Anthony R. NeCastro
International Pilot
13,000 Flying Hours
Atlantic Aviation Flight School Instructor
Delaware Task Force for Aviation
The Quiet Birdmen (Fraternity of Aviators)
Anthony NeCastro got an early start on his 65 year and over 13,000 hours in the air of his Delaware aviation career. He was a friend of Kip DuPont and got his first airplane ride out of the old DuPont Airport in 1952 at the age of 14. He knew then that we wanted to get his pilot license. To do so, he worked at his uncle's gas station after school and on weekends to pay for his flying lessons. The following year he joined the Civil Air Patrol, and when he turned 17, he got his license and articles in local papers proclaiming him the youngest pilot in the country. He also enlisted in the Delaware Air National Guard.
A few years later while working at Atlantic Aviation, he met and became a friend of Frank Cardamone, who became an instructor pilot at Atlantic Aviation. Frank urged Anthony to get his commercial license and gave Anthony free ground and flight instruction, leading to Anthony getting his commercial and instructor rating.
When the DuPont Airport closed in 1958, Anthony transferred to the New Castle Airport transporting parts and doing other flying missions and eventually becoming an instructor pilot. One day, Mike Guididas, the Flight Department Manager, suggested that he get his multi-engine rating, which he did, leading to a job as co-pilot in the Atlantic Aviation Flight Department. Mike had worked earlier for G. M. Bellanca, the great airplane designer and builder of record setting airplanes at Bellanca Airfield in New Castle. In this position, Anthony flew many advanced aircraft, including Gulfstream and the DC-3. He piloted for H.B. DuPont, who had founded DuPont Airport and Atlantic Aviation and had built the Bellanca Airfield and factory for Bellanca in order to get Bellanca to come to Delaware. Flying for DuPont took him to Europe, Central and South America, Russia, India, South Korea, and Japan.
He flew for Atlantic until it became Conoco, and eventually the DuPont Flight Department. He retired from full-time flying in 1992 but flew part-time for Rollins Flight Department until 1995. In 1977 Governor Pete DuPont appointed Anthony to the Delaware Task Force for Aviation. He was also a member of The Quiet Birdmen, an exclusive fraternity of aviators.
