Written by JK; reformatted by JS (04/2014)
Sharon, Betty and Joe Krebs
Joe was born Pascagoula, Mississippi in 1931. He has lived in the Pascagoula area the majority of his life. He attended Our Lady of Victories Catholic School and graduated in 1949. He was given a ride in a J3 Cub when he was six and has been interested in aviation ever since. He started building Free Flight kits after that and progressed through to Radio Control models even getting to the point of competing in competitions.
After graduating from high school, he worked at a local wool mill to take flying lessons, and received his license at 17. His first passenger was his future wife, Betty Joe. He joined the Air Force in 1951. There, he went to Keesler Air Force Base (AFB) in Mississippi and trained in electronics, airborne radar, and later went to Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) school. He trained for ECM repair at Travis AFB in California, and then taught that to air crew operators on RB-36 aircraft. After a while, he was chosen to be an ECM operator on the Squadron's Select RB-36 Crew, S01V0. He was still on this crew when his enlistment ended in 1955 at the rank of Staff Sergeant.
Joe married Betty Joe while he was going to radar school at Keesler AFB. They lived in Vallejo, California for 3½ years while he was stationed at Travis AFB. They returned to Pascagoula Mississippi in 1955 and he went to work for Ingalls Shipbuilding as an electrician. He was promoted up the ranks and became the Director of Elec/Elex for the last 17 of the 39 years he worked at Ingalls.
Ingalls Shipyard built various kinds of ships and submarines for the military. Their website is here: http://ingalls.huntingtoningalls.com/.
This plaque has a list of the ships Joe worked on.
Through the years Joe has been involved with Static, Free Flight, Rudder-Only, Bang Bang radios, Craft, Proline, and finally JR. His first Radio Control plane was built by his brother Billy Ray, and Joe built a radio to fly it with. Both he and Billy learned to fly with it.
This is an upgraded receiver from one of Joe’s earlier models. A short video of the working setup is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYLStqSFevI&feature=youtube .
Joe competed in Radio Control events and won trophies in Pattern and Carrier in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. The last aircraft he competed with was his Cajun Queen. It was designed by Lou Penrod. Molds were built to make the fiberglass fuselage, and it has foam core wings. It had mechanical retracts and electric brakes that Joe developed due to pattern rules and needing the ability to stop for points. He was a member in the 1940s in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and a member of the Mobile Al Club in the 1950s and 1960s. Today he is a member of the ACMA Club and the Koast Air Modeling Society in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.
(Above) The Cajun Queen and the home made electric brakes Joe designed.
(Above) More of the Cajun Queen.
Joe still enjoys Radio Control. Among his models is a very nice Balsa USA 1/3-Scale Cub with moving throttle, rudder pedals, and control stick (which has won him awards) and a Top Flite GS P51 with scale exhaust, ¼-scale Cub with scale gear.
Some of his other hobbies are fishing and collecting guns. Below is a letter from President George H. Bush, whom he met while working at Ingalls Shipyard.
Letter from President George H. Bush and photo of President Bush with Krebs.
Joe Krebs
This page is a text transcription of the original document, made automatically and may contain errors. .