Randy Acord, a leading figure in preserving aviation history in the Interior, has died at the age of 89.

The Texas native was stationed at Ladd Field, now Fort Wainwright, in 1943 as a test pilot. He flew numerous aircraft with the Cold Weather Testing Station, which meant trying out new heating systems on aircraft and even the effectiveness of landing planes with skis.

He had decided to join the military in 1939, before the U.S. entered World War II, because he felt some kind of conflict was inevitable.

“He came of age before the war when the drumbeat of war was loud,” said Acord’s nephew, Garry Hutchison. “He told me he didn’t want to be on the ground when it started.”

Acord excelled as a test pilot, and was actually the only one at the time who could take off and land the P-38 Lightening with skis on it — a modification done at Ladd to see if it would increase effectiveness of the plane in cold weather. It didn’t work out quite as well as hoped, however, and the modification was never implemented on a wider scale.

He estimated that he flew more than 150 missions with the skis, and he knew exactly how much room he would need to land the plane as well.

“That was his first love before marriage,” said Corky Corkran, a longtime friend of Acord’s and co-founder of the Alaska Air Pioneer Museum at Pioneer Park.

Nearly 60 years after leaving the military as a major, Acord was the recipient of the Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Award for his contributions to Russian-North American relations during World War II.

Friends called Acord “a walking encyclopedia” because of his vast knowledge of aeronautics, which he could rattle off with ease to visitors of the museum. In his later years, he recorded an oral history of the technical details of his flights, and his wife, Marion, took detailed notes to pass on to future researchers.

“One of the things that really impressed me was his depth of knowledge about anything related to aviation,” said Mike Cox, a former manager at Pioneer Park. “He was a treasure trove of information.”

Acord began toying with the idea of building an aviation museum in the late ‘70s when the military was considering closing Fort Wainwright. He and a small group began to lobby the military to save at least the original Ladd Field installation.

Wainwright stayed open, however, and after spending thousands of dollars of his own money as well as dealing with numerous construction setbacks, the Pioneer Park museum opened to the public in the summer of 1992.

“There is so much history going away nowadays,” Acord told the News-Miner at the time. “People don’t record events, and then they pass on and it’s gone. I would like to see this history passed on to the younger people of this country.”

Nearly a dozen of Acord’s friends gathered Tuesday night to remember him at the museum that he worked so hard to build.

Marge Zielinski recalled Acord’s rather blue sense of humor and how his laugh would echo through the dome-shaped museum filled with old planes, models and engines.

“I’m not going to tell you any of those jokes because they were slightly off color, and you’ll think of me as a dirty old lady,” she said. “But he was a great guy, and we enjoyed him very much.”

After getting out of the service, Acord decided to stay in Alaska and put his piloting skills to use at several jobs. In the summers, he would fly mosquito control, and in the winters, he would call dog races over his radio.

He considered himself a second-generation Alaska Bush pilot, and after flying for a small carrier for several years, he went into business for himself as a food distributor to villages off the road system. He continued to pursue his love of flying until his early 80s when his health began to fade.

“He believed there was freedom up in the air because you’re calling all the shots,” Corkran said.

Acord is survived by his wife of more than 50 years, Marion. Funeral arrangements are pending.