News

Jostad receives the Wright Brother award

By Scott Wagar

08/26/2014

The Federal Aviation Administration has awarded Leo Jostad the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for over 50 years of continuous safe operation in aviation as a pilot and promoting aviation.

Jostad has been flying for 52 years. He started as a kid with his father who was a local pilot in the area when the Bottineau Airport was located in the area of the Bottineau County Museum.

“The hangers were sitting right about where the veterans’ building is going. The runway was across the street north of where the junkyard is, that whole quarter section north up to the city garage and west along the railroad. It was kind of diamond-shaped,” Jostad said.

“The main runway was northwest and when you took off you went right over the old dump grounds. The other one was east-west going west from the city shop. And then, there was one going north and south parallel to the road. There were technically three runways there, but only one long one there, you only used the other ones if the wind demanded it.”

Jostad added the three runways were made of dirt and sod.
“It was very a uneven runway and you would appear and disappear,” he said. “If you sat at one end of the runway and the airplane was landing you see the pilot touch down and then he would disappear and reappear again continuously down the runway.”

While attending college at North Dakota State University, Jostad earned his private pilot license.

For Jostad, he didn’t have the money for flight lessons, so he came up with an ingenious way to make money to gain his pilot’s license.

“To get the money for my flight lessons, I rented out my car to my fraternity brothers who didn’t have cars, but wanted a car to take their girlfriends out on dates during the weekends,” Jostad said. “It was a good deal for both of us.”

In January of 1962, he earned his private’s license. Since that time he has flown over 10,000 hours as a pilot.

Once he graduated from NDSU with a bachelor’s degree in music education and a minor in math and science Jostad taught school for a short time and then joined the U.S. Air Force and made it his lifetime career.

He served his country for 23 years which, included missions in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.  

While in the Air Force, he spent the first seven years of his career as a navigator in such planes as KC 135 Tankers.

He then went into strategic reconnaissance where he flew in ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) Collectors.

During his time in the military, Jostad also flew privately as a licensed pilot and flight instructor and unofficial in his military activities as an instructor for the Air Force Aero Clubs from 1965 until his retirement.

Since Jostad’s discharge from the U.S. Air Force, he has continued to be an instructor for individuals’ private license, piloted for cooperative support and service business companies.

He also pilots planes for organizations which assist individuals who are ill and need to get to specialty hospitals in the nation.
In his spare time locally, he will fly to assist others in need of a pilot and volunteers his own plane, or will fly any other airplanes that need a pilot, to assist others in their time of need.

With his recent introduction into the Wright Brothers Master Pilot program he is pleased to be granted the highest ranking award the FAA grants pilots.

“I am proud of this award. My concern in even getting this far was my health because I am not a spring chicken anymore,” Jostad said who is 75 years old.

“I feel very privileged to have been able to fly many different airplanes, and to have met the people that I have been able to associate with in aviation.

“As far as I’m concerned this is pretty special group of people.”