Former governor Perdue among Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame inductees

Perdue, who now serves as chancellor of the University System of Georgia, grew up on a farm in Bonaire, Georgia, where his neighbor introduced him to flying.

“Our farm was on a state highway that was not that busy, so in order for him not to have to ferry back and forth to the airport, he would land on the highway [and pull] in the driveway, where we’d load his products, and he’d take off,” Perdue said.

Perdue was 21 at the time and a student at the University of Georgia. That neighbor, who was also a CFI, soon became his instructor. After returning to school in Athens, Perdue and his roommate, who was a private pilot, decided to buy an airplane.

“I took part of my college fund and we bought a [Piper] J-5A airplane in Greenville, South Carolina, without my parents’ knowledge,” Perdue said. The airplane cost them $1,800 in 1968. Perdue received his private pilot certificate that fall.

“While I was at Georgia, now that I can talk after the statute of limitations expired, I would also commute from Athens back to my home, to our farm there, land on Highway 96 and pull into the front yard of the house there and go back and forth to Athens,” Perdue said.

After graduating with a doctor of veterinary medicine degree in 1971, Perdue was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force, and was stationed in Columbus, Ohio. While there, in his free time, Perdue earned his instrument, commercial, multiengine, and instructor credentials. He became an AOPA member in 1974.

Perdue later became a successful small business owner and would often fly himself to his companies’ locations across the Carolinas and Georgia. He also served more than a decade as a state senator, including several years as president pro tempore of the chamber.

During that time, Perdue was the driving force behind a push to increase the state’s airport funding from $3 million to $35 million, allowing airports to expand runways and install instrument landing systems—improvements that took years to complete.

"It would not have happened without him,” Henry Lowe, who used to own the FBO at Middle Georgia Regional Airport in Macon, said. “[Then-Gov.] Zell Miller ended up getting all the credit for it, but Zell didn’t really know squat about general aviation, and Sonny was deeply embedded into it."

Perdue later announced a run for governor of Georgia in 2002. Up to that point, no Republican had been governor of Georgia since the 1870s.

He won by five points—The New York Times called it “a monumental upset” at the time. Perdue gives much of the credit to the Bellanca Super Viking he owned at the time, which he says suddenly became worth $22 million, because it allowed him to crisscross the state daily.

“My opponent spent about $25 million running for governor. I spent about $3 million. That airplane was the difference... It was in that era where people really wanted to see you. They wanted to touch you. They wanted to see you. They wanted to smell you. Grassroots really paid off.”

During his time as governor, Perdue learned crew resource management when he received his type rating to fly the state’s fleet of Beechcraft King Air C90s. He flew about 500 hours in them during his time as governor. He also received his rotorcraft qualification since, as governor, he regularly traveled in Bell helicopters with the Georgia State Patrol and Department of Natural Resources.

While in office, the state continued to lengthen runways and improve infrastructure to allow business jets and turboprops to access a much larger number of airports. He continued to champion GA, providing funding to improve FBOs to attract economic development, and helping other states recognize the value of GA.

Perdue points to Thomasville Regional Airport, which had a “little cinder block FBO” when Perdue became governor.

“This is a very high, elite kind of town, and that FBO facility was just not up to meet the standards in that way,” Perdue said. “Now it has a wonderful, hospitable, welcoming appearance when people fly in for recreation or for business. That was my goal—to get our rural airports and FBOs fixed up where they could welcome guests well.”

He added, “We’ve been very successful in locating businesses all across Georgia because the executives in the C-suite can get there. They can visit them and they don’t have to land at a major airport and drive a couple hours. They can fly in, do their business, and fly out.”

After leaving the governor’s office in 2011, Perdue went back into business before serving as secretary of agriculture from 2017 to 2021. During that time, Perdue enjoyed continuing to fly his Van’s RV–7 during trips home to Georgia.

His family has also taken an interest in flying—some as pilots and others as passengers. Two of his children and his grandson are pilots. Perdue says his wife of more than 50 years, Mary, is a “great flyer” and “very comfortable” as a passenger. They flew their RV–7 from Georgia to a family vacation in Yellowstone National Park a couple of years ago. Once there, he flew his grandchildren over the park, which included spotting the famous geyser, Old Faithful, from the air.

While he doesn’t actively instruct, Perdue helped his grandson, who flies a Van’s RV–9, during his flight training.

“I’ve signed a couple flights off on my grandson. He was having some difficulty, as most of us do, nailing his landings initially. We flew for a Sunday afternoon and he finally got the concept of what controls speed and what controls altitude.”

Despite nearly 60 years of flying and working to expand GA across Georgia, Perdue says he does not feel worthy of being inducted into the hall of fame.

“I’m just a regular guy who enjoys the use of general aviation and would love for everybody to understand its benefits,” Perdue said.

But Lowe, who is also a board member with the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame, says the impact of Perdue’s efforts is still felt by pilots and companies across the state today, dating all the way back to the first bill while he was still a state senator, which was intended to have an airport that could handle a light jet within a 30-minute drive of every person in Georgia.

Perdue is one of four people being inducted into the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame. This year’s other inductees include Charles Dolson, who served as a pilot and later the second CEO of Delta Air Lines; Douglas G. Matthews, a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War and retired airshow pilot who also flew then-Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter during his presidential campaign in 1976; and Michael D. Williams, an aviation safety expert who founded the Jetaire Group, an aerospace manufacturing and engineering organization, which developed technology to mitigate the risk of fuel tank explosions in airliners.

Tickets to the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame Induction Banquet and Ceremony on Saturday, May 17, at the Museum of Aviation in the Century of Flight Hangar in Warner Robins, are available online.