Retired pilot J.D. Clarke speaks to summer campers at the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire about the history of flight. Courtesy photo/Aviation Museum of New Hampshire

LONDONDERRY — The year was 1947 when James David Clarke experienced flight for the first time at Parlin Field in Newport.

That first flight lit a fire that evolved into many more over the course of his 62-year career in aviation, including time Clarke spent as a pilot for Trans World Airlines and teaching aviation history at Hawthorne College in Antrim.

Clarke, now 85 and retired, will reflect on his decades of flying during a discussion on Oct. 17 moderated by Jeffrey Rapsis, executive director of the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire.

The program will take place at 7 p.m. at the Aviation Museum., 27 Navigator Rd. as part of the museum’s Exploring Aviation presentation series, sponsored in part by Grappone Auto. Admission is free for museum members and is $10 per person for non-members.

Growing up in the Granite State, Clarke pursued a commercial aviation career that literally took him to the far ends of the earth.

While flying for TWA in the 1970s, one memorable trip literally took Clarke around the world in 12 days: from New York to London, Rome, Athens, Tel Aviv, Mumbai, Bangkok, Guam, Honolulu, Los Angeles and then back to New York.

TWA was a major U.S airline founded in 1930 that was granted rights to fly overseas after World War II. The airline was acquired by American Airlines in 2001.

The program will cover Clarke’s personal memories of his adventures as a pilot: the piston and jet aircraft he flew, the places he visited, the people he served with, and how deregulation changed the airline business starting in the 1970s.

“This is a great chance for aviation enthusiasts to hear first-hand tales of the airline business from the 1940s through the 1980s, what many consider a golden age of aviation,” said Rapsis.

Clarke will also recount tales of his uncle, Harold Buker, Jr., a major figure in New Hampshire aviation who served as the director of the state’s Bureau of Aeronautics from 1986 to 1996. Buker also was a founder of the New Hampshire Aviation Historical Society, which operates the Aviation Museum.

Clarke will take questions from the audience as part of the program. Also, the presentation will be recorded as part of the Aviation Museum’s oral history series and will be preserved in the museum’s archive.