Aviator, Author, Engineer John W. Rockefeller Jr.

John W. Rockefeller Jr., an aviator, engineer, author and third cousin of late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, has died. He was 88.

Rockefeller, who perfected the main stabilizing spring for the Norden bomb sight used on Allied bombers during World War II, died Tuesday at the Green Grove Health Care Center.

A native of Asbury Park and graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was a self-employed consulting engineer in New York City for more than 25 years before retiring 10 years ago.

The veteran of World War I was an early aviator, owning and flying his own airplane from Red Bank Airport in the late 1920s. He was author of “The Poor Rockefellers,” published by Vanguard Press in 1962.

Rockefeller is survived by a son, a daughter, a sister and five grandchildren. Rockefeller’s wife, the former Mary Brooke, died in 1982.