John H. Livingston the age of 76. Livingston was inducted into the Iowa aviation Hall of Fame in 1995. His Waco taperwing has been donated to the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin where it has been restored. John Livingston is considered to be the inspiration and namesake for the book and film "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" by author and pilot Richard Bach. Livingston-Betsworth Field, as well as the fixed-based operator at the Waterloo, Iowa municipal airport, are named in his honor. John H. Livingston John H. Livingston (1897–1974) was an American aviator and air race pilot of the 1920s and 1930s. Livingston placed
Jonathan Livingston Seagull abilities as he leads a peaceful and happy life. One day, Jonathan meets two gulls who take him to a "higher plane of existence" in which there is no heaven but a better world found through perfection of knowledge. There he meets another seagull who loves to fly. He discovers that his sheer tenacity and desire to learn make him "pretty well a one-in-a-million bird." In this new place, Jonathan befriends the wisest gull, Chiang, who takes him beyond his previous learning, teaching him how to move instantaneously to anywhere else in the Universe. The secret, Chiang says, is to