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A memorial for Charles Radcliffe Rhoades Jr., whose innovations for the aircraft industry are on permanent display at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington, D.C., is scheduled from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Stratigos Banquet Center, 131 Colonial Manor Road, North Huntingdon.

Mr. Rhoades, of Naples, Fla., formerly of Churchill, and the former owner of MS&R Inc., of Irwin, died Dec. 11, 2004, in Naples. He was 93.

At age 16, Mr. Rhoades dropped out of McKeesport High School and lied about his age to join the Navy. In later years, he joined the Army, after completing his tour of duty with the Navy.

"Although my father never completed high school and worked as a streetcar conductor during the Depression, he was able, because of his inquiring mind and the desire to succeed, to acquire the MS&R company," said his son, Lawrence Rhoades.

Rhoades recalled it was his father's great love for aviation that extended into his development of sailplanes and light aircraft engines for propulsion.

"Dad's company was a precision machining business that built reactor core components for the United States Navy," Rhoades said.

"I can still remember how proud I was when I was a Boy Scout and my father, who was active in the Scouts, would come to summer camp and talk to us about meteorology and aviation."

An avid trapshooter, Mr. Rhoades won the Pennsylvania State Championship in 1960. He was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, a Mason and a member of Beulah Presbyterian Church, Churchill.

Mr. Rhoades is survived by his wife, Dorothea Wirth Rhoades, of O'Hara, and West Palm Beach, Fla.; a daughter, Anina Rhoades Jenkins, of Naples; sons Robert Spangler Rhoades, of Forest Hills, and Lawrence James Rhoades, of Oakland; 13 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

He was predeceased by his first wife, Catherine Alice Diskin Rhoades, to whom he was married for 61 years, and a son, Charles Radcliffe Rhoades III.

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