Edgar J. Lesher (July 31, 1914 – May 19, 1998) was an American aircraft designer, pilot and a professor of aerospace engineering.
A self-described "airport bum", he took his first ride in an airplane at age 13, shortly after Charles Lindbergh's landmark flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
[2] After finishing graduate school, Lesher went to work at Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica, California.
Again, he returned to the University of Michigan, where he assisted in wind tunnel projects and did structural consulting in addition to his teaching responsibilities.
Remembering the Skycoach, he began the design of an all-aluminum two-place, side-by-side, pusher propeller aircraft.
In October 1961, after 5,000 hours of construction, he first flew his aircraft, the Lesher Nomad (N1066Z) at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
A novel design feature was his use of a Dodge Flexidyne Coupling in the drive train to dampen torsional vibrations.
After two years of testing Teal, on May 22, 1967, he flew the aircraft to a new 500 km closed-course Class C1a speed record of 181.55 mph.
For his record-breaking flights, he won the FAI's Louis Bleriot Medal four times[1] and was inducted in the Michigan Aviation Hall of Fame in 1988.
[8] In 1978, he began construction of a larger aircraft, "Nene", which he hoped to break the FAI Class C1b records.