Written by AMA Staff (02/1990, 07/1990); Edited by JS (06/2006), Updated by JS (05/2008), Reformatted by JS (02/2010)
Ed Wisser, Of McKeesport, PA, was born in 1913. Ed’s many talents include designing, experimenting, building, and flying. As a builder of Scale models (his Albatross D5A is in the National Model Aviation Museum), his skills are second to none.
An AMA member for 50 years, Ed has served his club in many capacities. He is an honorary board member of the Keystone Clippers, a club he organized in 1947. As a Contest Director, he works many meets in Western Pennsylvania. In the old days, he was contest coordinator for the Plymouth Meets.
On radio station WMCK, Ed hosted a weekly radio show on model building. He also taught classes in his basement for many years to help young people get started.
An unselfish giver, he was recently honored by his club with an Ed Wisser night. Respected for his modeling and full-scale flying abilities and talents, Ed is a club member and person whom everyone enjoys.
For his long history of helping others and his contributions to the success and image of model aviation on a continuing basis, Ed is properly recognized as a Vital Person.
…Fred Berman offered the following memorial, which I feel is very fitting: ‘As noted in earlier issues of Model Aviation, modeling recently lost another of its durable superstars. Let us devote just a few added lines to the memory of Ed Wisser, who, at age 76, was inducted into that relentless passing parade last January 16.
‘In a way, Ed probably exemplified most of us. He split his waking hours between vocation and avocation – family breadwinner and fly-machine modeler. Ed, the family man had a son and a daughter, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Ed the modeler had one super bridge across that split: his ultra-supportive wife, Kay. She not only helped to sew the seat covers in his Scale cockpits, but also made at least 18 pilgrimages to Toledo by Ed’s side. ‘Ed was an ingenious perfectionist. His models were photo images of the full-scale ships right down to the rudder pedals and the rivet heads. To be sure, the Scale fraternity now has a vacant seat in its front row. However, two of his Antique quarter-scale models – a German Albatross bipe at the AMA museum in Reston, and a Tigermoth at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh – bear lasting testimony to the superb craftsmanship of their departed builder, McKeesport’s Ed Wisser.’
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