CAA: GA News, "Love at first flight"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@cwnet.com>]

Thursday, January 27, 2000

Love at first flight
For local man, aviation not just a career, it's his life
By MARIAN ACCARDI
The Huntsville, Alabama Times


Harold McMurran clearly remembers the cold winter day more than 70 years ago
when he decided the career he would pursue.

McMurran, who was 5 at the time, saw his first airplane that day - a
two-seater J-2 Cub that had been forced to land in a corn field about a mile
from McMurran's house in Dora. McMurran and his friends were fascinated
talking to the pilot and passenger who were on their way from Florida to
Memphis.

"I knew at that time I was going to fly and be a mechanic," said McMurran.

His career in aviation has spanned a half-century, beginning in 1942 when he
was an aircraft mechanic helper at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City,
Fla. Today, he runs his own business, Southeastern Aircraft Rebuilders, that
handles repairs from changing a tire to changing out an engine or a wing of
aircraft.

He and his seven employees work out of hangars at Madison County Executive
Airport in Meridianville and Hazel Green Airport.
"Aviation has been my whole life," said McMurran, surrounded by four
airplanes wedged into the chilly hangar at the Meridianville airport.

The job - repairing well over 100 airplanes each year - never gets boring
for McMurran. "Every airplane that comes in is different. No two are alike."

After his stint as a mechanic's helper, he graduated from a Nashville
aircraft school and returned to Tyndall in 1943 as a general aircraft
mechanic, repairing AT-6 Texans, B-26 Marauders, AT-9s, AT-10s and P-39 Air
Cobras.

He started flying lessons in 1955 and bought his first plane - a two-has
recognized McMurran for his skills and expertise several times and, most
recently, he received a Master Mechanic Award from the FAA's Alabama Flight
Standards Office.

McMurran is always ready to teach and help a student or a young mechanic
learn the correct way to perform any task on an airplane, Luther said.

"No other person in the Southeastern region of the FAA has contributed more
than (McMullan) has to the craft. As every pilot knows, the pilot's life is
directly dependent on the skill of the mechanic."

And, at 76, McMullan still has no plans to put away his mechanic's tools -
"not until I become incapacitated or they bury me, one of the two," he says,
laughing at the thought.

"I can't retire. I don't like to cut grass or grow flowers."

He's still trying to finish up his own project in the steel building behind
his New Market home - rebuilding his own J-3 Cub. "Without this work, I'd be
miserable."

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