HUNTINGTON BEACH What solace Jennifer Paige gets is that when her husband died he was likely happy.

Eddie Paige suffered a fatal heart attack Sunday while on a break from an aerial shoot he was conducting near the Huntington Pier. He was 60.

“I’m glad he died while he was doing something he loved,” said Jennifer Paige, his wife of 25 years. “I’d proably be freaking out if he had died in a car crash.”

Eddie Paige, a 40-year resident in the city and popularly known as Drone Eddie for the aerial still photographs and videos he shot of Huntington Beach and its environs, had become a fixture at local events and could talk endlessly about his aerial photography.

He used his drone for videos of the annual Duck-a-thon charity, the Fourth of July Parade and the Blessing of the Waves, among many events.

One day, when a group of surfers did a paddle-out for a friend who died, Paige volunteered to shoot it and had the surfers arrange themselves in the water in the shape of a heart.

“He’d do those things out of the goodness of his heart,” Jennifer Paige said.

Heart to heart, that was Eddie Paige.

According to his wife, Paige only took up aerial photography about three years ago at her insistence.

“I said ‘You need a hobby. If you don’t find one, I’ll strangle you.’” Jennifer Paige recalled. “It became his life.”

Donna Howell, a family friend, said Paige rarely took half-steps.

“When he was into whatever project he was doing, it became his whole life,” Howell said.

When Paige wasn’t flying – something he took so seriously that he would often eschew alcohol if he was taking the drone out – he was helping others, either passing along tips or teaching people how to fly. When Paige sold one of his used drones, it came with a personalized flight lesson.

He also had become an expert on federal regulations for drone use and was providing input to the city in its ongoing attempts to draft ordinances for drone use and photography.

When Paige and his wife traveled, he often brought the drone. He shot videos of Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City that ran in several magazines. He shot in San Francisco, Vancouver, Canada and up and down the California coast.

He always checked in with local officials and studied drone use ordinances before filming, his wife said.

To Huntington Beach locals, however, he was best known for his seemingly endless collection of photos and videos featuring the iconic Huntington Beach Pier at sunrise and sunset.

On the day he died, Paige posted a video on his DroneEddie facebook page in advance of the upcoming Breitling Huntington Beach Air Show, promoting the event and warning that the air space is a drone-free zone during the weekend.

Paige was born April 15, 1956 in Los Angeles. He liked to joke that the date was tax day, the day the Titanic sunk and Abraham Lincoln died.

“I’m the only good thing that happened that day,” he would say.

A third-generation Angeleno, Paige joined the Navy at the age of 17.

“He wanted to do too much in life, he had to get started early,” Jennifer Paige said.

According to her, in Paige’s five years in the Navy, he was involved with the airlift during the fall of Saigon, earned two Purple Hearts and was even stationed at the White House briefly, where he worked in telecommunications.

After leaving the service, he built several telecommunication companies, moved to Huntington Beach and met Jennifer, and together they raised her three sons.

“He became my boys’ father,” Jennifer Paige said.

As Paige’s interest in his photography grew, sometimes to the detriment of his business, his wife said he was looking into ways to sell his telecommuncation business and make a living shooting and selling his aerial art. One of his goals was to shoot all the piers along the coast of California.

“He had a lot more to do,” she said.

Paige is survived by his wife; his mother, Ruth Goldman, 87, of Los Angeles; brothers Steven Goldman of Oregon, Bruce Paige of Houston and Larry Paige of Riverside; sister Lynn Pezez of Lancaster; stepsons Roy McDowell, 35, of Scottsdale, Ariz.; Timothy McDowell, 32, of Huntington Beach; Patrick McDowell, 30, of Honolulu; and two step-grandchildren, Damon Futo and Brooklyn Paige McDowell.

A candlelight vigil for Paige will be held at 5 p.m. Sunday at the Huntington Beach Pier. Details for further commemorations are pending.