Voice of NBAA Podcasts Pete Combs Heads West

To many in the aviation industry, pilot Pete Combs was the longtime baritone voice of the NBAA’s Flight Plan podcast since early 2014, but he was so much more. Combs, an Arlington, Virginia, native was also a longtime WSB Radio reporter in Atlanta, Georgia, and a freelance journalist for CBS News Radio. Combs, 60, succumbed on Thursday, December 11, 2019, to the cancer that took control of his body in early September.

Many will remember Pete Combs as a regular fixture around most NBAA conventions—often with a video camera nearby—recording the people and events of the industry he’d come to admire and love. WSB news director Chris Camp called Pete a “reporter’s reporter,” who knew a good story and always had his bags packed ready to go. So it was with the audio stories he produced for the NBAA, such as the piece about the growing importance of upset recovery training to business aviation or tackling the growing problem of illegal charter operations. Combs served as senior editor for AeroNews.net in the early 2000s and most recently co-created podcasting company, Earful Productions. Pete Combs was also a U.S. Air Force veteran.

Pete Combs is survived by his wife Karen who created a Facebook page called Pete’s Journey to keep family and friends informed about progress in his fight against cancer. Another regular member of the Comb’s family was their wire-hair Dachshund named Stella. Additional survivors include Pete’s son Daniel, and stepchildren Morgan, and Blake, as well as a brother Stephen, his wife Ann and Pete’s sister Cathy.