The first person to parachute in a vertical wind tunnel and a well-known vintage aircraft restorer died here Saturday, according to family members.

Jack G. Tiffany Jr. was known for museum-quality restorations of old aircraft that enlisted the help of volunteers. He died of stroke-related symptoms, a family member said. Tiffany was 72.

“I remember him most for dreaming big and his vision and his dreams inspired other people,” said Catherine McCabe Tiffany, 55, his wife. “He was the type of person who seized the moment for the times he was in.”

Jack Tiffany was inspired by his late father, Jack Sr., an aircraft mechanic at Wright Field who worked in race car pit crews at Indianapolis 500 races, Catherine Tiffany said.

Her husband was credited with being the first human to fly in a vertical wind tunnel, a pioneering first that happened at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In the mid-1960s, Tiffany was part of a team at the base working to develop re-entry parachutes for Gemini spacecraft, according to the Military Times newspapers.

“We were damn near running around the clock,” he told Military Times in a 2008 interview. “It was 2 a.m., and everybody was a little slap-happy. I said: ‘Fire this puppy up. I think I can fly.’ They fired it up, and I flew.”

Mr. Tiffany, a former Army Green Beret, was an accomplished parachutist who had more than 3,000 skydives both in and out of the military, according to his obituary.

He restored automobiles, aircraft and motorcycles, said his stepson, Nick Hurm, 32, of Lebanon.

“He was mister anything fast,” Hurm said. “He liked anything with speed.”

Hurm said his stepfather had an outgoing personality that reached out to the most shy. “He was such an outgoing guy at the same time you were around him, it was kind of all about you,” he said.

He accompanied Tiffany on “aviation hunts” and found a long-sought Pitcairn Auto Gyro in the Mojave desert on a trip to the American west.

“Airplanes were his biggest passion,” Hurm said. He partnered with other enthusiasts to bring the aircraft back to their former glory.

The 1940s-era auto gyro with helicopter rotors and wings is perhaps his best known restoration.

“The work I’ve seen of his looks like museum quality,” said Timothy Gaffney, a former Dayton Daily News aviation writer and the National Aviation Heritage Alliance director of communications. “Not only was it restored, it was restored to flying condition.”

Visitation is set for 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Conner and Koch Funeral Home in Bellbrook. Funeral services are set for 11 a.m. Friday at the funeral home, followed by burial at the Spring Valley Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Humane Society of Greene County. Condolences may be sent online to the family at www.ConnerandKoch.com.