About the Author

   Chip Kemper is a lifelong aviation enthusiast. From soloing gliders at age fourteen to a career as a pilot and aircraft mechanic, he has loved the life and rewards as an aviator. Agricultural spraying, aerial firefighting, and aviation maintenance have been the majority of his experience.

         He has served on the Idaho Transportation Department’s Aeronautics Advisory Board for more than a decade. It’s been his pleasure to serve state, regional, and national aviation associations as a board member and officer through much of his career.

         For years he operated aircraft and ground equipment, employing as many as fifty employees simultaneously as they pursued agriculture and firefighting roles in the sky and aviation maintenance in the shop. Chip and his late father represented Air Tractor, Inc. as an aircraft dealer in Canada and the northern US for more than thirty years. In the last year, he has scaled his aviation company, Queen Bee Air Specialties back to a maintenance organization. The Kempers employ eight people performing aviation maintenance for the public at their Rigby, Idaho, base. (Airport Identifier: U56)

         Chip is a 1986 graduate of Plymouth State College in Plymouth, New Hampshire. There he obtained a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration while he minored in History.

         As a flight Instructor of nearly forty years, he has administered more than two thousand hours of dual instruction. He has taught many transition and recurrent courses for pilots and maintenance personnel who are utilizing PT6 Powered Air Tractor aircraft. As a speaker or teacher, he has delivered numerous informative sessions or assisted with seminars relating to Aerial Firefighting, Aeronautical Decision Making, and Risk Mitigation.

         Chip is a father and grandfather. He lives with his lovely wife Mary in southeast Idaho where they enjoy hiking and the outdoors.