Compiled, formatted and edited by NR (1998); Edited by SS (2002), Reformatted and edited by JS (10/2009, 06/2021)
Career
- Started a model club while in high school
- Elected youngest president (at the time) of the Los Angeles Aero Modelers
- AMA Contest Director
- Manufacturer of model engine parts
- Developed the Supersonic Model Engine Fuels
- 1946: Designed ZEEK Free Flight model
- 1949: First to hold all four class (A, B, C and D) Speed records at the same time
- 1948-1949: First to hold all four class (A, B, C and D) Rise-off-Water Free Flight records
- Held 14 AMA Records
Honors
- 1992: National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame
Pioneer Mini-Bios September 12, 1998 Mahieu, Mr. Lew File# 36
Lew Mahieu started modeling in 1936 at the age of 9 years old. Beginning with hand-launched gliders and rubber-powered [models, and moving] to gas-powered models in 1939. His first gas model was a Comet Zipper, and then through all of Goldberg’s designs. Lew and Carl Goldberg became good friends by 1946.
Lew designed the ZEEK Free Flight [model] in 1946, which was available in kit form for almost 50 years. In addition to winning first in Free Flight and Speed at the Nationals and the [Plymouth] Internationals, Lew set 14 AMA records in both Free Flight, Gas, and Control Line Speed! He was the only person to hold all 4 classes A, B, C, and D Speed records at the same time.
He was the youngest president of the Los Angeles Aeromodelers, the largest model club in the United States with 600-plus members. [Editor’s note: Other information in the History Project files about Mahieu states the club’s membership at 400-plus members.]
Lew worked as Sales Manager for K & B Manufacturing [from] 1949 [to] 1953. He wrote the "Report from the West" column for Model Airplane News. In 1957, he went to the Douglas Aircraft Company as a wind tunnel model builder and stayed for four years. Lew started Mahieu Engineering, Inc. (MEI) in 1958, a precision machine shop, making parts for L. M. Cox, Dumas [Products, Inc.], etc., as well as parts for the aerospace industry.
He was placed in the National Free Flight Society Hall of Fame in 1992. He has built few models since retiring from competition in 1946. [His] current project is building a full-size Rearwin Speedster. Lew has a Beech Bonanza and Cessna 185 Amphibian housed in his hangar adjacent to Mahieu Engineering, Inc., building on the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho airport. He lives on Hayden Lake with his beautiful wife, Penni. -Compiled, Formatted & Edited by N. Rosenstock – 8/24/98
More biographical information/writing, attributed to Lew Mahieu and Harry S. Murphy, as well as information from the March 1952 issue of Air Trails, can be accessed at the National Model Aviation Museum, stored in the AMA History Project files.
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