John Paul Riddle (May 19, 1901 – April 6, 1989) was an American pilot and aviation pioneer, best known for training Allied air crews in WW2 and co-founding what later became Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU).

[2] After graduating from Pikeville College, he entered the Naval Academy, but left after a year because he wanted to fly airplanes, which he learned to do with the US Army Air Service in Texas after first learning to overhaul plane engines, allowing him to fulfill his boyhood dream of becoming a barnstormer, flying cross country giving rides to people at fairs, having girls write messages on the wings of his Jenny, the plane he loved best.

They had two more children and were divorced in 1969, but ended up as friends living in the same house in Coral Gables, Florida where aged 87 Riddle came down with an illness and died in his sleep a few days later, April 6, 1989.

Riddle is remembered by a marker at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Arcadia, Florida,[5] surrounded by the honored graves of RAF cadets who died learning to fly.

On December 17, 1925, exactly 22 years after the Wright Brothers' first flight, Riddle and T. Higbee Embry formed the Embry-Riddle Company at Lunken Airport in Cincinnati, Ohio.

A Brazilian school, Escola Tecnica de Aviacao, was established in 1943 and was located in Sao Paulo, Brazil.