Jacqueline Cochran doc at YouTube

Produced by high school students, it's worth watching, at 9 minutes long. Lots of photos, etc. as well as a bref summary of her life.

I don't know if I'd call her "America's original fly girl" as the narrator does. She'd be "America's first supersonic woman" perhaps...something like that...

OT: Carl Sandburg Birthplace: Quotation Walk

CLICK ON THE PHOTOS TO SEE ENLARGED VERSIONS WHICH SHOW THE QUOTES MORE CLEARLY

Visit their official website: http://www.sandburg.org/



Believe it or not, I thought today was Sunday and tomorrow was Memorial Day. That's when you get when you've been traveling for 25 days.

I've got lots of aviation photos to share from Dayton, but I need to work on the text of those. But thought I'd share the quotes from Carl Sandburg in the Quotation Walk, behind his birth home in Galesburg, Illinois.





I made a side-trip there today, but it was after 5 and the place was closed. (It was also closed because it's only open Sat and Sun due to budget cuts, but that's another story!)

I was driving down West 80 when I saw the sign advertising the Birthplace, so I got off and the highway and onto Main Street. It was about 5 miles away, and there were a lot of signs to follow to get there. It was not in the most affluent part of town... lower middle class, I think.

It's just a small house - I couldn't go in but it was clearly not very big. Checking out its website, though, there's a gift store there, and some videos giving background on Sandburg, and so on.

Here are the quotations... as you can see the grass hadn't been mowed since last week, properly, and some of the incisions suffer from weathering...if you want to see Sandberg's birthplace, the time to go is NOW.





(This text unreadable, I'm afraid)
















The ashes of Sandburg and his wife are buried under this rock.

Women's International Air and Space Museum

Visited the WIASM today.... got there too late to have a lot of time to browse at the gift shop...it closed at 4 pm. But I spent a lot of tme walking through the exhibits (that doesn't close til about 7 pm).

Here is just a brief sample, I hope to have a page of photos at www.womenfly.com soon. As well as info on how to get there, etc. (For example, the musuem is free, but parking at the airport costs $6.00)



Part of the Amelia Earhart exhibit


Tracy Pilurs' Pretty Purple Puddy Tat
Pilurs built this plane during the 1960s.

More photos and stuff in another entry.

Click on photo to see larger version. (It is large enough to allow you to read the text.)

WASP Homecoming - May 23, 2009

This may be your last chance to meet 5 of the WASP - women who flew military aircraft during World War II and who should be on everybody's list of role models!

I had blogged about this before, thought I'd share it again today. (I had intended to be there for the event, but my travel plans have been altered and I'm still in Ohio...)

These WASP are to be attending, I believe.

Florene Watson, Lois Hailey, Mickey Brown, Mary Vandeventer and Betty Jo Reed

Here's more info from their site:

National WASP WWII Museum
Homecoming 2009 – Saturday, May 23rd
February 17th, 2009

The National WASP WWII Museum honors the Women Airforce Service Pilots each year with a day-long open house followed by a barbecue dinner. The open house is free. Dinner tickets are $30 for non-members; $25 for members; WASP are free. Call 325.235.0099 to order tickets for the dinner which begins at 7 pm.

Featured dinner speaker is Major Bridget McNamara, Deputy Director of Staff, 7th Bomb Wing, Dyess AFB. Bridget earned her wings in 1998. She is the first female B-1 Weapons School instructor pilot and has experienced three deployments.

Billy Weems and His Band of Dreams will provide music during dinner and music for dancing or dreaming the night away. Please come in period costume if you like.

Among other things lining up for the day:

9:30 Annual Meeting of Members Brunch - free to all current members; reservations required
10:00 Origami Gliders and Airplanes with Terry Minami - free activity for all ages
10:00 Static Displays of WWII Aircraft at Avenger Field
10 - 5 Displays by Dave and Beverly Vargo and the Winged Commandos
10 - 5 Books for sale by author Nancy Robinson Masters
10 - 9 Silent Auction of WWII Memorabilia and Books
11:00 Informal visits with WASP
2:00 Andy Hailey, son of WASP Lois Hailey will speak on “The Biggs Five, the First Five Tow Target WASP Assigned to Biggs Army Air Base in El Paso, Texas.”

Flight 93 Memorial - a photo essay

Go here to see 35 photos of the Temporary Memorial to Flight 93 (to be replaced in 2011 by the permanent memorial)

http://volcanoseven.com/HaveLaptopWillTravel/Flight93/Flight93.html

On a whim, I stopped for the night in Somerset, Pennsylvania. I went into a grocery store to buy some food for the night, and a man in front of me mentioned that I was very near the site of the Flight 93 memorial.

So, the next day, I drove out to the Memorial, and took several photos. It was very windy, and the sky was overcast, so some of the photos are darker than I'd like. (Perhaps the fact that I'm not a professional photographer also contributes to the over/under exposure of some of the pics!)

When I first topped the rise and saw the memorial to the left, I was underwhelmed. So small, rather tacky looking, I thought - as my first view was of the "wall" where the gifts that visitors leave are displayed, and I didn't know what that was. It wasn't until I actually got into the memorial site that I saw what everything was.

Quite powerful.

There's controversy over the new memorial, and indeed just a days ago it was announced that the government has ended up condemning the land they want, and thus acquring it under eminent domain. The landowners are saying the government didn't talk to them at all about proper compensation, so I'm not really sure what's going on.

If you go into the NPS office, they have some drawings of the new memorial - I would've thought they'dve had a mockup of it as well, but perhaps that's in the works. I'm aware there's also some controversy about the fact that it appears to have a crescent shape when seen from the air, but as the NPS lady there explained to me, that's just the tree line, and it is not a crescent but a circle.

In any event, a very moving site. I stayed for about half an hour, and there'd be a car driving up every five minutes or so. Placed on top of some of the stone monuments, or at their base, are mementos that visitors have left - polished stones, medals, all the way up to hats and pieces of clothing. Everything is kept, and when there's too much, the park service takes and stores it to make room for more.

To me, this memorial, and the new memorial, are tributes not only to the heroes of Flight 93 but also to every person of courage in the world, who sacrifices their lives for the lives of others, or simply in the cause of justice.

These are true heroes, and their heroism should never be forgotten. Nor should the heroism of our men and women in the Armed Forces, the police, firefighters, et al.

One hopes that, if one were ever in a similar position, one could act with as much heroism. Real-life heroes - they should be the role models for today's kids....

Four Captain's Memorial

Visited the Virginia Air Museum today, located on the grounds of the Richmond International Airport. Indeed, you can't get to the airport without passing the Virginia Air Musuem.

I went all the way through it, and will share photos in another blog entry, but this is specifically for the Four Captain's Memorial. As you come into the museum, it is kind of tucked away in the far left hand corner.

The Four Captains, of course, are the pilots of the four airplanes that were hijacked on 9/11.

Click on this photo to see the enlarged text of the entire memorial.




http://www.familiesofseptember11.org

The Four Captains:
American Airlines Flight 11 (crashed into WTC North Tower):
The 11 crew members included pilot John Ogonowski, First Officer Thomas McGuinness, and flight attendants Barbara Arestegui, Jeffrey Collman, Sara Low, Karen Martin, Kathleen Nicosia, Betty Ong, Jean Roger, Dianne Snyder, and Madeline Sweeney

United Airlines Flight 175 (crashed into WTC South Tower):
The nine crew members included pilot Victor Saracini, First Officer Michael Horrocks, and flight attendants Robert Fangman, Amy Jarret, Amy King, Kathryn Laborie, Alfred Marchand, Michael Tarrou, and Alicia Titus

American Airlines Flight 77 (crashed into Pentagon):
The flight crew included pilot Charles Burlingame, First Officer David Charlebois, and flight attendants Michele Heidenberger, Jennifer Lewis, Kenneth Lewis, and Renee May

United Airlines Flight 93 (target was US Capitol or White House, crashed in Pennsylvania due to passengers attempt to regain control of the plane)
The seven crew members were pilot Jason Dahl, First Officer LeRoy Homer Jr., and flight attendants Lorraine Bay, Sandra Bradshaw, Wanda Green, CeeCee Lyles, and Deborah Welsh

For God, Country and the Thrill of It

Purchased this book, about the WASP, online, and didn't really know what I was getting. The cover says, "Photographics portraits and text by Anne Noggle."

The problem is... there is no text! (Well, there's a brief history of the WASP, written by a woman who lived it, but for the pilots themselves....zilch! Each page of this oversize coffee table book features an elderly woman WASP... and her name... and her class... and that is it! How about a little biography of each one, for goodness sake!

It was worth what I paid for it, which was about $7, but certainly wouldn't have been worth purchasing at full-price, considering what it could have been.

I've brought along a few women-in-aviation books with me that I no longer need. When I reach the Women's International Air and Space Museum, I'll donate them. They have a reading room and like to have 3 copies of each book. Any more than that, I guess they sell. So, either way, these books will do some good. I hope that they will stay in the reading room....

Wa-ell...dang.. just had a thought. I should have created a Donation bookplate, with my youflygirl website URL on it, to get a bit of my own good out of the donation! I wonder if I should nip into a Kinkos and do something in that regard.

The photos
Mary Rosso Lewis : 43-4
Anne Berry Lesnikowski : 44-2
Marie Mountain Clark : 44-1
Florence Miller Watson (WAFS)
Lois Hollingsworth Ziler : 43-3
Yvonne C. Pateman : 43-5
Harriet Urban White : 43-5
Lorraine Zillner Rodgers : 44-2
Shirley COndit deGonzales : 43-6
Ruth Shafer Fleisher : 44-4
Jacqueline Twitchell Morgan : 44-5
Frances Thompson Hunt : 43-7
Suzanne DeLano Parish : 44-6
Dorothy Swain Lewis : 44-5
Lois Brooks Hailey : 43-3
Francie Meisner Park : 44-10
Nona Highfill-Holt Pickering : 44-7
Bernice Falk Haydu : 44-7
Iris Heillman Schupp : 43-8
Eileen Kealy Worden : 44-1
Marguerite Hughes Killen : 44-8
Anne Noggle : 44-1
Dorathea Rexroad Scatena : 44-6
Lilian Glezen Way: 44-9
Mary Regalbuto Jones: 44-9
Betty Stagg Turner : 44-9
Rosa Charlyne Creger : 44-10
Betty Martin Riddle : 44-9
Dora Dougherty Strother : 43-3
Barbara Hershey Tucker : 44-9
Joyce Sherwood Secciani : 43-3
Violet Thurn Cowden : 43-4
Evelyn L. Trammell : 43-6
Mary Estill Fearey : 43-8
Elizabeth Briscoe Stone : 44-9
Yvonne Ashcraft Wood : 43-7
Janet Wayne Tuch : 44-9
Alma Newsom Fornal : 44-5
Kate Lee Harris Adams : 44-2
Helen M. Schaefer : 43-4
Hazel Armstrong Turner : 43-5
Geraldinze Bowen Olinger : 44-7
Ida F. Carter : 44-1
Joan Smyth McKesson : 44-7
Grey Allison Hoyt Dunlap : 44-4
Mary Retick Wells : 44-6
Pearl Brummett Judd : 44-8
Shirley Chase Kruse : 44-6
Bonnie Dorsey Shinski : 44-8

Video tributes from the Women's International Air and Space Museum

The WIASM is posting various 3-4 minute videos videos of women pilots on Youtube.

Ruth Nichols


Harriet Quimby


Clara Livingston