Roll Call Tribute

Arnold Emil Ebneter, Lt. Col. USAF (Ret) 

February 21, 1928 - June 6, 2025 

Arnold Ebneter flew west on June 6, 2025. He was born at home in Evansville, Wisconsin on February 21, 1928. His father, Emil, immigrated from Switzerland, and his mother, Bertha (Kubly), was a Wisconsin native. Arnold grew up surrounded by a large extended family and graduated from Portage High School in Portage, Wisconsin, in 1946. He attended one year of college studying Aeronautical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York before moving to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota, where he also flew balloons for General Mills and worked as a flight instructor at the university flying club, where he met his wife, Colleen Ann Kroona, in 1950. Before completing his degree, Arnold joined the Air Force in 1953 as an aviation cadet, and in 1954 he and Colleen were married and traveled to Las Vegas, NV, for their first of many assignments. The Air Force sent him to Texas A&M University for his bachelor's degree in Aeronautical Engineering, and in 1965 to AFIT for his Master's degree.

Arnold flew F-100s from 1955 through his two tours of duty in Vietnam, first in 1965 at Danang Air Base and in 1968 at Tuy Hoa. He retired from the Air Force in 1974 as a Lieutenant Colonel and moved the family to Bellevue, Washington, where he began a new career at Boeing in Product Safety. He and Colleen settled in Woodinville in 1986. Arnold left Boeing in 1990 to work full time as a flight instructor, Chief Pilot, and Designated Pilot Examiner at Harvey Airfield in Snohomish, where he had been flying since 1975.

In 2010, Arnold completed his self-designed homebuilt aircraft, named the E-1, and flew it on a world record-breaking non-stop unrefueled transcontinental flight of 18 hours and 27 minutes from Everett, Washington, to Fredericksburg, Virginia, a distance of 2,327 miles. For this achievement he received the Federation Aeronautique Internationale's prestigious Louis Bleriot Medal for Flight. The story of the E-1 is chronicled in the book, "The Propeller Under the Bed," by his daughter, Eileen. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded him the Wright Brothers Master Pilot and Charles Taylor Master Mechanic awards in 2012. In 2013 he was inducted into the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame, and his E-1 resides at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Aviation Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. His 1950 B-35 Bonanza, Charlie, a member of the family for 60 years, now serves at the Everett Community College Aviation Maintenance Technology school as a teaching aid, and the Piper J-3 Cub he restored for Colleen now flies daily at Snohomish Flying Service.

Arnold continued to work as a flight instructor and Designated Pilot Examiner until 2019. He touched hundreds if not thousands of lives in his long career flying and instructing, and he loved to teach people to fly. He could tell aviation stories for hours on end (and frequently did). His first flight as a student pilot was in a Piper J-3 Cub on 9/13/1943, and his last flight was in his Cub on 9/22/2021, almost exactly 78 years apart. His favorite airplane was always the F-100 Super Sabre, and he remembered flying it even when he had forgotten just about everything else.

He was preceded in death by his wife of 45 years, Colleen, his parents, Emil and Bertha, his brother, Francis, and sister Donna Klavon, his cousin Carl Ebneter, and his beloved cat Wiley. Arnold is survived by his family, daughters Maureen (Alan) Skomerza, Col. Eileen Bjorkman USAF (Ret.), Kate Ebneter, and Kelly (Wallick) Mercier, granddaughters Kelly Eidsmoe, Mary Skomerza, Laura Maze, and Ruby Mercier, and great-grandchildren Scarlett, Wilder, Blaire, Alden, and Kit (finally, three boys), his sister, Teresa Widstrand, and numerous cousins, nieces and nephews. Arnold also leaves behind his many friends at Harvey Airfield and the Harvey family. We are enormously grateful to all the staff at Brookdale Silver Lake for keeping Arnold comfortable and to Continuum Hospice for their care.