South Sound aviators this week are celebrating the life of an aviation legend from Spanaway, Ralph “Slim” Lawson.

Lawson died late last month.

Lawson, 89, was the longtime owner of the Spanaway Airport.

According to Lawson friend Ed Shadle, Lawson began flying in 1939. By the time he died on March 30, Lawson had logged some 20,000 hours of flying. Fourteen thousand of those hours were instructing other fliers.

Lawson was inducted into the Washington Aviation Hall of Fame in 2002 and was awarded the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award in 2005.

Lawson celebrated his 89th birthday in February with a flight around the pattern at Spanaway Airport.

Dozens of friends and associates commemorated his life Saturday with a memorial service at the airport that included a missing-man formation flight.

The 6-foot-9-inch Lawson was a consummate pilot, said Shadle.

“Every flight you made with him you learned something from him,” he said. “He was always teaching.”

One of Lawson’s last requests before he died was for someone to bring his flight log books to the hospital so he could update them with his latest hours in command.

“He was a pilot’s pilot,” said Shadle.

John Gillie, The News Tribune