18 June 2024
Charles Strasser, founder of the AOPA ‘Strasser Scheme’ which enabled GA pilots to make emergency and precautionary landings at more than 200 UK airports with all fees waived, has died at the age of 97.
The announcement came from the Czech Embassy in London: “We regret to announce that Mr Charles Strasser, the last Czechoslovak World War II veteran living in the United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies, died on 10 June at the age of 97. His service to his homeland will never be forgotten.”
Charles was an active pilot up until four years ago when he “could no longer tick all the boxes” during his medical. He settled in Jersey after selling his business when retiring.
Charles Strasser as a WWII dispatch rider
Charles was a vice president of AOPA UK, former chairman of the AOPA Channel Islands branch, former president of the Flying Rotarians. He flew a Piper Seneca twin having learnt to fly to enable him to travel around the UK for his photographic business.
Born in Czechoslavakia in 1927, Charles moved to the UK with his parents just before WWII. By the end of the war, aged 18, he had become a dispatch rider for the Czech Independent Armoured Brigade, part of the British Army, and the first Allied unit to enter the town of Kasejovice after six years of occupation.
FLYER‘s Ian Seager who knew Charles, said, “RIP Charles – a life very well lived with significant contributions in all sorts of areas, including of course the Strasser Scheme.”
