Charles Monroe

Russell O’Quinn said he has achieved every dream of high flight he had as a boy, but he warned those dreams aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

“Unless God is the author of your dreams,” he said Tuesday before 1,400 people at the Chattanooga Convention Center, “you have a tragic disappointment waiting for you.”

Mr. O’Quinn, a 79-year-old Southern Californian, has spent more than five decades as a test pilot and aircraft designer.

Speaking at the 31st annual Chattanooga Leadership Prayer Breakfast, Mr. O’Quinn said he wants to devote the rest of his life to giving people a “briefing” more valuable than any he ever gave a training pilot.

“I’m not a preacher. I’m not a theologian,” he said, “but I have done a lot of research.”

Jesus Christ is the “unspeakable gift of God” who “came to redeem you and me,” Mr. O’Quinn said.

Initially employed by Douglas Aircraft Co. after a stint in the Air Force, Mr. O’Quinn left in 1965 to establish a civilian flight-test company. Today, he still serves as a test pilot and recently has designed and developed a new concept tactical jet fighter.

His religious journey began at an Arkansas college in which his aunt enrolled him, he said. The school was a “hotbed of religion,” and the friendship and invitation to Christianity from a Bible-class professor were markers on his spiritual journey, he said. But he did not seek a deeper spiritual foundation until a close friend whom he had trained to fly crashed into the ground in his plane at 150 miles per hour, he said.

“For death,” he said, “I had no answer.”

Through prayer and study, Mr. O’Quinn said he understood that “no one can attain eternal life on his own” and that people must become a “new creation in Christ.”

In turn, he challenged the prayer breakfast crowd to do their own preparation, homework and research and come to the same conclusion.

Charles Monroe, president of Card Monroe Corp. and chairman of the prayer breakfast organizing task force, said he was grateful for Mr. O’Quinn’s message.

“I think everyone enjoyed what he had to say,” he said, “but I also think they took something home with them today that is very meaningful also.”

The Rev. Curtis Henderson said Mr. O’Quinn’s talk may have been exactly what an elected official or business owner in attendance needed to hear.

Many people are “hollow, hurtful and needing,” but when they see “a man at the top of his level” admit there was a time he wasn’t ready, they will see they still can achieve their dreams and “be committed to the Lord,” Mr. Henderson said.

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