in aviation, starting with learning to fly, are eligible to receive the Award.
Besides the official award certificate, he received a certified copy of all the FAA’s records of his qualifications added to the FAA file through the years, which only master pilots receive.
The Award is named for aviation pioneers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who took their plane on its first heavier-than-air flight in North Carolina in 1903.
Monroe, LA-born Davis, 80, always wanted to fly and has been involved in aviation for 63 years. He first took off and landed in 1963 in a cow pasture in Louisiana in a 1946 Taylorcraft airplane, along with his instructor. He soloed in Rayville, Louisiana.
“I earned each (one-hour) lesson by working from sun-up to sundown Saturdays loading seed rice on an Army Airforce surplus Biplane,” he said.
Later, having operated his own telecommunications business and joined his father in farming in Rayville, he earned a B.A. in aviation at the then Northeast Louisiana University, and an Associate Degree in Aircraft Maintenance at Pulaski Technical College in Little Rock, Arkansas. He worked in flight instruction, charter flying and flew specialized scientific missions all over the United States and into Canada from Raymond Airport.
He piloted pipeline and charter flights for many years out of Monroe Airport, where he was also an instructor at McMahon Aviation. Since July 2017, he has been Director of Vicksburg Municipal Airport. Also an aerobatic pilot, in October 2025 he was the commentator for the Tallulah-Vicksburg Airport air show.
The Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award from the DOT and the FAA honors Davis’ fifty years of “exemplary aviation flight experience, distinguished professionalism and steadfast commitment to aviation safety.”
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Bernadette Cahill, 318-614-8444