Dan Firebaugh is no stranger to the Blairsville Municipal Airport, having led the facility for four years as assistant manager. But Firebaugh is enjoying a new title after being promoted to manager in the September meeting of the Blairsville City Council.
He took up the mantle after former Manager Aaron Mannheim retired due to medical reasons, and he has had a few months now to settle into his upgraded role, which is a natural fit for the lifelong flight enthusiast.
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Firebaugh’s father had a cousin who was a pilot in World War II, and when he returned home, he resumed flying for an oil company in their Southern Illinois hometown. When Firebaugh was 11, this family member took him up in the air, and it was love at first flight.
“A few years later, he became the manager at the local airport up there, and as a result of that, I kind of had a little bit of an in-roads to learning to fly,” said Firebaugh, who would eventually go on to work for that airport, too, fueling planes.
When he was about 14 years old, Firebaugh had his flying epiphany. He and his parents were dining at the airport restaurant; while watching the airplanes take off and land, “it just kind of came to me – this is what I want to do,” he said.
By 1967, when he was a senior in high school, Firebaugh started taking his first flight lessons. A self-described natural, he took to the skies with ease and mastered the skill quickly. It was a long road – Firebaugh had to sell his motorcycle to afford to earn his license – but by the end of it, he had earned multiple certifications through extensive testing.
From there, Firebaugh lent his skills professionally to charter companies and private planes. While the jets he piloted were large, they weren’t capable of crossing the ocean, so he flew all across North America, Central America and the Caribbean.
Firebaugh has led a storied career, including a personal favorite story about the time he flew Hollywood royalty Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, and he piloted for a company that contracted with the renowned Mayo Clinic to fly organ transplant teams to procure life-saving organs.
And the aviation industry has taken note of his impressive accomplishments.
In 2024, the Federal Aviation Administration presented Firebaugh with a prestigious award in recognition of his more than 50 years as a pilot: The Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award.
“You just have to prove that you’ve been a good pilot, that you haven’t had any violations or anything,” Firebaugh explained. “And you have to get three people to write a letter of recommendation – people who you’ve flown with and say, ‘Yeah, he’s a great pilot.’”
Notably, Firebaugh has a safety claim to fame after flying his way through a frightening situation in which a faulty aircraft part could have spelled disaster, ultimately resulting in him being partially responsible for a recall that made planes safer.
In short, on a mammoth flight from Miami to Winnipeg, Firebaugh started losing hydraulic fluid due to a leak.
“It turns out that the manufacturer of that hydraulic actuator discovered there was a design defect in one of the O-rings, that somehow they didn’t test it well enough,” Firebaugh said. “They had to change everything; it’s surprising it never happened before, but it happened to me.”
The situation of the world in 2020 after the onset of COVID-19 is what prompted Firebaugh to retire from flying. Some cities were mostly closed, and it was hard to stock up on supplies; Firebaugh can remember a point where he was unable to even purchase a bottle of water.
“It was just miserable out there,” Firebaugh recalled. “I thought, ‘That’s no fun anymore,’ so I quit.”
Firebaugh was familiar with the Blairsville Airport by the time he gave up his job. He had flown out of Macon before and visited the mountains a few times. He quickly developed a friendship with Mannheim, and when the last assistant manager left, Firebaugh was offered the position.
“Aaron called me and said, ‘Hey, I know you’re retired; would you be willing to come in and kind of fill in while we find a permanent assistant manager?’ So, I did,” said Firebaugh, adding with a smile, “And I’m still here.”
But Firebaugh admitted that he doesn’t plan to stay in the position long. Even before he first came to the Blairsville Airport, he considered himself retired, and he’d like to return to that life sooner rather than later.
“I’m not going to be here that long. I’m an old guy; I’m just trying to make this the best airport it can be for North Georgia, and it is the airport of North Georgia,” Firebaugh said. “In this area, we’re it.”
For now, Firebaugh said he wants to focus on improving the facility for the next year or two.
Another assistant manager is already in place – Air Force veteran and aviation technician Brady Thompson. Firebaugh is also looking in the direction of Middle Georgia State University’s School of Aviation, which may produce more future leaders for the Blairsville Airport.
“This airport has grown in traffic and size over the last few years,” Firebaugh observed, mentioning that it may also prove fruitful to one day create positions for individual jobs, such as fueling or other maintenance experts.
Another long-term goal that Firebaugh wants to see accomplished is a parallel taxiway to cut down on the risk of runway impacts. Such a large project is defined as a multimillion-dollar expense, but he holds out hope that it could happen one day.
Firebaugh has come up with other improvement ideas, and he looks forward to working on them with the Blairsville City Council, which is generally open to new suggestions for bettering the airport.
For more information on the local airport, visit https://www.blairsville-ga.gov/airport.
