Payne, Edward Thomas

Born deaf; attended the Ontario School for the Deaf, Belleville, 1906-1917. Probably the first male deaf person to be licensed as an airplane pilot, in Canada in 1929 (but not the first deaf pilot ever--see Calbraith Perry Rodgers, first deaf pilot, and Eleanor Zabel Willhite, first licensed deaf pilot), and almost certainly the first deaf pilot outside of the United States. Won his pilot's license in 1931; successfully wooed Frances Lucille Ford into marriage beginning with giving her her first flight the following year. Suspended flying during the World War II years, then was relicensed in 1946, but lost his license a year later when radio communication became mandatory in Canadian aviation.