FEATURED RAF SUPPORTER: JERRY LATVALA
“If you give of your time and labor, you tend to get back more than you put in,” Jerry Latvala says, and that keeps him motivated to help the RAF anytime he can, whether it’s near his home in coastal Georgia, or far away. Jerry flew his Mooney over 1,800 nm to tent camp at Ryan Field and help during the barn-raising project. He helped construct the pavilion at Trigger Gap, and has helped at Richland Creek in Arkansas, and Gillette’s Lakewood Lodge in Wisconsin among many other RAF projects. “It’s the people,” he says, that motivate him to pitch in.
Jerry’s professional career began after graduation with his mechanical engineering degree from North Carolina State University. He provided technical sales expertise to large industrial customers like utilities, paper, and pulp mills. “I enjoyed working with large industry clients. It was fun,” he says. He was especially interested in helping these facilities gain maximum efficiency by balancing energy self-generation with outside sources of power. He has since retired, which has allowed more time to pursue his passion for aviation.
The Latvalas are an aviation family. Jerry’s father flew for Pan Am as a flight engineer. When they hired him in 1938, he expected to be a mechanic, but he already had his pilot license, and they needed him on the flight deck of a Sikorsky S42. After 30 years, Mr. Latvala retired on the stretch DC-8 in 1968. “I was only a kid in the 1960s, but I always loved hanging around Miami International Airport and Tamiami Airport with my dad,” Jerry says. “His friends ran the Kendall Flying School at Tamiami Airport, Charles and Mary Gaffney, so I loved visiting. Looking back, that was my first touch with general aviation,” Jerry added. Jerry’s father-in-law flew submarine patrol off the North Carolina coast during World War II. Jerry’s niece is a FedEx captain.
Jerry’s brother earned his private pilot license in 1966, and Jerry earned his in 1979. He decided on a Mooney and earned his instrument rating, “to be able to afford the insurance,” he says. So far, Jerry has flown it 3,000 hours, which includes flights to 43 of the lower 48 states. Jerry and his wife Bev enjoy getting to faraway places. A memorable journey was to the San Francisco area for a family wedding. They departed St. Simons Island, “had lunch in New Orleans, toured the Mooney factory in Kerrville, Texas, then toured the famous ‘boneyard’ of military aircraft in Tucson’s Pima Air Museum, made our way up the west coast to Novato for the wedding, and returned,” Jerry recalls. Their son Bruce Latvala flies professionally as a production test pilot for Textron-Cessna, and volunteers as an RAF Ambassador in Kansas.
It was Bruce who introduced Jerry to the joys of backcountry flying after he’d spent time accessing Idaho’s backcountry airstrips with a friend in a Cessna 180. Jerry then did the same, and discovered for himself the challenges and rewards, and the importance of stepping up to preserve the privilege. The retractable, low-wing Mooney does not deter Jerry from landing on good turf fields, with proper planning and technique. In fact, it looks quite at home, tied down in front of a tent, with a backdrop of forest.
Submitted September 15, 2025