RAPPAPORT, Max

Published in The Arizona Republic 6 Apr 1981 Max Rappaport, 81, founder of M & R Woodcraft Co. in Phoenix and a pioneer aviatior, died Friday in St. Luke's Hospital. Mr. Rappaport, 1214 E. Myrtle Ave., was operating a flying school at Roosevelt Field at Long Island, N.Y., when Charles Lindbergh took off from the field in 1927 on his solo flight from New York to Paris. Mr. Rappaport's pilot instructor's license was the 32nd to be issued by the federal government. In the 1930s, he "barnstormed all over the country" in a plane called Lucky Lindy, he recalled in an interview. "Any cow pasture and we'd land. I even took off from and landed on beaches in the Carolinas. We were having the time of our lives." From 1939 to 1944, he trained-pilots for the Army. He quit when he developed a "branstormer's ear," damage done to the hearing by air pressure during flying stunts. "To hell with it, I'm going to Arizona," the Austrian-born Rappaport, said, but it wasn't until 1961 that he came to Phoenix from Pennsylvania. He was a Mason and is survived by his wife, Helen; daughter, Cynthia McDaniel;two sisters and a grandchild. Services will be 10 a.m. today at Green Acres Mortuary, 401 N. Hayden Road, Scottsdale. Sinai Morturary made the arrangements.