As an aviator, Mr. Gildred holds an airline transport rating with more than 2,000 hours experience. His greatest aeronautical achievement was duplicating his father’s 1931 Goodwill Flight from San Diego, California, to Quito, Ecuador, which took place March 13, 1981 to March 31, 1981. Theodore E. Gildred, along with copilot Wally Moore, flew a 1942 Stinson Reliant. It was hoped that both flights would promote good will between the US and Latin America. Like his father, Theodore E. Gildred received a warm welcome upon landing in Ecuador, and donated his aircraft, Ecuador II, to the Ecuadorian government as a gesture of goodwill between the two nations.

This collection is a combination of correspondence, logbook documents, San Diego Aero-Space Museum correspondence, magazine articles, Spanish language documents, Spanish newspaper clips, currency, English newspaper clips, an audio cassette, a documentary script, government issued certificates, negatives, and several hundred photographs.   

For more about this collection, see our Descriptive Finding Guide.

See the photos on Flickr.