Linden Blue

Linden Stanley Blue (born 1936) is an American aviation executive. He is the co-owner and vice chairman of General Atomics, the U.S. military contractor that manufactures the Predator drones used by the United States Marine Corps, Air Force, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He is also the managing director of the aircraft manufacturer Spectrum Aeronautical. Blue was born in 1936 in Meeker, CO. Blue's father was James Elliot Blue, a real-estate developer. Blue's mother was Virginia Neal Blue, the first female treasurer of the state of Colorado. His parents owned Blue and Blue Realtor in Denver, a residential real-estate firm. The family moved from Meeker to Denver when Blue was three, but during his childhood the boy spent part of every summer in Meeker. "Shortly after the end of World War II,” he later recalled, "the city fathers of Meeker decided they needed an airport. My grandfather was a member of the Lions Club; they took on the project of clearing a mesa right outside of the city for the first airport in Meeker". This project, which took place "when he was about 8", sparked his lifelong interest in aviation. Blue and his brother, Neal, who was a year older, graduated from Denver's East High and Yale University, where they were both in the Air Force ROTC. He earned his BA from Yale University in 1958, and attended the six-week Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. He earned his private pilot's license on 17 December 1955. An engine failure while flying a single-engine Stinson Voyager over the jungles of Honduras in 1958 made Blue a believer in twin-engine aircraft. Both the Spectrum S-40 Freedom and Spectrum S-33 Independence are designed to be twin-engine aircraft. He belonged to the Yale Aviation Club. He and his brother flew around the U.S. and then flew around Latin America and the Caribbean. They became known as the "Flying Blue Brothers" and received extensive attention in the U.S. media, making the cover of LIFE magazine on 8 April 1957.