Society toasts Columbia's aviation pioneer

Photo by Rachel Haynie (l-r) Ron Shelton, Tom Savage, Debra Bloom, Xen Motsinger, Billy Rawl, and Warner Montgomery toast Paul Redfern, pioneer aviator from Columbia. On August 25, 2008, at 12:46 pm, members of the Paul Rinaldo Redfern Aviation Society (PRRAS) raised their glasses in a toast to Columbian Paul Redfern. Exactly 81 years prior to the toast, Redfern became the first aviator to solo across the Caribbean Sea. He left from Brunswick, Ga., and headed for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His 4,700- mile flight plan called for him to surpass Charles Lindberg's 3,300- mile flight across the Atlantic a few months earlier. After he passed over the coast of Venezuela, Redfern's plane vanished. Neither he nor his plane has been seen since.

Paul Redfern, a graduate of Columbia High School, established Columbia's first commercial airfield in 1923. It was on a cow pasture where Dreher High School is now located.

Tom Savage, president of the PRRAS, will attend the Annual Convention of the OX- 5 Aviation Pioneers in Tullahoma, Tenn., in September when Paul Redfern will be inducted into the Pioneers' Hall of Fame. The Pioneers organization is made up of aviators who flew the early V- 8 liquid- cooled aircraft engine built by Curtiss.

PRRAVS is assisting the Richland County Library in setting up a Redfern exhibit under the direction of Debra Bloom, local history manager. The organization is also considering sponsoring someone in a Dutch expedition in September 2009. This expedition will attempt to find the remains of Redfern's plane that has been reported seen in the jungle on the border of Suriname and Venezuela.