Charlie Fly, age 76, passed away peacefully at home in his sleep in League City, Texas on May 1, 2025. He was born on January 22, 1949 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico to A.B.(Bill) Fly and Celia Patterson Fly.

He learned to count by 10’s to a quintillion before first grade. He never stopped learning new stuff and rarely forgot any of it. Charlie wanted to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Massachusetts from the time he was in grade school, so that is where he went after graduating from Palo Duro High School in Amarillo, Texas.

He worked in a variety of industries during and after college. He worked on a coal gasification project converting coal to methane. He created an air jet system for paper cutting. He worked on a MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) coal powered generator to create electricity. He owned and operated a uranium mine in Utah with his family where he got a U.S. Patent for inventing Cellular Flow for mineral ore processing.

He manufactured duck decoys in Canyon, Texas – near Amarillo. While he was making duck decoys he met Dorothy. They had been together for 44 magical years when he died.

He created and sold 7,000 copies of the ZXPRESS BASIC compiler for the ZX-81 computer. He wrote “undo” for Lotus 123 Release 3 (one of the early spreadsheets) and also automated testing for the entire system. Then he became a rocket scientist. He worked for NASA in Flight Design and Dynamics on flight simulations for the space shuttle and many other projects. He invented a Pipe Expansion technique to reduce costs for well drilling. He got another U.S. Patent for that.

Charlie loved sailing and owned many different sizes of sailboats. He sailed in Boston on the Charles River and even sunk a boat outside Lynn Harbor in the Atlantic. He also sailed on Galveston Bay. He loved flying and owned a RV-12 airplane after he retired from NASA. When he sold the airplane he got a John Cooperworks Mini convertible. He was setting up a metal working machine shop in the garage to build live steam locomotives. He was also designing an electric model train layout. In between all these activities he was writing science fiction adventure stories.

Charlie always lived on the edge. He survived 32 different airplane catastrophes, including 2 actual crashes and multiple near misses. 15 car and motorcycle disasters, 3 sailboat disasters and 25 miscellaneous other disasters, involving chemical burns, wild animals, earthquakes, tornados, diving and high voltage electricity.

Charlie is preceded in death by his parents and Larry Kuczenski his step-daughter’s husband. He is survived by his wife, Dorothy Fly, his step-daughter Annjeanette Kuczenski, his grandson Randall Renfroe and wife Desirae, great-grandsons Jake and Jaxton Maldanado and Liam Renfroe, his brother Jerry Fly and wife Kay.

Please send any gifts to Houston Area Live Steam https://hals.org/donate18.html. They have a layout at Zube Park near Houston where anyone can run their trains or watch the process. There are also small trains to ride.