Who Was Huffaker?

The Huffaker Memorial Air Park has a name with multiple layers of significance.

The memorialized Huffaker was Edward Charles Huffaker (1856-1936), who was born near Sevierville, but spent much of his life in Chuckey. A mathematician and engineer, Huffaker experimented with gliders in the late 19th century and is credited with discovering the principle by which a curved wing surface generated lift, providing the foundation of modern aeronautics.

Huffaker worked with early aviation figures such as Dr. Samuel Langley at the Smithsonian Institution, the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk (where he and Wilbur Wright struggled to get along), and Octave Chanute in Chuckey.

Huffaker is known to have test flown some of his early gliders on hillsides in Chuckey.

By the latter half of the 20th century, Huffaker was a little known historical figure, even in his home are, until Ted Hensley's older brother, Steve, grew interested in the man and his work.

Some years after stumbling across a trove of Huffaker family letters, Steve Hensley began a lengthy, detailed study of Huffaker, working often with huffaker descendents and relatives.

He found that Huffaker was a creative, highly intelligent man, who, in addition to his aviation research and engineering work, composed poetry and wrote stories, some of which may have been nationally published. Afew manuscript portions still exist.

Steve Hensley's years of study of Huffaker culminated in the publication in 1998 of an East Tennessee University thesis, coauthored with his wife Julie, titled, "Edward C. Huffaker's Unpublished Letters, Containing the Earliest Application of Bernoulli's Principle to Account For Aerodynamic Lift: A Storytelling Approach to Aviation History".

The couple also wrote a story for the Southern Aviator magazine, Dec 1994 edition, titled "E.C.Huffaker's Aviation Legacy".

Hensley's research paved the way for the placement in 1997 of a Tennessee Historical Commission state historical marker about Huffaker at the intersection of Chuckey Pike and the Chuckey Highway.

Both Steve and Julie Hensley share a fascination with storytelling and have many storytelling performance to their credit. Julie is director of Christian education at Trinity United Methodist Church in Greeneville.

page 3 - Airparks Inspiration