Born: United States of America
Primarily active in: United States of America

1933 - 2010

Malvern J. Gross Jr. was an accounting executive and a small plane pilot who set two world flight records before serving as president of the National Aviation Association.

Malvern was fascinated by flying since childhood and bought his first plane – a single-engine Cessna 140 – soon after graduating from college. In 1977, he and his son set a transcontinental speed record for a single-propeller airplane when they flew from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. in just over 11 hours. The following year, he established another record for his aircraft weight class when he took off from Gaithersburg and set an altitude record of 32,421 feet.

When Mr. Gross retired in 1989 as a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers accounting firm, he turned full-time to flying. For the next four years, he served as president of the National Aviation Association, which is the nation’s official aviation record-keeper and represents the interests of aviators ranging from skydivers to commercial airline pilots.

He wrote or co-wrote several books on accounting, including “Financial and Accounting Guide for Non-Profit Organizations,” now in its seventh edition, and published “Nine Lives: Adventures of a Lucky Pilot.”

He died December 5, 2010, at his home in East Windsor, N.J. He was 77.

AHS Updates: Vertiflite Winter 2010