You Fly, Girl

It never ends

2012-01-29T10:43:00.001-08:00

My mom is having some major health issues...so much so that I'm not going to be able to post here for another couple of days while we get it straightened out.

Note to all my readers: If you have high blood pressure, make damn sure you take your medication or 20 years later you'll have congestive heart failure and wham, bam goes your quality of life.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Bio

2012-01-25T09:43:00.001-08:00

Not specifically about the WASP - except that this Congresswoman authored the WASP medal act.

From Local News 10, Florida: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Bio
I am proud to represent Florida’s 18th Congressional District, a diverse area which includes Miami, Little Havana, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Miami Beach, Westchester and the Florida Keys.

I was born in Havana, Cuba on July 1952. At the age of eight, my family and I were forced to flee from the oppressive communist regime of Fidel Castro. We settled in Miami and put down permanent roots in our community. I attended Southside Elementary School in Little Havana, West Miami Junior High, and Southwest High School. In the years following, I earned an Associate of Arts degree from Miami-Dade Community College in 1972, Bachelors and Masters Degree in Education from Florida International University in 1975 and 1985 respectively, and a Doctorate in Education from the University of Miami in 2004. I consider education a lifelong journey.

I began my career as a Florida certified teacher. I also founded and served as the principal and teacher of a private bilingual elementary school in Hialeah. I was inspired to enter public service by many of the parents and students; to fight on their behalf for a stronger educational system, lower taxes, and a brighter economic future.

In 1982 I was elected to the Florida State House of Representatives and the Florida Senate in 1986, becoming the first Hispanic woman to serve in either body. In the state legislature I authored the Florida Prepaid College Plan, which is now the largest pre paid college tuition program in the nation. More than one million Florida families have used this program to send their children to college.

I was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1989—the first Hispanic woman to serve in Congress--following a special election to fill the seat held by the late Claude Pepper. I have been strongly returned to Congress since, winning 69% of the vote in 2010.

To this day, I remain committed to improving the lives of my constituents and our beautiful South Florida community. As the economy remains a pressing issue, I support reducing taxes and cutting back unnecessary government spending. I also support plans to balance the federal budget and increase tax incentives for small businesses and middle class families. South Florida has also felt the devastating effects of the housing crisis. I have fought to end predatory lending practices by mortgage companies and extend the first time homebuyers tax credit.

Given my background in education, I have worked to strengthen the Head Start program. I have also supported legislation to increase the availability to student financial aid and revise the cumbersome and complicated Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) process.

I am a strong advocate of programs that address the serious problem of domestic violence against women. I was a lead sponsor of the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which increases resources towards the prosecution of domestic violence, dating violence, and sexual assault. I also support legislation to increase criminal penalties for perpetrators of Medicare fraud. Medicare fraud is a deplorable practice which robs hardworking seniors of the benefits they spent a lifetime earning, while also wasting billions in taxpayer dollars.

As the wife of a Vietnam veteran and step-mother to Marine aviators, I am passionate about improving our nation’s military, safeguarding veteran’s health care, and ensuring that returning veterans have access to a college education. I have been an outspoken critic of the Miami VA’s recent failures to notify veterans who were at risk of infection, due to contaminated colonoscopy equipment. I also authored legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). These women pioneers had been denied recognition for their service during World War II.

I am the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. In this role, I have had the opportunity to voice my strong support for the state of Israel and human rights, including my opposition to Castro’s dictatorial regime in Cuba. I have also led on pressing foreign policy issues including the fight against Islamist extremism, and support of free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.

I am the proud wife to Dexter Lehtinen, mother and step-mother to 4 adult children, and grandmother to baby Morgan Elizabeth.

WASP collection coming to digital domain

2012-01-25T09:36:00.000-08:00

From the Denton Record Chronicle: WASP collection coming to digital domain
Texas Woman’s University announced last week that it had received a $100,000 gift from an anonymous donor to continue the digitization and preservation of the WASP collection.

The Women Airforce Service Pilots designated the TWU Blagg-Huey Library as the repository of their national archives in 1992.

The WASPs were the first women to serve as pilots and fly aircraft in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II.

The WASP collection contains photographs, letters, diaries, postcards, uniforms and artifacts from women who were part of the organization between 1942 and 1944.

The recent gift was given by an anonymous donor who gave also TWU $100,000 in 2009 for the collection.

“We are using the money to further process the collections,” said Sherilyn Bird, dean of the TWU Libraries.

The gift will help the university create a much larger Web presence for the archives by digitizing the collection and making it easier for scholars to find the information, Bird said.

It will also help preserve the original collection because once the information is on the Web, fewer people will be handling the actual items, she said.

The WASP collection has more than 1 million pieces of paper, about 25,000 photographs and about 700 oral histories, as well as more than 700 personal collections within the overall collection, said Kimberly Johnson, coordinator of special collections at the TWU library.

The gift will help support outreach programs by allowing the university to lend portions of the collection for exhibits around the country. It will also help the library document more oral histories, Johnson said.

Digitization will allow TWU to include information about what the women did after the organization disbanded in 1944, she said.

“Many of them [the women] continued to fly after the WASP disbanded,” Johnson said.

The preservation of the collection helps promote women’s place within aviation, she said, calling them “activists” of their time.

Johnson said the hope is that collection will spark enthusiasm about what the women pilots did and motivate people to want to know more.

“And it’s also to preserve that history and that legacy,” Johnson said.

“That mark they made in history is permanent.”

PR: 28 Jan 2012 - Aviation Fever takes over Hawaii!

2012-01-23T16:42:00.000-08:00

Professional Pilots, High Schoolers to attend Seminar / Job Fair Event

Honolulu, January 23, 2012: Airline pilot careers begin with an inspiration, and really take off when the airline interviews the qualified pilot. FltOps.com, the premier provider of career and financial advice to professional pilots, is putting the spectrum together on Saturday, January 28, 2012.

Professional pilots will be attending the “Expats in Paradise” global pilot hiring fair at the Ala Moana Hotel (310 Atkinson Drive, Honolulu – 808-955-4811), where they will be attending professional seminars on their own job placement searches and interviewing with the hiring personnel from the airlines. Confirmed already are Hawaii-based Crew Resources Worldwide (the lead sponsor), Korean Air, Emirates, Total Aviation Service, and Qatar Airlines, among others expected to attend.

Airline employment for Hawaii residents is attractive even if the permanent job is located on the mainland or overseas. The airlines provide generous industry travel benefits, allowing employees to stay connected to their island home.

High school students interested in airline careers as pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and other professionals will be treated to “Focus on the Future” seminars, where they and their parents will meet with representatives from professional aviation training schools and universities.

As a recent Boeing release says, “As the world commercial fleet expands to more than 39,500 airplanes over the next 20 years, the world's airlines will need to add 460,000 pilots and 650,000 maintenance technicians…” The outlook for high schoolers with an interest in aviation is sky-high!

Registration for the Focus on the Future seminars is online only (www.fltops.com/jobs ) and the doors open at 12:30; the seminars, offering advice on careers, employment projections, and loans, grants and scholarships, run from 1:00 to 5:00. Parents, guardians, and school counselors are also encouraged to attend.

All attendees (adults and students) must register online at www.fltops.com/jobs

PR: Air Conditioning System for LSA, Experimentals to Demonstrate at Sebring Show

2012-01-16T18:34:00.000-08:00

Sebring, Florida, January 18, 2012: Corbi Air announces availability of a revolutionary air conditioning system that is light enough and reliable enough to work in small aircraft. The installed system is being shown in Sebring, Florida, at the Light Aircraft Expo, January 19-22.

The launch customer is the S-LSA Alto, a rugged, metal two-place machine with three models that cater to those who want a practical small airplane or a trainer. The gross weight limit of 1320 pounds for the LSA (Light Sport Aircraft) category is an imposing obstacle for most who want to “civilize” their machines, but the Alto already had excellent useful load, and, as Corbi Air President Ron Corbi said, “Because of its compact size and light weight, the air conditioning system fit easily into the Alto. Even with the 28-volt alternator we added to the Rotax 912S engine, the AMT-developed system allows us to retain one of the largest useful loads in the class.”

The system is all-electric, the standard 12-volt Rotax system, common in LSA, is augmented by an independent alternator and small 24-volt batteries. “Because it is compact, light, and powerful, the system is ideal for other small aircraft, including Experimental-class aircraft, many of which already employ a 24-volt system and thus would not require electrical system modifications,” noted Dan Coffey, development engineer at Corbi Air.

“The [typically 20-degree (F)] cockpit temperature reduction will be particularly welcomed by instructors who teach all day in hot cockpits, and by private fliers who just want to arrive fresh,” said Corbi.

Corbi Air is the distributor of the Alto LSA, and is also the supplier of the AMT air conditioning system. The Corbi Air Alto with the AMT conditioning system will be featured at the Light Aircraft Expo this week, Space 208.

16 Jan 2012: Celebrate MLK Day at IWASM

2012-01-10T17:01:00.000-08:00

As we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on this day we would also like to celebrate the life and legacy of some incredible women who used aviation as way to advance the Civil Rights Movement. Beginning with Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman to earn her pilot’s license, to Mae Jemison, the first African American female Astronaut, we want to inspire you with the stories of these incredible women and then some. A list of activities and times are listed below:

10:00am : Craft Stations Open – Learn how to make the prefect paper airplane, experiment with Whirly Gigs, and make a Bessie Coleman Bookmark to take home.

11:00am-12:45pm : FREE Public Tour

1:00pm-1:45pm : Presentation by David Fuller from NASA. Learn about the space program and ask your most pressing aeronautical questions.

2:00am-2:45pm : FREE Public Tour

3:00 pm : Craft Stations Close

Come in early and stay all day or just drop in for a quick tour and visit. This program is FREE and open to the public. For more information call 216-623-1111

Parking is available in the Burke Lakefront Airport parking lot. Parking is typically $6 per day and is within walking distance from the Great Lakes Science Center and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

IWASM Now Offers Free Public Guided Tours Every Saturday!

2012-01-10T16:58:00.000-08:00

IWASM (Burke Airport, Cleveland, OH) Now Offers Free Public Guided Tours Every Saturday!

The International Women's Air and Space Museum now gives free guided tour of the musuem's main exhibits every Saturday at 1pm. Learn about Amelia Earhart, Bessie Coleman, the WASP, and more. Hours are approximately 1 hour in length. Gather by the sign in front of the gift shop at 1pm to join. No reservations required! For more information call 216-623-1111 or email mepps@iwasm.org

(The museum has always been free, but they've never had guided tours before.

http://iwasm.org

Flying Musicians to Perform at Sebring Jan 19-22

2012-01-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

PRESS RELEASE: Two Passions - One Goal -
Bringing Aviation and Music Together

“Pilot Musicians sharing their passion while encouraging and educating youth and adults in the science and art of aeronautics and music.”

Flying Musicians: Performing and Exhibiting at the Sport Aviation Expo

- Visit FMA in the AeroShell Tent and see the Sennheiser S1 Digital ANR Headset –

Fort Worth, Texas – January 10, 2012: The Flying Musicians Association, Inc., a non-profit organization, is gearing up for the first event of 2012, held in Sebring, Florida this January 19-22. Come out and enjoy music performed by FMA members and see the demo for the Sennheiser S1 Digital headset.

FMA performers will entertain on stage in the AeroShell tent daily, Thursday – Saturday – see the schedule: www.FlyingMusicians.org. John Zapp, co-founder of FMA, said, “Being invited to the first aviation event of the year is exciting and eclipsed only by the fact that this is FMA’s first Sport Pilot event.”

The Flying Musicians have created an atmosphere where enthusiasts of both aviation and music can converge to share their passions while enjoying a great aviation festival! So bring your love for music and flying, and have fun at the Sport Aviation Expo! Bring your instrument, too – the Flying Musicians always welcome fellow musicians at informal jam sessions, which can strike up anytime. Contact Mike Golas (Mike@FlyingMusicians.org), performer coordinator, if you would like to perform at this event or future events. To see opportunities look at the FMA Radar at www.FlyingMusicians.org.

About Sennheiser:
For 27 years, Sennheiser Aviation has supplied private and professional pilots with reliable, premium communication headsets. Sennheiser NoiseGard™ ANR leads in performance and comfort in the cockpit, ensuring clear communications and hearing protection. Today, the S1 Digital headset is the standard by which general aviation noise reduction and comfort are judged.
More: www.Sennheiser-Aviation.com

About the Flying Musicians Association:

The Flying Musicians Association, Inc. took off in 2009 by blending two passions: flying and music. The mission of the organization: “Pilot Musicians sharing their passion while encouraging and educating youth and adults in the science and art of aeronautics and music.” College chapters have begun to take flight around the country. See if your alma mater is listed; if not, let’s create one!

More: www.FlyingMusicians.org

22-23 Jan: 2nd Annual Sport Fly into the Bahamas

2012-01-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

Press Release

2nd Annual Sport Pilot Fly-in to the Bahamas
January 22 - 23, 2012 *

http://www.aviatorshotline.com/bahamas

Aviators Hot Line is hosting the 2nd Annual Sport Pilot Fly-in to the Bahamas. Participants will receive a commemorative t-shirt personalized with their N-number and aircraft manufacturer's emblem.

For those who are attending Sebring, there will be a noon briefing on January 22, at the Alan Jay Hangar on field at the Sport Aviation Expo.

After closing ceremonies, participants will fly out from Sebring (SEF) to Freeport Grand Bahamas (GBIA) to unwind for an evening filled with food, drink and fun!

Accommodations for the Fly-in will be provided by the Radisson, Grand Lucayan Resort so book your room early!

Pricing is as follows:

$197.59 - Single Occupancy (inclusion of room rate, room tax, hotel tax, airport fees and round trip transfers);

$117.20 per person - Double Occupancy (inclusion of room rate, room tax, hotel tax, airport fees and round trip transfers).

If you are interested in attending please use our online form; www.aviatorshotline.com/bahamas or call Penny at (515) 574-2220 with questions or assistance with registration.

There is fun to be had by all and we hope to see you there, because "It's better in the Bahamas!"

*For those not wanting to return home immediately, there is a group continuing onto the Stella Maris Resort on Long Island for two days of snorkeling, kayaking, bike riding and some breath taking flying! Anyone is welcome but reservations are required! To make reservations, please call (800) 426-0466 and mention that you are with the LSA Fly-in.

Banyan's Bahamas Expert Hotline: (954) 491-3170

http://www.banyanair.com/bahamas_travel_assistance.asp

Click on the link below to listen to Mike Z's "Fly to the Bahamas" video

http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/pvanspronsen-1217115-fly-to-the-bahamas-2011-12/

You can reach Mike Z directly at (813) 474-1337

Online Registration
http://www.aviatorshotline.com/bahamas

19 Jan, US Sport Aviatin Expo at Sebring Florida

2012-01-08T09:04:00.001-08:00

Press Release: 5th Annual LAMA Dinner: Open to Vendors and Associations of the Light Sport Aircraft Industry.

Where: AeroShell Hospitality Tent

When: Thursday, January 19, 2012
5:30 Beverage Service
6:00 Free lasagna dinner served buffet style
6:30 Rod Hightower Speaks

http://www.aviatorshotline.com/dinner

or contact:
Aviators Hot Line
Penny Lewis
Toll Free 800-247-2000 ext. 2220
Direct 515-574-2220
Email: penny@aviatorshotline.com

Librarians with bound magazine volumes, beware

2012-01-07T22:50:00.001-08:00

A few days ago, I went to my local library and started going through the first bound volume of Time Magazine that they had. I think they had Volume 3, running right through to present day.

I intended to go through each issue and make note of any women pilot news - or ads, etc., that were in there.

And each issue in that volume was missing a couple of pages, normally pages 22-23, but sometimes a different page.

At the time, I wondered if someone was stealing the sports section, if it had a photo of some old time ball player on it, like Lou Gehrig or something.

But now I think it's something different.

Now I'm wondering if someone wasn't stealing advertisements, in particular advertisements featuring women pilots.

I say this because today, I was making my daily search through Ebay with the search "woman pilot" and there were about 10 advertisements for sale. Women pilots advertising nail varnish, Camel cigaretts, sparkplugs and so on. And these ads were from the 20s, 30s and 40s.

Not the magazines, just the ads.

Now, I'd noticed that they'd done this before, and I'd thought, how stupid this was. Naturally no one was going to pay $12 for a one-page ad with out the magazine that it was supposed to be in!

But now I realize my mistake. I think these folks are ad thieves, and they actually go to libraries and tear these ads out of magazines, then trim the edges so it doesn't look like it came from a mag, and then they sell what they stole for a $10 or so profit on ebay!

Now, I don't know if they've all done this (I don't want them to sue me for calling them thieves - I have no proof. But it seems odd to me that these people would offer the ad, and not the magazine itself...unless for some reason they did not have the magazine, and what reason could that be?

Of course you have to blame this on Ebay, and on a new generation of seller - and buyer - who doesn't seem to realize that a magazine missing a page is worthless, and a single page torn out of a magazine is also worthless!

I'd love to buy the ad - in the magazine, to provide context - and eventually donate 'em all to the IWASM, but to buy just the ad itself? That would be encouraging them in their vandalism.

General Aviation Watch: Pompeo blasts Air Force for Hawker Beechcraft exclusion

2012-01-03T11:58:00.000-08:00

From KWCH.com: Pompeo blasts Air Force for Hawker Beechcraft exclusion
Hawker Beechcraft says it has learned that the U.S. Air Force has awareded the Light Air Support contract to Sierra Nevada Corporation and its Brazilian manufacturer Embraer.

Hawker says it still has not received any concrete word on why its Beechcraft AT-6 was excluded from the bidding process.

The LAS contract is valued at nearly a billion dollars.

Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo (KS-4) had this reaction to the news, “I am deeply disappointed by this announcement.

Several weeks ago, Hawker Beechcraft—the only American competitor—was eliminated from this important competition without explanation. Since then the Air Force has been secretive and evasive, leaving countless questions unanswered."

PR: Falcon Aviation Services : Gold Sponsor for the ABU DHABI AIR EXPO

2012-01-03T09:09:00.000-08:00

Abu Dhabi, January 3rd 2012: Falcon Aviation Services (FAS), the renowned private aviation company based at Al Bateen Executive Airport and established in 2006 by HH Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has become an official partner of the 1st General Aviation Exhibition in the Middle East: Abu Dhabi Air Expo.

Alongside its VIP stand, where it will host its clientele over the three-day exhibition, the company will present the event's expected 10,000 visitors with a range of their fleet which includes:

· 1 Embraer Lineage 1000
· 2 Legacy 600
· 1 Gulfstream 450
· 12 Bell 412EP
· 2 Bell 206L3
· 2 Agusta 109S
· 1 Agusta 109SP
· 1 Eurocopter AS365 N3
· 1 Eurocopter EC-135 HERMES
· 4 Eurocopter EC 130

“FAS are excited at the opportunity to display our fleet and to highlight our Services here in Abu Dhabi. We look forward to working with the team at Al Bateen and this Air Expo is a clear indication of the growth that the aviation sector is having in Abu Dhabi” said HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, FAS’ Chairman and CEO.

"We are delighted by the presence of Falcon Aviation Services which has lengthened the list of partners for the 1st General Aviation Exhibition in the Middle East," said Yousif Al Hammadi, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Air Expo.

"Not only has this very dynamic Gulf company offered us its support by becoming a Gold Sponsor, it will also enable visitors to discover all of the business aviation possibilities and services proposed by FAS thanks to the presentation of its VIP configured aircraft," he added.

Running from the 6th to the 8th of March 2012 at Al Bateen Executive Airport, the Abu Dhabi Air Expo is the only General Aviation Exhibition in the Middle East.

www.adairexpo.com

About Falcon Aviation Services (FAS)
Falcon Aviation Services was formed in early 2006 under the initiative of His Highness Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan with the prime objective of filling the significant gaps in the Aviation Market through the provision of innovative products and services. With its main operating base at Al Bateen Executive Airport, situated only 10km from the City Centre of Abu Dhabi, FAS is ideally located for Operators and Passengers alike. FAS are committed to delivering the highest level of aviation services that establish benchmark standards in terms of Safety, Quality and Customer Service.

The helicopter and corporate jet fleet offer a diverse range of capability, performance and comfort to satisfy every customer’s requirement. Technical Support: Falcon Aviation is currently increasing its capacity to deal with the rising demand for MRO services for VIP, VVIP, and executive jets in the UAE and Middle East region. Corporate / VIP : Falcon Aviation Services is answering the increasing demand of corporate travel market in UAE by offering customers a choice for a supreme air charter service. Asset Managment : Falcon Aviation Services offer complete turn key aircraft asset management services, handling all aspects of aircraft ownership, starting with aircraft selection, pre-purchase and insurance, through to entry-into-service and day to day operations to include scheduling, flight crews, on-going maintenance, marketing management, and, finally, sales and close-out.

About Al Bateen Executive Airport
Al Bateen Executive Airport is a dedicated business jet airport, the first of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region; conveniently located only a five kilometres from the central business district of Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital.
The downtown location of Al Bateen Executive Airport makes it ideal for users of business jets, whose time is valuable and who have a high-regard for the convenience that personalised jet travel can bring.

Breakaway: the History of Women in Aviation December 2011

2011-12-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

The December 2011 issue of Breakaway: History of Women in Aviation is now available for the Kindle *and* the Nook.

Link to December issue.
http://www.amazon.com/Breakaway-History-Aviation-December-ebook/dp/B006RWUBW2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1325389863&sr=1-1
and ToC
News
1. News Articles, December 1-31, 2011: Headlines Only
2. News Headlines and First 2 Paragraphs of each story, December 1-31, 2011

Articles
1. History of the Powder Puff Derby: The Second Race – 1948
2. Picture Books: Ruth Law Thrills a Nation and Soar, Elinor!
3. Book Reviews: No Visible Horizon: Surviving the World’s Most Dangerous Sport
* Index for No Visible Horizon
* Women Aerobatic Pilots Mentioned in No Visible Horizon

Appendices
1. Women Pilots: 1910 to 1918

November issue for the Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/Breakaway-History-Aviation-November-ebook/dp/B006KM9UFS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323595315&sr=1-1
Calendar
1. Aviation Calendar – January 2012

Articles
1. Vernice Armour: Accelerated Passion
2. Why I Am Not Afraid to Fly, by Katherine Stinson (1919)
3. History of The Powder Puff Derby: The First Race – 1947

News
1. News Articles, November 1-30, 2011: Headlines Only
2. News Headlines and Brief Synopsis of Articles, November 1-30, 2011

Appendices
1. Selected Museums Devoted to Women in Aviation

The Avenger field magazine, Vol 1 issue 3

2011-12-31T01:44:00.000-08:00

Sure wish I'd done my research first...

Found a copy of this on Ebay and spent $200 for it...

Then I did research and found that WingsAcrossAmerica - a WASP site - has scans of all issues of the Avenger field magazine, as well as something called the Fiffinella Gazette.

http://www.wingsacrossamerica.us/records_all/newsletter.htm

Scans available there are for:

First Edition: , February 10, 1943 The Fifinella Gazette
Second Edition, The Fifinella Gazette
Third Edition, April 1, 1943 The Fifinella Gazette
Fourth Edition, April 23, 1943, The Fifinella Gazette
Fifth Edition, May 24, 1943, The Fifinella Gazette
CADET'S LAST NEWSLETTER FROM AVENGER FIELD!

The Avenger. VOL 1, NO.1 May 11, 1943
The Avenger, VOL.1, NO. 2 June 28,1943
The Avenger, VOL 1, NO 3 July 26, 1943
The Avenger, VOL 1, NO 4 September 2, 1943
The Avenger, VOL 1, NO 5 October 22, 1943

The WASP trainee alphabet, by Mary Hart

2011-12-31T01:43:00.000-08:00

A is for Airplane a gadget designed

For scaring the student plumb out of her mind.

B is for Brakes on the same which is splendid,

But use them too sharp and you'll end up upended,

C is for Compass installed with much cost

In function best suited for getting you lost.

D is for Details you mustn't forget,

Like safety belt fastened or parking brake set.

E's Elevators affixed to the tail;

If not used in time nothing else will avail

F is for Flaps, which are tricky and fickle,

But without these addenda, you'd be in a pickle.

G's Gosports, which surely need no introduction;

They're for learning new cuss words' and other instruction

H is for Headwind, built in or external:

In violence unequalled, in purpose infernal

I is for Instruments--none of them care to

Tell you a thing--take their word if you dare to.

J is for Jolts which you get in the air

And the height that you had which is no longer there.

K is for Kicks which are aimed at the rudder;

The way these are given make a check pilot shudder.

L is for Looking and all of that drivel!

Rebuild your neck, pal, so's to make it full swivel!

M is for Motor; if it quits, you can bet you

De Lawd's on your side, for Green Pastures will get you,

N is for Nose which is always surprisin'

By never remaining upon the horizon

O is for Off, which is where for the switches

When, parked, or you'll hear from those strict sons of--Texas

P is for Pilot; that's you---on condition

You don't spin too low or not check your ignition.

Q is got questions -that need understanding---

Clean forgot by the time you have come in from landing

R is for Rudder, to use in each antic;

It drives airplanes sideways, the rest of us frantic.

S is for Slipstream to complicate matters

With torque, until everyone's mad as mad hatters.

T is for Throttle, controlling the go-juice;

Without this device trying to aviate's no use.

U is for Up, and the Upper the better;

For the higher you are the more spots you can set her.

V is Velocity; nothing can stop it;

Once you've too much, you must climb up to drop it.

W's Wobble-pump---use debatable

It aids most in making the starting quite hateable.

X marks the spot where the landing gear hit;

Three points was the aim but two points was what lit

Y is for yes which is all you can say

When the board says a check ride is headed your way.

Z is for zealous, our attitude truly

If held to the end we will graduate duly.

Only Eight Pilots Are Qualified to Land on This ‘Terrifying’ Runway

2011-12-30T23:08:00.000-08:00

From The Blaze/Yahoo News: Only Eight Pilots Are Qualified to Land on This ‘Terrifying’ Runway
There is a small airport in the Himalayan mountains with a 6,500-foot runway and picturesque surroundings. When flying into Paro Airport in Bhutan passengers may be staring in terrified awe of the 18,000-foot mountainous peaks or have their eyes squeezed tightly shut as the pilot weaves through the range.

But only eight pilots are qualified to fly into Paro. And up until earlier this year, only one airline serviced the airport. The Daily Mail reports that take off and landing can only take place in daylight hours:

The runway is just 6,500 feet long – one of the few in the world shorter than their elevation above sea level.

Planes have to weave through the dozens of houses that are scattered across the mountainside – coming within feet of clipping the roofs.

Strong winds whip through the valleys, often resulting in severe turbulence. Passengers who have been on flights to the airport have described the landing as ‘terrifying’.

Up until July, the Daily Mail reports, Druk Air was the only airline flying into the airport, which Boeing has said is “one of the world’s most difficult for takeoffs and landings.” Buddha Air also serves the facility, which takes in about 30,000 people each year.

In 2009, the airport was named by Travel Leisure the number 1 most dangerous airport in the world. Also making the list were the International Airport of Princess Juliana, St.Martin, Reagan National Airport, Washington DC, and Airport of Gibraltar.

WASP sites on the web

2011-12-30T22:48:00.000-08:00

There are a few websites about the WASP.

WASP Museums
There are two bricks and mortar WASP museums. One is at Avenger Field in Sweetwater Texas.
http://waspmuseum.org/
(I've been to this one.)

There were plans for a WASP museum in Quartzite, AZ but that does not appear to be going anywhere. (So it's not actually a bricks and mortar museum...)
http://waspmuseum.com/ (website not updated since 2010)

WASP Virtual Museums
http://wingsacrossamerica.us/wings/

Wings Across America is dedicated to preserving the history of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII and making sure it is included as an exciting motivational educational resource in classrooms across America and into the next century.

HOW? By giving each and every WASP the opportunity to share her own eyewitness account of her service to her country in the privacy and comfort of her own home. Each and every story is important and focuses on her entire life. Interviews are shot by professional videographers on digital video tape, using professional lighting and audio equipment.
Once these stories are captured as broadcast quality video,the footage will be digitized, along with personal photographs and documents. These will all be edited onto individual WASP Web pages for each and every WASP. Once this content is captured and digitized, EVERYTHING is possible, including kiosks at the Air Force Academy, Air Force Museum, National WASP WWII Museum, and Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.

http://wwii-women-pilots.org/
Andy's WASP web pages

Texas Woman's University WASP holdings
http://www.twu.edu/library/wasp.asp

Former female WWII pilot takes to the skies again

2011-12-29T01:57:00.000-08:00

From SunSentinel.com: Former female WWII pilot takes to the skies again
Every person is filled with stories, and for Tex Meachem, the roar of a propeller is one that tells hers.

The 93-year-old woman lives in John Knox Village in Pompano Beach and her home shows hints of her past: a teddy bear dressed as a pilot, old photographs of her in a jump suit. While men were shipped overseas to fight in World War II, the women held down the fort back home. Meachem was one of a handful of women who pioneered the skies as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.

Just last year, she was still able to fly a plane. However, her story begins in Central Florida. Born Tex Brown in 1918, Meachem grew up in Winter Gardens and was not the typical girl from the start.

"My mother was a remarkable woman. All my life she told me I could do anything I wanted to do if I was willing to work for it," she said.

Meachem studied physics in high school – a class reserved for boys. She attended Florida State College for Women, now Florida State University, and studied economics and accounting. One of her professors was the only female CPA in Florida and Meachem aspired to be the second. After graduation, her first job was at the Winter Gardens Citrus Exchange, where she was the only woman employee.

"Their whole attitude toward me was 'Isn't she cute.' I was miserable. I was so smart," she remembered.

After other jobs and attending summer school, Meachem worked as a secretary at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Living with three other women, they often took the bus down to Daytona Beach, a three-hour ride. One of her roommates suggested something that seemed crazy: why don't we get our civilian piloting license? On top of that, if they joined a club nearby, they could rent the planes for half the price.

"I knew absolutely nothing about planes; I'd never even been up in one. We went up and it was awe inspiring. It was wonderful," she remembered of her first trip in the air.

With their licenses in hand, the women took multiple trips to Daytona Beach by plane. Eventually, Meachem was offered a job at the Civil Air Patrol in Sarasota as a bookkeeper. She only agreed to it if she would be able to fly while she worked there. It was a deal.

For the next nine months, she flew over the Gulf of Mexico searching for German submarines, as it was a fear at the time. While she never found any, it led her to the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs.

"It was very hush hush at that time," she said. "The idea was for us to take the exact same course, except combat maneuvers, that the boys did. We would not be able to leave the country, but [what] we did was relieve the men to go overseas and we would take stateside duties."

Meachem began training in May 1942 in Sweetwater, Texas and graduated the next year in a class of 59 women – she later found out that 64 women passed the course, but they couldn't have a higher graduation rate than the men, so five graduates were cut. She still has a letter from her mother, who never cursed, telling her to, "Be the best damn pilot in the Air Force!"

She was assigned to Hondo Air Base in San Antonio. When the women arrived, the men were shocked to see them on the base and didn't have a place for them to stay the first night. The next morning in the dining room, all eyes were on them. One of them was a navigational officer, who Meachem ended up marrying.

While a pilot, the women were encouraged to fix their hair and lipstick while the planes were taxing on the tarmac. Also, they were told to return salutes but never initiate them. On her first assignment, she flew navigation students on their missions, who then got bombers and set up mock navigation stations on the ship.

"We flew and the instructors sat in the copilot seat and he would get the first student to give him flight directions for going somewhere, and then they gave them to me. I was to follow those as long as possible. I was supposed to wait for the copilot to abort if it looked dangerous, but a couple of times I beat him to it," she laughed.

She flew other missions around the country, mainly moving planes and people where they needed for the war effort. However, the military and Congress disbanded WASP in 1944 after deciding it was too costly to keep up with.

"In essence they told us to go home and stay barefoot and pregnant," Meachem said.

Although she was no longer needed as a pilot, she couldn't stay out of the skies. She had a cousin who repaired antique planes and got a chance to fly when she visited. In the time she was in a plane, she felt at ease and doing what she loved.

In 1977, the United States finally recognized the WASPs as members of the military by giving them an honorable discharge. In 2010, about 200 of the surviving female pilots were given the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington, D.C.

However, with such an expensive passion, 50 years went by without her sitting in the cockpit. Every time she was on a commercial plane, she would ask to speak to the pilots and talk shop. To her surprise, she finally met a female pilot onboard.

Last year, through the nonprofit History of Flight in Marathon, Meachem got a chance to fly a plane again out of Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. She chose to go up in an AT-6 and do some aerobatics with a pilot. The mayor of Broward County, her sisters at the Red Hat Society, family and friends all attended a special ceremony. A male chorus sang the Air Force song, rewording it to incorporate her name, including "there she goes into the wild blue yonder…"

Sitting in the plane with another pilot, they flew over the Everglades and did flips and turns. For a time, she took control of the plane, which she said was like riding a bicycle.

"You're so free up there, especially when you're flying alone; nothing to distract you or anything," she said.

IAF Touts Female Flight Schools Grads

2011-12-28T19:53:00.000-08:00

From Israel National News: IAF Touts Female Flight Schools Grads

The commissioning ceremony for graduates of the IDF pilot's course was held on Tuesday at the IAF base in Hatzarim.

The course concludes three years of officer's training, flight training, and results in both an IDF officer's commission and an academic degree from Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

Graduates will go on to specialized flight training for the specific roles they will fill in the IAF. This years class includes five female graduates, the highest number to graduate at one time.

Commanders touted the women graduates as "definitive proof" Israel is a democratic and civilized society.

"Today five warriors who complete the course represent all women serving in the IDF," Brigadier General Ziv, who commands the Hatzarim base, said. "They are definitive and unshakable proof of the status in democratic and civilized society."

"They are independent and powerful with equal duties and rights, an example to all. Men and women warriors, we salute you today with satisfaction and great pride in our fighters," he added.

The five female graduates, however, are not the first women to serve in the IAF as pilots. Israel's first female military pilot was Rachel Markovski, who earned her pilot’s license in 1940.

In 1949 Israel's law was amended to state that equality would be maintained in the IDF except in such cases where physical requirements required restrictions be imposed – leaving some 92% of roles in the IDF open to women.

The IAF flight school has been formally co-ed since 1995 and graduated its first female fighter pilot in 2001.

Despite claims in Israel’s media to the contrary women who wish to serve in combat roles have numerous paths they can follow, including air-medical technicians in the IAF's elite Unit 669, Surface to Air Missile (SAM) operators, Combat Engineers, the Atomic Biological Chemical (ABC) unit, Light infantry (Karakal) on the Egyptian border, Military Police (Sachlav), the IDF's elite MAGAV-SAMAG undercover commando unit, Naval officers, and the border observation element Unit 869.

Woman also fill almost all instructor positions in the IDF.

The pilot graduates will formally receive their wings at a ceremony on Thursday that will be attended by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, and IAF Commander Maj. Gen. Ido Nechushtan.

Hangar Hash: Prop Wash (Holiday Punch)

2011-12-28T01:54:00.000-08:00

Holiday Punch

1 liter Tahitian Treat
1 liter ginger ale
1 quart pineapple juice
1/2 gallon lime or raspberry sherbert (or ice)

Scoop sherbet or ice into punch bowl, then pour the remaining ingredients over it.

Recipe by Shenelle Ham

Beyond the bus

2011-12-28T01:04:00.000-08:00

An interesting article on how all fundamentalist religions exclude women - not just Islam...

From Haaretz: Beyond the bus

Israel hasn't seen a consensus like this on women's rights in a long time. It's only been a few weeks since the phrase "exclusion of women" became a staple of the news pages, and already it's become a catchphrase that calls to mind associations like ultra-Orthodox extremism, religious coercion, the slogan "Iran is here," oppression of women and fear of further escalation.

On the streets, on the Internet, in the media, on university campuses, in the Knesset and in the government, Israelis are protesting the exclusion of women by the ultra-Orthodox. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch have condemned the phenomenon, and last week Kadima jumped on the bandwagon - or should we say on the bus? - with a campaign it is calling "Women in Front: Saying No to the Exclusion of Women."
gender segregation, women discrimination

Women’s right activists. 'Secular society also tends to see women as sex objects,' says a rape crisis center volunteer.
Photo by: Daniel Bar-On

It almost seems as if the exclusion of women were a specifically ultra-Orthodox hang-up, that in Israel, full equality exists between the sexes, threatened only by sex-segregated bus lines. But many of the women protesting the discrimination reject Netanyahu's statement that it is a "limited phenomenon that does not reflect the entire population," and say the fight against Haredi discrimination should be just the beginning.

"On my way to an accountants conference in Jerusalem I passed through the city's neighborhoods full of Hanukkah celebrations and looked for excluded women," Stav Shaffir, one of the leaders of this summer's social protests, wrote on her Facebook page. "I saw no sign of segregation on public transit. It was only when I reached the conference itself that I discovered the true exclusion. In the [conference] hall there was one woman for every 10 men. And on the panel? One woman (myself ) and four men. When we speak of free day care, we must not forget that its objective is not only to reduce social inequality or lessen the financial burden on young families. It is also to allow women to work where they please, and as long as they choose, and to receive maximum support for doing so."

Shaffir's comment is a reminder of a reality of which many of the women leading the protests are already well aware. The "true exclusion," as Shaffir calls it, is in the law and the economic and social structure, not least in its most liberal outposts. While the country was in a frenzy over Israel Defense Forces soldiers walking out of military events featuring female singers, two theory and criticism periodicals identified with the radical left published issues that did not include a single article written by a woman. Not many were bothered by this.

Yet the demonstrations against the most visible forms of discrimination against women - like sex-segregated buses geared toward the ultra-Orthodox, the elimination of women from outdoor advertising campaigns in Jerusalem for fear of angering the ultra-Orthodox, and ultra-Orthodox attacks on the students and chaperones of a religious (but non-Haredi ) girls school in Beit Shemesh - pave the way for a struggle against the "true exclusion."

"The struggle against the exclusion of women has gained public legitimacy," said Hadar Shemesh, 31, from Tel Aviv, who organized rotations of women to ride in the front of sex-segregated buses. "Because it is against the ultra-Orthodox, it is very easy for everyone to say, 'They're the ones who are excluding women, not us.'"

And it is easier to protest such tangible exclusion, said Shemesh. "It is a physical struggle that can focus on direct action, whereas fighting against male domination in the theater and the press is much harder," she said. Shemesh hopes that "if there is consistent collaboration among women over a long time, we'll be able to take the struggle one step forward. We need to address ultra-Orthodox exclusion, but just as a basis for something much broader."
Change begins with anger

Kadima's campaign is directed against the Haredi exclusion of women and what is perceived to be the growing extremism in Israeli values in general. Kadima chairwoman Tzipi Livni said the struggle is not just against the ultra-Orthodox.

"For many years women have been fighting for their place in politics, in the army, and in centers of decision-making," said the opposition leader. "Suddenly, in recent years, after there is no longer a need for the High Court of Justice to settle cases like the [1995] Alice Miller case so that women can apply for pilot training courses and serve with distinction in army units, an opposite development has been taking place. It begins in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and moves to secular ones, all with public funding."

Livni said she did not enter politics with a feminist agenda. "Things that seemed obvious when I was young, for example that women should not serve in certain units, began to seem warped only at a later stage in my life," she said. The election campaign sharpened her vision. "When people said 'It's too much for her' and tried to belittle me, many women became angry, and anger is the beginning of struggle and change. Even if I didn't mean it, it suddenly happened."

College students have also been looking to bring gender discrimination to people's attention, and have received assistance from the Knesset Caucus for Equality between the Sexes and Unico Israel, a group that advocates for gender equality on campus.

"Throughout the year we receive complaints regarding equality, from both women and men, whose long-term results are in fact exclusion of women from the academic sphere," said Unico representative Lirit Gruber. Now that discrimination against women has suddenly become a popular cause, Gruber said there is a "certain feeling of consensus which was perhaps foreign to the feminist sphere over the years."

"I myself believe in collaboration between men and women, based on the belief that equality is a common interest that we should all promote," she said. "The subject that has now come to the foreground encourages collaboration, and I would like to see in it a beginning of collaboration, or a further step in collaboration, and from there go on to address all the disparities."

Last week, Rabbi Menachem Froman, a West Bank religious leader who promotes interfaith dialogue with Palestinians, told Haaretz correspondent Yair Ettinger: "This goes way beyond women's singing ... Secular people ask religious ones, 'Do you see nothing but the sexual aspect of a woman's singing? Why can't you see a woman as a human being?'"

But for Hadas Svirsky, a 29-year-old clinical psychology student who volunteers at a rape crisis center, the ultra-Orthodox conception of women as temptresses is not that different from the pornographic representations that abound in secular society.

"It's the other side of the coin," said Svirsky. "Secular society also tends to see women as sex objects. So it's infuriating to hear the reactions of the prime minister and politicians, who on the one hand are responsible for trampling women's rights and, on the other hand, call exclusion a limited phenomenon that they utterly oppose."

"I think it is important to understand that this is a protest against patriarchal oppression and not against the ultra-Orthodox," she said. "It is no mere coincidence that the ultra-Orthodox exclusion has made its way into the secular public sphere. If we focus the fight on the ultra-Orthodox alone, we're liable to forget that women are excluded from all public arenas."

More Info On Sponsorship for the Air Race Classic

2011-12-27T20:48:00.000-08:00

The director of the Air Race Classic left a comment on my post about sponsorship for the race, clarifying the fact that people can be sponsors for as little as $25.

Here's the comment:

We can certainly use all available hands. But I would like to add a comment about sponsoring the race: Sponsorship does not entail thousands of dollars. We have sponsors for $25 on up and we have many who sponsor the race by making a donation item to our annual silent auction. All of the proceeds raised during the silent auction go to support our youth outreach activities and the continuation of the Air Race Classic so ALL can be supporters and sponsors. Please feel free to contact me about sponsorships, silent auction donations or lending a hand at info@airraceclassic.org. Thank you, Terry Carbonell, Secretary/Director, Air Race Classic, Inc.

Hangar Hash: Prop Wash (Golden Punch)

2011-12-25T01:35:00.000-08:00

Golden Punch
Combine in a blender:

12 bananas
Thaw and add:
1 12-ounce can lemonade
2 12-ounce cans orange juice

Blend until smooth

Mix in large bowl 2 46-ounce cans of pineapple juice, 6 cups of water, 4 cups of sugar.

Add the banana mixture and mix well.

Pour in plastic cartons and freeze.

TO serve, thaw until slushy (just enough to get them out of the containers).

Add 4 bottles (2 liters) of chilled Sprite.

(Halve recipe if necessary.)

Recipe by Marilyn Stowe

Naval aviator creates a rumble during a trip home to Lexington

2011-12-25T01:33:00.000-08:00

From Kentucky.com: Naval aviator creates a rumble during a trip home to Lexington
The rumble that rattled windows across Lexington on Friday and Sunday was not Santa doing a test run of some really souped-up reindeer.

It was Lt. Laura Combs, 25, a naval flight officer who grew up in Lexington and is one of an elite group of women in naval aviation. She was navigating an EA-18G Growler, a new plane that jams enemy radar.

Combs flew home with Lt. Cmdr. Robert Scott, a pilot from Virginia Beach, Va.

Flight crews are allotted a number of flight hours each month. She and Scott had some unused hours and were allowed to make the quick trip to Lexington from her base in Whidbey Island, Wash., Combs said. Combs attended Lexington Traditional Magnet School and Tates Creek High School before going to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., from which she graduated in 2008.

Women like Combs make up a small percentage of naval fliers. Her female colleagues are "really smart, really nice. ... We get the exact same training as the guys. No difference," Combs said, noting that one other woman is in her squadron.

Although women are increasingly a part of the Navy, only about 6.5 percent of the Navy's aviators are females, said Steve Fiebing, deputy public affairs officer.

"When you add all of the Navy's female aviators together, the total female population grows to over 800 that fly across all aviation platforms," Fiebing said.

Fiebing said Combs' squadron was the first to transition from the EA-6B Prowler to the newer EA-18G Growler, and Combs was one of the first women assigned to the Growler after flight school.

As of June, about 235 women are navigators like Combs. Even smaller is the number of women who fly in planes similar to Combs'. The EA-6B Prowler and the EA-18G Growler crews have 45 female aviators.

Currently, two women are pilots in either a Prowler or a Growler.

Combs' fascination with aviation began at home. Her father, Jim Combs, is a pilot. Combs' mother, Susan, said they used to fly together as a family.

Laura Combs said she "knew since early middle school" that she wanted to fly. Her mother recalled an experience at Lexington Traditional Magnet School that fed her daughter's drive to fly. While Laura Combs was an LTMS student, astronaut Story Musgrave, a Kentuckian, spoke at the school and lit "the fire underneath" her daughter.

"I could fly by myself before I could drive by myself," Laura Combs said.

Combs' early training began at the Georgetown airport with former Air Force pilot Joe Polsgrove, then continued with Jim Poe, also in Georgetown.

The plane she's flying now is part of the Navy's "electronic attack" fleet. The job of the plane, according to Combs, is to jam radar. The plane is armed, but the weapons are defensive. "We don't shoot first, but we are trained to do both," she said, referring to jamming radar and shooting.

Combs' primary responsibility is to tell the pilot, "'Fly this way, fly that way.' I'll talk on the radio full-time."

She expects to find out in January where she will be assigned next.

It is "definitely a male-dominated career," Combs said, but she has found her place in the Navy, flying planes that go really fast. The Growler's ground speed to Lexington was about 520 knots, roughly 598 mph.

Flight time was Santa-speed: 41/2 hours to Lexington, six hours back. Tail winds made the trip to Lexington faster than the return trip to Washington. Combs' arrival and departure coincided with loud noises some residents reported hearing.

Said Combs' mother, Susan: "She's very focused on where she is right now. ... We're very proud of her. As always, go Navy."

Help with the Air Race Classic, June 19-22, 2012

2011-12-24T08:28:00.000-08:00

I received this email today... the sponsorship packages mentioned in the press release aren't enclosed - but you can see them by visiting their website.

Most of us can't be sponsors, but we can certainly be volunteers...

airraceclassic.org

Dear Potential Air Race Classic Sponsor,

The 36h annual Air Race Classic (ARC), an all-women transcontinental air race, takes place June 19 -22, 2012. Close to one hundred women will start the race in Lake Havasu City, AZ and fly more than 2,000 miles to Batavia, OH.

The first Women's Air Derby, raced in 1929, was referred to by Will Rogers as the “Powder Puff Derby.” It captured the nation’s attention then and today the ARC continues that energy. We invite you to join us. Be an ARC sponsor.

Race teams consist of at least two female pilots. Teams have four days to complete the cross-country course, flying under FAA visual flight rules. Skilled pilots, ranging in age from eighteen to ninety from across the United States and internationally (Canada, England, Germany, Malaysia and New Zealand), attract attention as they fly across the country. A wide variety of careers, backgrounds and universities are represented in their numbers. Their professionalism encourages women and young girls to strive for success in aviation and other non-traditional endeavors. Through outreach programs and the media, these women touch and inspire thousands along the way.

The ARC is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that depends on your support, tax-deductible donations and a network of volunteers. Organizations such as the local Chamber of Commerce, the Ninety-Nines Inc. (international organization of women pilots), Zonta, Women in Aviation, Intl. (WAI), Civil Air Patrol (CAP), Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), local flying clubs, airport employees, local businesses and interested citizens are just some of the groups that lend their support.

Your donations will assist ARC in its mission to encourage and educate women pilots, to increase public awareness of general aviation and women’s roles in aviation, and to preserve and promote the tradition of pioneering women in aviation.

To “Catch the Excitement” and be a part of this event, we urge you to take advantage of one of the many sponsorship opportunities.

Enclosed are an ARC sponsorship list and a brochure outlining specific opportunities and benefits for you or your organization. We look forward to working with you to make this race and future races a success. [Go to the website to see these.]

Thank you for your support of the Air Race Classic.

Hangar Hash: Prop Wash (Deep Freeze Daiquiries)

2011-12-24T08:17:00.000-08:00

Deep Freeze Daiquiries
2 6-ounce cans frozen pink lemonade
1 6-ounce can froze limeade
1 750-ml bottle light rum
6 lemonade cans of water

Mix all ingredients. Store in glass jar in deep freeze for 8 to 12 hours before serving. Mixture should be icy. Any unused portion can be refrozen. This will never freeze solid. Pink lemonade can be substituted for one 10 oz package frozen strawberries [I think she means, frozen strawberries can be substituted for the pink lemonade]. For a tart taste, add juice of two lemons.

Makes 2 quarts or serves 20-25 people.

Recipe by Jean Wallace

Hangar Hash: Prop Wash (Champagne Sherbert Punch)

2011-12-23T00:34:00.000-08:00

Champagne Sherbert Punch
3 cups chilled pineapple juice
1 quart pineapple sherbert
1/4 cup lemon juice from concentrate
1 750-millilitre bottle chilled champagne

Combine pineapple and lemon juice. Just before serving, add sherbert and champagne. Stir gently. Makes 2 and a half quarts. For rosy punch, use raspberry sherbet and pink champagne.

Recipe by Leesa Oakes

Hangar Hash: Prop Wash (Champagne Punch)

2011-12-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

4 bottles champagne
2 bottles ginger ale
1 bottle wine (1/2 gallon)
2 ounce triple sec

There are no directions given. Presumably you pour everything into a gigantic punch bowl and mix it all together?

recipe by Kay Newth

PPDVM: 1968 Derby Cigarette Lighter

2011-12-21T10:04:00.001-08:00

Recently offered at Ebay (and I missed out on it because, even to "snipe" a bid for a PPD item, there's no way I get up at 7:30 am!)

Sadly, I don't think the purchaser was really interested in Powder Puff Derby memorabilia, but rather just "Tobacciana".

Armstrong Floor Wax was a race sponsor. One one side of the lighter is an ad for Armstrong one-step floor wax, on the other side, that race's theme: For women with more exciting things to do than scrub floors."

The lighter is a Scripto-Vu lighter.

Hangar Hash: Prop Wash (Cafe Con Leche)

2011-12-21T00:24:00.000-08:00

Cafe Con Leche
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons water
6 whole cloves
1 2 inch stick cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamon
Pinch of salt
6 cups strong, hot coffee
2 cups half-and-half

Combine all the ingredients, except the coffee and the half-and-half, in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

Add the mixture to the hot coffee, cover and let steep for 15 minutes. Strain into a serving pot.

Heat the half-and-half (do not boil) and stir into coffee mixture. Serve hot.

Recipe by Shanelle Ham

Hangar Hash: Prop Wash (Amaretto Smoothie)

2011-12-20T12:12:00.000-08:00

I picked up a copy of Hangar Hash *Eating Your Way TO an Aft C.G.* cookbook on Ebay. It's a cook book - or more accurately a cook booklet (a GBC-bound collection of index cards), put together by the Arkansas 99s. Indeed, the descriptive title is "Flight Tested Recipes of Arkansas 99s".

There's no copyright or copyright date, but at the back of the book is a list of the chapter's officers for June 1989-May 19990.

Chairman: Marilyn Stowe
Vice-Chairman: Jean Wallace
Secretary: Shanelle Ham
Treasurer: Emmy Hall

The booklet is divided into:

Beverages (Prop Wash)
Appetizers (Jump Starts)
Breads (Aileron Rolls)
Salads (Ground Loops)
Main Dishes (Full Throttle)
Vegetables (Grass Strip)
Desserts (Weight & Balance)

I thought I'd share a recipe a day (some are more complex than others)

Amaretto Smoothie
2 large scoops vanilla ice cream
1 oz brandy
1 oz amaretto

Blend in blender at low speed until smooth and serve in brandy snifter.

Recipe by Shanelle Ham

Index for No Visible Horizon, by Joshua Cooper Ramo

2011-12-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

I've reviewed No Visible Horizon: Surviving the World's Most Dangerous Sport, by Joshua Cooper Ramo, on aerobatics, in the December edition of Breakaway: The History of Women in Aviation.

The book has no index, and non-fiction books without indexes always annoy me. So I put together an index for it, and share it below. (The index is from the paperback edition.)

Abruzzo, Ben (balloonist) death of– 197
Aderson, Jerry – 39
Andeson, Maxie (balloonist), death of – 197
Aresti, Jose – 83-85, 181
Armstrong, Robert – 139-151, 189, 190, 191
Beggs, Gene – 166
Boriak, Sergei – 19-20, 23, 23, 35, – 58, 81, 139, 178-179, 208, 209, 210-212, 213, 214-219, 221, 222, 223, 265
Bush, Alan – 58-63, 95, 182, 199, 200, 208, 247, 249, 256, 257
Chambliss, Kelly (wife of Kirby) – 44, 199
Chambliss, Kirby – 27-48, 159, 191, 247, 249, 258
Chemal, Victor -- 35 (Hungarian)
Bessier , Coco – 186
Coile, Brantley – 144-146
Cole, Duane – 39
Csikszentmihakyi, Mihaly – 127, 129, 133
De Kooning – 269
Delacerda, Fred – 134
A Description of Stimulus-Seeking in Sport According to Flow Theory (thesis) – 117
Donner, Paul – 106
Doolittle, Jimmy ( first outside loop, 1931) – 68
Dussau, Eddy – 185-186, 189, 191
Extra, Walt – 160-163, 178, 224
Faberow, Norman, author of The Many Faces of Suicide – 121
Farley, Frank (researcher) – 131
Frasca, Joe (death of) – 97
Freud, Sigmund – 121
Gagne, Randy (death)- 218
Hadden, Ken (death of)- 168
Head, Harry (neurologist) – 235
Herendeen, Bob – 32
Hillard, Charlie – 32, (death of) – 228
Hucks, Bentfield – 159
Jim (?)– 208, 209
Julie (?) - 199
Kapanina, Svetlana – 187-188
Kayris, Jurgis – 30, 81, 266
Keith – 208, 219
Knight, Phil – 58, 227-241, 250, 251, 254
Krier, Hal – 32
L’Apperant, Xavier – 182
Lisa (?)– 222, 223-224
Lomcovak (aerobatic maneuver) – 82, 160
Loudenslager, Leo (Died on motorcycle, 76) – 67-76, 159, 175, 176
Mamistov, Mikhail – 186-187
Martin, David – 58, 105-106, 175-191, 199, 247, 249, 258
Martin, Martha – 176, 178, 199
Masagee, Rick (death of) – 168
McHenry, Clint – 71, 74, 96, 97
Muller, Erich (Swiss champion) – 166, 220
Muller-Beggs maneuver – 166
Nagy, John (death of) – 108, 110, 111
Nesterov (first loop in Kiev, 1913) – 68
Novak, Frantisek – 77
Ogilvie, B. C. (psychiatrist) – 120-121, 134
Paris, Patrick (World Aerobatic Champion 1998 ) – 70, 184, 185
Pitts, Curtiss – 163
Pool, C. C – 134
Price, Celesta -80
Price, Frank – 79-87, 91, 97
Proger, Janice – 117-118, 119, 129, 130
Rihn-Harvey, Debby – 188
Ritchie, Margaret (Aerobatic pilot, died flying prototype) – 72
Romen, Alexander (sports psychologist) – 187
Saint-Exupery, Antoine de – 120, 203
Scoop (?), Julie’s husband – 199
Stahalik, Martin – 31
Stewart, Betty – 75
Stewart, Leo – 75
Tolson, Hubie – 208, 218
Von Hagenburg, Graf – 77
Wagstaff, Patty- 188
Williams, Neil – 12, 13-14 (death of, 14)

Airports
Borki Field – 186
Clarence Page Airport – 207
Double Eagle Airport – 197
Eloy Airport – 46
Hollywood North Perry Airport – 51
McCaw Field – 233
Wiley Post Airport – 208

Planes (all plane types grouped together, regardless of model number)
Acro – 72
Beech Bonanza – 144
Blierot monoplane – 139
Bucher-Jungmeister – 159, 177
CAP (French) – 36, 146, 147, 149, 232 – 183
Cessna Citation – 38
Decathlon– 39
Dewtoitine – 139
Edge– 30, 31, 36, 41, 101, 102, 159
Extra – 60, 63, 95, 178, 218, 221, 227, 251
F-16 – 41, 58, 177
Kazakh – 178
Laser – 67, 73, 176
Mermoz – 203
Morane-Saulnier – 139
Piper Cub – 58
Pitts – 61, 63, 101, 146, 149
Sea Fury – 228
Sukhoi – 20, 36, 101, 156, 168, 186, 208, 216
Velox – 249
Yak(ovlevs) – 30, 216
Zlin – 12, 30, 82, 108, 160, 226

Henry Holden's Women aviator profiles for the Kindle

2011-12-16T12:33:00.000-08:00

Henry Holden has uploaded several pilot profiles to the Kindle and Nook. They are not full-sized books, but rather ... pamphlet size. Hoever they prrovide excellent info in the pilot concerned.

Henry M. Holden, from his author page on Barnes & Noble Nook:

In 1994, Mr. Holden was cited in the United States Congressional Record for his work in recording the history of American women in aviation, and was the recipient of the Author's Award from the New Jersey Institute of Technology for his book Her Mentor Was An Albatross - The Autobiography of Pioneer Pilot Harriet Quimby.

In 1996, he launched the Women in Aviation Resource Center, an online repository of educational, historical, and networking resources for women interested in all aspects of aviation. In 2010 Henry was awarded the New Jersey Aviation Hall of Fame Distinguished Service Award.

He is the author of over 900 magazine and newspaper articles appearing in national magazines such as Private Pilot, Plane & Pilot, Airport Journals, World Airnews, USAir, In-Flight-USA, American Aviation Historical Society's Journal, Women in Aviation, Woman Pilot, Airport Press and Aviation History, Vintage Airplane, Warbirds, Sport Aviation, and Upscale Living Magazine. He has been a commentator on the History Channel, and has published 39 books.

The original founder of the DC-3/Dakota Historical Society, Henry is a member of the Aviation Hall of Fame (New Jersey), Women in Aviation International, AOPA, and EAA.

Mr. Holden speaks at various events around the country and is available as a guest lecturer. His work has been the subject of a number of radio and cable television shows in New Jersey, Georgia, Oregon, and Washington State.

Henry Holden is formerly the News Editor East for Airport Journals and was a regular monthly contributor to the paper.

http://www.henrymholden.com/
http://www.women-in-aviation.com/

Books
Ladybirds - The Untold Story of Women Pilots in America - only $4.99
Her Mentor was an Albatross (Women in Aviation) - only $4.99
Great Women in Aviation - Seven biographies of women who broke with convention, refused to give up, and defied the odds. - only $2.99
Great Women in Aviation Part 2 (Great Women in Aviation #2 - Florence "Pancho" Barnes, Bessie Coleman, Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout, Capt. Bonnie Tiburzi, Ruth Nichols,) - $2.99
Great Women in Aviation #3 - Seven biographies of women who broke with convention, refused to give up, and defied the odds - $2.99

Profiles (about 5,000 words each)
Great Women in Aviation #1 - Patty Wagstaff World Aerobatic Champion - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #1 - Geraldine Mock - Round the World Record Setter - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #1 - Mercury 13 - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #1 - Women Airforce Service Pilots - WASP - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #1 - Amelia Earhart - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #1 - Betty Skelton First Lady of Firsts (Women in Aviiation) - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #2 - Dr. Peggy Chabrian
Great Women in Aviation #2 - Florence Lowe "Pancho" Barnes - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #2 - Bessie Coleman
Great Women in Aviation #2 - Ruth Rowland Nichols - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #2 - Capt. Bonnie Tiburzi - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #2 - Evelyn "Bobbi" Trout
Great Women in Aviation #2 - Janet Harmon Waterford Bragg - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #3 - Harriet Quimby - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #3 Amy Johnson - the First Woman to Fly Solo to England - Australia - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #3 - Jean Ross Howard - Founder of the Whirly-Girls - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #3 - Beryl Markham First Person to Fly Solo London to North America [cover illustration shows actress Stephanie Powers!)
Great Women in Aviation #3 - Anne Morrow Lindbergh - 99 cents
Great Women in Aviation #3 - Dr. Sally Ride - First American Woman in Space - 99 cents

Amelia EarhartWhat Really Happened to Amelia? (Great Women in Aviation)
Great Women in Aviation #3 - Amelia Earhart - Lost and Found?

PR: Sennheiser Aviation joins the Flying Musicians Association

2011-12-16T02:56:00.001-08:00

December 16, 2012: Fort Worth, TX: The Flying Musicians Association is proud to announce that Sennheiser Aviation has decided to become the organization’s newest Corporate Member, for the 2012 season.

The relationship goes back to the founding of the 501(c)3 organization; Sennheiser’s booth at Oshkosh and other venues for the past couple years has featured live music by the FMA membership.

David Dunlap, Director Sennheiser Aviation, said, “Sennheiser Aviation supports the Flying Musicians Association because we too believe in sharing our passion for aviation and music -– two different endeavors that both provide creative outlets to their practitioners, while requiring commitment to excellence and high quality audio performance.”

John Zapp, co-founder of FMA, said, “Sennheiser Aviation has been with us from the beginning. We treasure their support and friendship, and we are absolutely delighted to welcome their support.”

In addition to AirVenture Oshkosh, FMA members provided live music at venues across the country in the past year: Sun ’n Fun, MerleFest, AirVenture, DFW Aviation & Transportation Career Expo, AOPA Aviation Summit, and the pilot career conferences and job fairs put on by FltOps at FTW (Fort Worth), ORD (Chicago), LAX (Los Angeles) and EWR (Newark) and MCO (Orlando).

“Next year, we plan to build on these events, and expand our schedule to more events – both musical and aviation-oriented,” said Zapp. “Sennheiser Aviation’s support goes a long way toward being able to realize that goal.” The FMA’s first public appearance of 2012 will be staged at the Sebring (FL) Sport Aviation Expo, January 19-22.

Cleveland, OH: Talk to an Astronaut on Jan 3rd

2011-12-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

Join the International Women's Air and Space Museum (located at Burke Airport in Cleveland, Ohio) in partnership with NASA Glenn Research Center, on Tuesday, January 3, 2012, at 7:00pm, for a special presentation by Astronaut Catherine "Cady" Coleman.

This past May, Coleman returned home after 159 days aboard the International Space Station, as a member of the Expedition 26 crew. In addition, Cady was a mission specialist on STS-73 and was lead mission specialist on STS-93 for the deployment of the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Following the presentation, Cady will be available for a brief autograph session. The event is free and open to the public. A reservation is required to attend the event. Please RSVP at 216-623-1111. Seating is limited.

DATE: 1/3/2012
TIME: 7:00pm-8:30pm
LOCATION: International Women's Air & Space Museum
MORE: Autograph session begins promptly at 8:00pm
RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED FOR THIS FREE EVENT
Call 216-623-1111 to reserve your seat today!

PPD VM: 25th Jubilee Cachet

2011-12-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

PPD VM = Powder Puff Derby Virtual Museum

The 25th Anniversary Jubilee Cachets were flown from Calgary to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and time stamped at each location.

Texas woman recalls early days as military pilot

2011-12-14T21:25:00.000-08:00

From Lubbock Online: Texas woman recalls early days as military pilot
CONROE — When Mary Helen Foster arrived in the Malden Army Airfield in Missouri in 1944, excited at getting to serve and sure they would be happy to have her, her commanding officer took one look at her and said, “I didn’t ask for a woman pilot.”

“I did not ask to come to Missouri, sir,” Foster had said.

Foster, 90, a resident of the Conservatory at Alden Bridge in The Woodlands, was one of more than 1,700 women chosen for the groundbreaking Women Airforce Service Pilots program during World War II. The program allowed women to test aircraft undergoing maintenance and train pilots to allow men to fly in combat.

For seven months, Foster was stationed in Malden, testing aircraft for maintenance and ensuring they were safe for use in combat, despite the discrimination she faced along the way.

Foster did not always want to be a pilot.

She was born in Cuero, just outside of San Antonio. After graduating from Brackenridge High School, she started working at Fort Sam Houston as a secretary. Foster and a friend took a vacation to Corpus Christi and decided to fly there because it was “a new experience.”

That first flight changed her life.

Upon her arrival home, she decided to take flying lessons.

Foster drove out to Brown’s Flying School at Stinson Field in San Antonio and convinced the flight instructor to take her up in a plane. After a half-hour flight, the instructor told her she “wasn’t the type” for flying lessons.

“I said, ‘I’ll be here and I’ll have the money in my hand and you’re going to teach me how to fly’,” Foster recalled demanding.

While taking flight lessons, Foster read an advertisement in a newspaper that famous pilot Jacqueline Cochran was recruiting female pilots for the military. Foster wrote back and sent in an application, waiting months before receiving her orders to head to Sweetwater in 1943 where all the WASP pilots trained.

“It was very difficult, because they really were not happy to have us. They graduated less than half of every class. The rest of them they washed out. Any little minor thing, you went home the same day,” Foster said.

At the time, she said she did not pay much attention to the discrimination, because she knew she could handle it. During her seven months testing aircrafts in Missouri, she said she was never scared about piloting a damaged aircraft.

Foster recalled one incident flying co-pilot on a C-47 when the tower called to tell her there was a fire in the left engine. She had the option to jump or continue to fly the plane and said “Who would want to want to jump in the air and leave a perfectly good plane?” She cut the engine, put out the fire and landed the aircraft.

“I wasn’t nervous at all, except when I came into my final approach I looked ahead of me and there were two ambulances and two firetrucks,” she said. “They were waiting to pick up the pieces.”

Her male co-pilot was not quite as calm and had exclaimed, “I always knew I was going to die in a fire.”

At dinner that night, other pilots asked him what it was like to have an emergency with her on board.

“He looked them straight in the eye and said, ‘I was hysterical. The woman flew the plane’,” Foster said.

When the war ended, her commanding officer got a letter from Washington stating the men were coming home from war, they want their jobs back and the female pilots should go home.

“I was so sad and so angry. To take all that training and I knew they still needed pilots, and I don’t know why this happened. I never did know. They didn’t tell us anything,” she said.

The commanding officer who initially questioned her abilities as a woman convinced her to visit an FAA inspector to get a commercial license. He even had a brother at an airline who he thought might help her, but his brother told Foster “the American public is not ready for a woman pilot.”

“They all needed pilots. And they’d say that, but not women,” she said. “So I just gave up and went back to secretary work.”

After working briefly for a jeweler, Foster and a friend went back to college at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. With a semester remaining, she met her husband, Paul Chapman, an engineer from Galveston, and they were married about a year later in 1948.

She graduated with a degree in library science in the 1950s at San Jacinto College in Houston when she and Chapman began having children and worked as a librarian and substitute teacher at schools in Dickinson. Foster has five children, 10 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.

Foster still flies when she visits her oldest son, Paul Chapman Jr., in northeast Texas. A friend of her son’s has World War II era planes, which she said she enjoys flying in and reminiscing.

In 2009, Foster was one of more than 300 of the remaining members of the WASP program received a Congressional Gold Medal in Washington. She said she was “very excited” and “very proud.”

Her granddaughter, Tonya Farmer, of Spring, said Foster was always accepting and supportive growing up and is proud of her grandmother’s accomplishments.

“We always felt like we could do whatever and everything was possible if I put my mind to it,” Farmer said. “That’s a neat legacy.”

Foster spoke at Shindelwolf Intermediate School in Spring recently for Farmer’s 14-year-old son’s social studies class. Sandy Abt, lifestyle director at the Conservatory at Alden Bridge, said Foster also tells the story to a theater of retired residents.

“Today, we don’t go through what she went through and part of that is because she went there. She kind of paved the way for it to be easier for us,” Abt said.

The remaining WASP members attend the occasional meeting of the Women’s Military Aviators, Foster said. The beginning of every meeting, she said someone always stands up to remind them of their contribution to women’s aviation.

“We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you,” Foster recalls them saying.

Nigeria gets first female military pilot

2011-12-14T21:23:00.000-08:00

From Spyghana: Nigeria gets first female military pilot

Blessing Liman, a 25-year-old lady from Kaduna State, has become Nigeria’s first female military pilot, news publication ThisDay reported December 12, 2011.

Blessing Liman was commissioned by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) at the weekend, along with 126 others, after completing the Direct Short Service Course 2010/11 Cadets of 325 Ground Training Group at the NAF Base in Kaduna.

An elated Blessing Liman, according to ThisDay, called on her fellow women to see her feat as a challenge for them to explore their capabilities for nation-building.

The publication cited Air Vice Marshal Mohammed Dikko Umar , Nigeria’s Chief of Air Staff, as saying that the successful passing out from cadet training of the first female pilot was “a very laudable achievement” to the nation.

President Goodluck Jonathan is said to have directed the Nigerian Armed Forces to produce female combatants in order to give impetus to gender equality in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

A Pilot's Charm Bracelet

2011-12-12T15:24:00.001-08:00

I've just acquired a charm bracelet that was owned by a woman (name unfortunately unknown) who participated in at least the 1965 and 1966 Powder Puff Derbies. I know this because on her charm bracelet are two of thse little United States route charms, with the route of the race etched into the front and the year of the race on the back.

Breakaway: The History of Women in Aviation November 2011

2011-12-11T01:25:00.000-08:00

http://www.amazon.com/Breakaway-History-Aviation-November-ebook/dp/B006KM9UFS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1323595315&sr=1-1

Breakaway: The History of Women in Aviation is a monthly series of pamphlets on the Kindle. (Don't have a Kindle? No problem. Download the free emulator from Amazon and you can read it on your computer.) And it's available on the Nook, too.

Breakaway provides a monthly synopsis of current events involving women pilots, as well as a monthly calendar of general aviation, and articles on a variety of subjects.

The November installment of Breakaway features:

Calendar
1. Aviation Calendar – January 2012

Articles
1. Vernice Armour: Accelerated Passion
2. Why I Am Not Afraid to Fly, by Katherine Stinson (1919)
3. History of The Powder Puff Derby: The First Race – 1947

News
1. News Articles, November 1-30, 2011: Headlines Only
2. News Headlines and Brief Synopsis of Articles, November 1-30, 2011

Appendices
1. Selected Museums Devoted to Women in Aviation

Katherine Stinson documentary

2011-12-10T08:26:00.000-08:00

This is a 26 doc on Katherine Stinson (my kindle readers will need to visit Youtube via compuer).

Cornelia Fort's family, friends donate funds to save open land

2011-12-04T01:39:00.000-08:00

Before sharing the article, here's a bio of Cornelia Fort from Wikipedia:

Cornelia Clark Fort (Feb 5, 1919–Mar 21 1943) was an aviator in the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) (later merged with the Women Airforce Service Pilots), who became the first female pilot in American history to die on active duty.

Early life and career
Fort was born to a wealthy and prominent Nashville, Tennessee, family; her father, Rufus Elijah Fort, was a founder of National Life and Accident Insurance Company. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1939. After college, Fort would join the Junior League of Nashville. She showed an early interest in flying, ultimately training for and earning her pilot's license in Hawaii.

Pearl Harbor attack
While working as a civilian pilot instructor at Pearl Harbor, Cornelia Fort inadvertently became one of the first witnesses to the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II. On December 7, 1941, Fort was in the air near Pearl Harbor teaching takeoffs and landings to a student pilot in an Interstate Cadet monoplane. Hers and a few other civilian aircraft were the only U.S. planes in the air near the harbor at that time. Fort saw a military airplane flying directly toward her and swiftly grabbed the controls from her student to pull up over the oncoming craft.

It was then she saw the rising sun insignia on the wings. Within moments, she saw billows of black smoke coming from Pearl Harbor and bombers flying in. She quickly landed the plane at John Rodgers civilian airport near the mouth of Pearl Harbor. The pursuing Zero strafed her plane and the runway as she and her student ran for cover. The airport manager was killed and two other civilian planes did not return that morning.

Military service
With all civilian flights grounded in Hawaii, Fort returned to the mainland in early 1942. She made a short movie promoting war bonds that was successful and led to speaking engagements. Later that year, Nancy Love recruited her to serve in the newly established Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), precursor to the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP). She was the second woman accepted into the service. The WAFS ferried military planes to bases within the United States.

Death
Stationed at the 6th Ferrying Group base at Long Beach, California, Cornelia Fort became the first WAFS fatality on March 21, 1943 when another plane being ferried by a male pilot struck the left wing of the BT-13 she was ferrying in a mid-air collision ten miles south of Merkel, Texas. At the time of the accident, Cornelia Fort was one of the most accomplished pilots of the WAFS. The footstone of her grave is inscribed, "Killed in the Service of Her Country."

Legacy
Cornelia Fort was portrayed in the film Tora, Tora, Tora by Jeff Donnell [real name Jean, but the actress preferred her nickname, Jeff, after the character from the Mutt and Jeff comic strip].

The Cornelia Fort Airpark in East Nashville is named after her.

From The Tennessean: Cornelia

Fort's family, friends donate funds to save open land
More than $200,000 has been donated to protect open land in Nashville by family and friends of Cornelia Fort, the first woman pilot to die on war duty in American history.

The gift that will help replenish Metro’s Open Space Fund was announced Thursday morning at the 135-acre Cornelia Fort Airpark in East Nashville.

The airpark property, which cost $1.2 million, was the first acquisition for Nashville’s Open Space Plan and has expanded the Shelby Bottoms park system to more than 1,300 acres. It also provides a northern entrance to the park.

A second purchase — the 181-acre Ravenwood Country Club at $2.8 million — goes before the Metro Council on Dec. 6, for the second of three required approvals.

Mayor Karl Dean thanked the members of the Fort family and friends Thursday for “their generosity and dedication to conserving nature and history.”

“Not only is the airport property a prime example of what our Open Space Plan aims to accomplish, the public-private partnership supporting this acquisition is a model for how we want to engage the private sector in raising funds for public land conservation going forward,” he said.

The donation for the Open Space Fund was organized by The Land Trust for Tennessee, which is the leading private fundraiser for the city’s Open Space Plan.

The plan is part of Dean’s push to make the city greener, encouraging such things as green roofs, tree planting and preservation of land to make waterways and air cleaner and to draw people outdoors.
Endowments grow

Such efforts are a trend nationwide.

The gathering beside the now-closed tarmac and empty hangars came the day after The Land Trust Alliance released a national census showing that endowments to protect lands have more than doubled from 2005 to 2010.

Ten million new acres were conserved, despite a slow economy.

“Communities nationwide value clean water, local food and places to play, and they are investing in those places close to home,” said Rand Wentworth, president of the alliance.

Local land trusts are saving more land while federal funding and purchases for such acquisitions are shrinking, he said.

Dean unveiled the Open Space Plan last April, which calls for 3,000 acres of parkland to be added in the next 10 years. It advocates for conservation of 22,000 acres of public and private land over 25 years. The mayor included $5 million in Metro’s 2010 capital spending plan for acquisitions.

The Metro Parks Department will seek public input on the design and programs for the airpark and Ravenwood properties, according to the mayor’s office.
'A path less traveled'

Cornelia Fort, one of Nashville’s most famous residents, had grown up in a well-to-do family and was a member of the Junior League and a debutante.

She preferred, however, moving down a path less traveled. After her father, Rufus Fort, pressed his three sons never to take to the sky in an airplane, she did, said her niece Julia Fort Lowe of Cookeville.

Lowe attended the event Thursday along with her brother Garth Fort of St. Louis, and Nashvillian Stroud Merritt, a great-nephew of Cornelia Fort.

Tish Fort of Nashville, another niece who was in the tree-rimmed airpark, said she couldn’t be happier at the preservation of the land there.

“My regret is, of course, that Cornelia’s not here and that our daddies aren’t here to see not only the Fort name honored but their sister honored.”

Cornelia Fort grew up on a cattle farm estate that once covered part of Shelby Bottoms. She was delivering a plane cross-country in 1943 when another plane touched hers.

The other pilot bailed out, but Cornelia Fort died. She was 24.

More than $200,000 has been donated to protect open land in Nashville by family and friends of Cornelia Fort, the first woman pilot to die on war duty in American history.

The gift that will help replenish Metro’s Open Space Fund was announced Thursday morning at the 135-acre Cornelia Fort Airpark in East Nashville.

The airpark property, which cost $1.2 million, was the first acquisition for Nashville’s Open Space Plan and has expanded the Shelby Bottoms park system to more than 1,300 acres. It also provides a northern entrance to the park.

A second purchase — the 181-acre Ravenwood Country Club at $2.8 million — goes before the Metro Council on Dec. 6, for the second of three required approvals.

Mayor Karl Dean thanked the members of the Fort family and friends Thursday for “their generosity and dedication to conserving nature and history.”

“Not only is the airport property a prime example of what our Open Space Plan aims to accomplish, the public-private partnership supporting this acquisition is a model for how we want to engage the private sector in raising funds for public land conservation going forward,” he said.

The donation for the Open Space Fund was organized by The Land Trust for Tennessee, which is the leading private fundraiser for the city’s Open Space Plan.

The plan is part of Dean’s push to make the city greener, encouraging such things as green roofs, tree planting and preservation of land to make waterways and air cleaner and to draw people outdoors.
Endowments grow

Such efforts are a trend nationwide.

The gathering beside the now-closed tarmac and empty hangars came the day after The Land Trust Alliance released a national census showing that endowments to protect lands have more than doubled from 2005 to 2010.

Ten million new acres were conserved, despite a slow economy.

“Communities nationwide value clean water, local food and places to play, and they are investing in those places close to home,” said Rand Wentworth, president of the alliance.

Local land trusts are saving more land while federal funding and purchases for such acquisitions are shrinking, he said.

Dean unveiled the Open Space Plan last April, which calls for 3,000 acres of parkland to be added in the next 10 years. It advocates for conservation of 22,000 acres of public and private land over 25 years. The mayor included $5 million in Metro’s 2010 capital spending plan for acquisitions.

The Metro Parks Department will seek public input on the design and programs for the airpark and Ravenwood properties, according to the mayor’s office.
'A path less traveled'

Cornelia Fort, one of Nashville’s most famous residents, had grown up in a well-to-do family and was a member of the Junior League and a debutante.

She preferred, however, moving down a path less traveled. After her father, Rufus Fort, pressed his three sons never to take to the sky in an airplane, she did, said her niece Julia Fort Lowe of Cookeville.

Lowe attended the event Thursday along with her brother Garth Fort of St. Louis, and Nashvillian Stroud Merritt, a great-nephew of Cornelia Fort.

Tish Fort of Nashville, another niece who was in the tree-rimmed airpark, said she couldn’t be happier at the preservation of the land there.

“My regret is, of course, that Cornelia’s not here and that our daddies aren’t here to see not only the Fort name honored but their sister honored.”

Cornelia Fort grew up on a cattle farm estate that once covered part of Shelby Bottoms. She was delivering a plane cross-country in 1943 when another plane touched hers.

The other pilot bailed out, but Cornelia Fort died. She was 24.

Betty Haas Pfister, a Woman With Wings, Dies at 90

2011-12-03T20:20:00.000-08:00

Betty Pfister died on November 17, and an obit occurred in the Daily Aspen (CO) at that time, but this obit appeared in the NYT yesterday.

From the New York Times: Betty Haas Pfister, a Woman With Wings, Dies at 90
By DENNIS HEVESI

“No, no, you can’t go up!” Betty Haas’s father insisted that day in 1940 when the family went to an air show in Bennington, Vt. But when her parents left, Ms. Haas, then 19, sneaked back to the airfield, paid a dollar and, as she liked to say, “squished into a seat” for a ride on a tiny plane.

It was the first of hundreds of flights that Betty Haas Pfister would make — dozens as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, during World War II, and many more as one of the nation’s most successful female competitive pilots. (And not counting those as a Pan Am stewardess in the days when women had a much harder time getting hired as pilots.)

Ms. Haas Pfister, a two-time winner of the All Women’s International Air Race, died on Nov. 17 at her home in Aspen, Colo., her daughter Suzanne said. She was 90.

After that first flight, Suzanne Pfister said, “Mom made a deal with her father that she would stay in school if he paid for flight lessons.”

By the time she graduated from Bennington College in 1942, Ms. Haas Pfister (she went on to marry Arthur Pfister in 1954) had logged enough flight time to be accepted as a member of the WASPs — an Army Air Forces attachment created to fill the void when male pilots were deployed overseas.

As one of 1,074 WASPs, Ms. Haas Pfister ferried planes from factories to domestic airfields or to ports for shipment overseas. WASPs also towed targets for aerial gunnery practice. Thirty-eight died in accidents. But by December 1944, with the war winding down, the women were deemed no longer needed and the unit was disbanded.

Ms. Haas Pfister found work as an aircraft mechanic and, very occasionally, flying cargo planes. In 1948, for Pan American, she became the first stewardess ever hired with more than 1,000 hours of flight time. “She got to travel all over the world,” her daughter said. “But she’d rather have been in the cockpit any day of the week.”

Several years earlier, Ms. Haas Pfister had paid $750 for an Army surplus P-39 fighter that she named Galloping Gertie. She flew in dozens of air shows and races around the country, and in 1950 she won the All Women’s International Air Race from Montreal to West Palm Beach, Fla. Two years later, she recaptured that title in a flight from St. Augustine, Fla., to Welland, Ontario.

Ms. Haas Pfister received the Elder Statesman of Aviation Award from the National Aeronautic Association in 1994. Ten years earlier, she had been inducted into the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame.

Recognition of Ms. Haas Pfister’s wartime contributions, and those of the more than 1,000 other WASPs, came in 2010 when they received the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the country’s two highest civilian honors.

Born on July 23, 1921, in Great Neck, N.Y., and raised in Scarsdale, N.Y., Elizabeth Haas was one of three children of Robert and Merle Haas. Besides her daughter Suzanne, she is survived by two other daughters, Christina and Nancy Pfister; a sister, Priscilla Blum; and five grandchildren. Her husband died in 2008.

One impetus for Ms. Haas Pfister’s passion for flight was her brother, Robert, a Navy pilot during World War II. She had already started taking flight lessons when he was killed in action off the coast of Africa.

After working for Pan Am for four years and moving to Aspen, Ms. Haas Pfister flew gliders and balloons. In 1976 she helped found the Snowmass Balloon Festival in Colorado. In the 1960s she helped organize the Pitkin County Air Rescue Group; she flew helicopters on many rescue missions.

“I’d hate a 9-to-5 job with weekends off,” she told The New York World-Telegram and Sun in 1950. “I had one once, but couldn’t stand it.”

WASP First Day Cover

2011-12-03T10:41:00.001-08:00

A First Day of Issue Cover or First Day Cover is a postage stamp on a cover, postal card or stamped envelope franked on the first day the issue is authorized for use within the country or territory of the stamp-issuing authority. Sometimes the issue is made from a temporary or permanent foreign or overseas office. There will usually be a first day of issue postmark, frequently a pictorial cancellation, indicating the city and date where the item was first issued, and "first day of issue" is often used to refer to this postmark. Depending on the policy of the nation issuing the stamp, official first day postmarks may sometimes be applied to covers weeks or months after the date indicated.

Postal authorities may hold a first day ceremony to generate publicity for the new issue, with postal officials revealing the stamp, and with connected persons in attendance, such as descendants of the person being honored by the stamp. The ceremony may also be held in a location that has a special connection with the stamp's subject, such as the birthplace of a social movement, or at a stamp show.

Various companies and individuals create these First Day Covers - from large companies that do hundreds a year, to small companies that do just a handful a year. (An individual can be just one person with a printer and a gift for design!)

Although the illustration on this FDC is of a WASP, the "first day ceremony" was actually for the Purple Heart stamp - something that a WASP was never awarded, since they were civilians and the Purple Heart is only for military personnel).

Enflight adds executive leadership to advance next generation intelligent flight PLANNING iPad applications

2011-11-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

A Press release from http://www.enflight.com.:
Stow, MA (November 29, 2011) - Enflight, a leading innovator of intelligent
flight planning applications, today announced the appointment of Chairman,
Dr. Robert Glorioso and Vice President of Marketing, John Gitelman to its
executive team. Their addition to the executive team coincides with efforts
to advance the next generation of intelligent flight applications for the
iPad(r) to make flying even easier for pilots.

Dr. Glorioso brings his considerable experience as an executive, consultant,
investor, board member, entrepreneur, inventor, author and pilot to
Enflight. He is the founder and principal of QC Avionix, a creator of
cockpit accessories for pilots. Earlier in his career he was Vice President
and Director of the Pacific Rim Board for Digital Equipment Corporation. He
founded and served as CEO, President, and Chairman of Marathon Technologies,
a software company delivering high availability, fault and disaster tolerant
computer systems. He was chairman of Turbine, a massive multiplayer games
company and served on the boards of Proteon, Netrix, and Ultranet
Communications in the public network and ISP fields.

Mr. Gitelman is a strategy, branding, marketing and product management
specialist with extensive experience running global businesses at Bose,
Polaroid and other brand leaders as well as an entrepreneur with innovative
customer-focused products and applications in the Apple ecosystem.

Phillip Apley, CEO of Enflight and one of its founders, says, "Enflight has
always been on the forefront of intelligent aviation information solutions
with Personal Minimums Analysis and at-a-glance weather infographics. By
bringing Bob and John aboard we are committing to significantly raise the
bar to provide pilots with even more innovative, comprehensive and
easy-to-use solutions."

About Enflight
Enflight offers pilots an exclusive suite of flight plan workflow products
and tools that enable pilots to plan flights faster, more easily, and more
safely. The software offers industry-leading web-based and iPad(r)
applications that provide flight planning and FAA legal briefings featuring
sophisticated Personal Minimums Analysis and patented at-a-glance
TAFSpiral(tm) weather infographics. As the original authors of the DUATS
(CSC) briefing service, Enflight has the most established and tested code
base in the business and wrote the original AOPA flight planning system. For
more information, please visit http://www.enflight.com.

Powder Puff Derby Virtual Museum: Paper Awards

2011-11-24T10:48:00.000-08:00

For the 1967 Powder Puff Derby, which ran from July 2-10, 1967, Mary Rose Myers received a "citation of appreciation" from the City of Atlantic City and Garden State Chapter of the 99's "with our sincere thanks for your valued contribution to the success of the Pre-Start program of the 21st Annual All Woman Transcontinental Air Race.

Signed by Judy Meltsner, Chairman of the 1967 AWTAR Start Committee, and Commander William T. Somers, Chairman of the Atlantic City Host Committee.

In 1973, she received an Award of Merit from the Board of Directors of the Powder Puff Derby, "in recognition of successful participation in the 27th Annual All-Woman Transcontinental Air Race, a 2543 mile course originating in Carlsbad, C alifornia and terminating at Elmira, New York during the period of July 13-16, 1973.

Signed by Joan L. Hruhec (sp?) and Kay Brick (Chairman of the Board of the AWTAR.)

Blogs of Women pilots

2011-11-23T18:21:00.000-08:00

I'll share a few of these every now and again:

http://toriaflies.blogspot.com/: Toria Flies: Thoughts of a red-headed Aviatrix

I'm slowly but surely learning my way about the world and becoming the woman I'm destined to be. I'm eclectic, I'm passionate, I'm a giver. I'm an always dreamin', airplane flyin', avid crocheter. I'm a girl who loves to be on a "mission" whether it's organizing a fundraiser or seeing how many turtles I can catch in the lake in a day. I don't like raisins, but love raisinets and yogurt covered raisins. I don't like purple grapes, but love the green ones. I hate blueberries except if they are in muffins. That about sums up the way my brain works.

I'm an instrument rated commercial pilot and work as a sales assistant for Aviation Insurance Resources. I am a co-host of the aviation podcast, the StuckMic AvCast. I am an active member of the Sugarloaf chapter of the Ninety-Nines, a VIP member of Women of Aviation Week and a member of Women in Aviation International and the Airplane Owners and Pilots Association. I also organize the Women Fly it Forward event in Frederick, MD.

http://www.myskymom.com/: Aviation wit and wisdom

(Danielle Gibeault is a CFI, CFII, and MEI for those in the know. To the rest of us, that translates to Certificated Flight Instructor, Instrument Instructor, and Multi Engine Instructor. I also hold a Ground Instructor Certificate, Advanced and Instrument. That’s right, the FAA trusts me to spend my days getting into airplanes with people who don’t know how to fly them! I’ve been a pilot for 13 years and a flight instructor for more than 5. I started my aviation career on my 18th birthday driving fuel trucks, parking airplanes, and doing all the rest of that glamorous grunt work that keeps the airplanes flying. Haven’t looked back since.)

The blog below hasn't been updated in a year, as she completed her goal, but the archives are there and make for interesting and fun reading.
http://flyingwisconsin.wordpress.com/: Flying Wisconsin

Who is this person who loves “flying Wisconsin?” I’m a general aviation and airport advocate who appreciates the beauty of my home state. My first flight lesson was at Alexander Field-South Wood County Airport (ISW) in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, on my 30th birthday, a few years ago. I haven’t lost the passion yet - it helps that my husband, John, a 9000-hour pilot, loves it as much as I do! Me, I was out of currency for a while, concentrating on life’s other responsibilities since getting my private pilot certificate in 1992 and instrument rating 10-years later. But at this time in my life I’m closing in on 500 hours and flying more than ever. I’m lovin’ it!

This blog begins with the adventurous goal my husband and I are accomplishing in the summer of 2010: Flying to all 60 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties that have a public-use airport – in four flights. Several people have suggested that we share this story online, so here it is! Once we reach that goal, I’ll add new pages, sprinkling in some aviation memories, goals, and current projects I’m working on.

I’m a mom to two adult children and they, along with my husband, are the wind beneath my wings. My daughter, Sister Maria Caeli, is a Dominican Sister and middle school teacher, and my son, Luke, is a student at UW-Stout and one of the best motorcycle hillclimbers and off-road action sports videographers in the Midwest. Check out his work at LPmultimedia.com and LPmotocross.com. (Yeah, I’m proud of their accomplishments.)

As the owner of SkyWord Communications, LLC, I offer writing, marketing, and consulting services to aviation businesses, airports, and organizations. As president of the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame and editor of its quarterly magazine, Forward in Flight, I lead an effort to collect, preserve, and share Wisconsin aviation history, and honor those who made it. I’ve worked as an editor at EAA and have written dozens of aviation articles for various online and print publications, and even won a few awards for it.

Powder Puff Derby Virtual Museum: Patch and Charm

2011-11-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

A charm from the 1975 race. Across the front is the route of the race across the United States, on the back is the year the race took place.

From the estate of Mary Rose Myers, who participated in 3 Powder Puff Derbies, including the 30th one in 1977 that signaled the end of the race.

A sew on patch from the last race in 1977.

Robert Henderson, Warbird Sculptor

2011-11-23T09:15:00.000-08:00

Robert Henderson, dubbed the "Warbird Sculptor" by an entire generation of World War II veterans, has chosen to chronicle the history of aviation in monumental bronze sculptures.

To date, he has fathered "The Study Hall", a most unique outdoor sculpture garden at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This garden houses extraordinary bronze warbird memorials - 4 World War II fighters, 3 World War II bombers and 1 World War II cargo plane.

These warbirds tell the modern day history of the Air Force to those who study at this prestigious school, as well as millions of visitors each year.

Mr. Henderson is also working on a Woman Aviators Sculpture Park, and I interviewed him (via his wife, Cheryl) about the project.

http://volcanoseven.com/YouFlyGirl/RobertHendricksonInterview/RobertHenderson.html

WASP recognized with memorial at BOHS

2011-11-17T15:10:00.000-08:00

Orange County Register: Women pilots recognized with memorial at BOHS
Quintin Ruiz, grandson of WASP Violet Cowden, escorts Mary Lamy and Myrle Mackintosh.

A plaque and monument have been unveiled among 12 pepper trees at the edge of the Brea Olinda High School campus to pay tribute to 12 Women Airforce Service Pilots, better known as WASPs, from Orange County.

The memorial was paid for through donations and fundraisers held by the Orange District of the California Federation of Women's Clubs.

During World War II, the women pilots flew non-combat missions, making more male pilots available for combat flights. The WASPs flew most types of military aircraft including B-26 and B-29 bombers. These women weren't granted military status until 1977.

"They've been overlooked," said Ellie Rankin, member of the Placentia Round Table Women's Club.

Mary Lamy, of Seal Beach, who is one of the 12 Orange County WASPs, was present in her uniform at the dedication Nov. 10.

Along with Lamy, the women honored are Beverly L. Beesemyer, Mary Reineberg Burchard, Violet Thurn Cowden, Jeanne Perot D'Ambly, Mary Ann Dreher, Roberta Jane Fohl, Bethel Gibbons Haven, Dolores M. Lamb, Joan Whelan Lyle, Doris K. Muise and Eleanor Olson Weems.

Marilyn Bennett, president of the Orange District, initiated the idea of getting involved with recognizing the WASP legacy.

Bennett, along with district chairman Myrle Mackintosh, led the women's clubs in this effort for more than a year, Rankin said. Previously, the 12 pepper trees were planted in part of the BOHS campus that was damaged by the 2008 Freeway Complex Fire.

Women from the 23 women's clubs in the Orange District were present for the event

Powder Puff 25th Jubilee Charm: "You've Come A Long Way, Baby"

2011-11-17T11:29:00.000-08:00

This is a charm about 1 and a half inches long, featuring a female pilot, with a cigarette in a cigarette holder, leaning on a propeller.

It's thick, stamped metal, with the raised surfaces painted. The base surface is now a dark color - not sure if it was that way originally or not.

On the back is stamped:

25th Jubilee: July 5-8, 1971
"You've come a long way, baby"

This is the catchphrase of Virginia Slims, who helped sponsor the race.

Let's Make the Jerrie Mock Statue a Reality

2011-11-10T13:59:00.000-08:00

I was reminded of the funding drive to create a statue of Jerrie Mock - the first woman to fly solo around the world - today.

Fundraising has been going on for a couple of months - the goal is $45,000.

I took the liberty of creating a web page, which will direct folks to the appropriate address to donate funds.

http://volcanoseven.com/YouFlyGirl/GeraldineMockStatue/index.html

However, everyone reading this knows who Jerrie Mock is, I'm sure, so you can bypass the page and, if you are so inclined, donate to:

Licking County Foundation
PO Box 4212
Newark, OH 43058-4212
http://www.thelcfoundation.org/funds/stories.html
Licking County apparently oversees funds for hundreds of projects, so your check needs to be made out to them, but put in the memo line: put into Jerrie Mock Sculpture Fund.

PR: BERINGER Announces New 29oz Tailwheel

2011-11-09T13:31:00.000-08:00

Tallard, France: Beringer Wheels & Brakes has announced a new, extremely
lightweight tailwheel assembly for the Pipistrel Sinus, with applications
for other aircraft.

The two-piece anodized aluminum wheel with sealed ball bearings and its 6-ply 200x50 tire and tube, assembled, weighs just 830 grams (29 ounces). It rides on the 8mm diameter Sinus axle; no aircraft modifications are required.

"We designed and built a particularly light but strong tailwheel to complement the BERINGER mains used throughout the Pipistrel line," said Rémi Beringer, chief designer. "This wheel and tire have a design load of 150kg [330 lb], which makes this assembly ideal for the Sinus."

Other applications, including some in both OEM and homebuilt markets, will also benefit from this design's strength/weight ratio; the new BERINGER tailwheel may soon be seen on amateur-built aircraft, as well as in several additional OEM applications.

The tire is delivered already mounted and pressure-tested. It is ready for immediate delivery for use as a retrofit improvement, or for new installations. The factory invites OEM inquiries. Retail price, FOB Tallard, is $249 US.

Headquarters and Engineering:
BERINGER Wheels & Brakes
Aéropôle
Champ Eymi
F-05130 Tallard, France
contact@beringer-aero.com
www.beringer-aero.com
tel +33 492 201 619
fax +33 492 526 966

USA Service Center, Parts & Support:
Lockwood Aviation
1 Lockwood Way
Sebring, FL 33870
www.lockwood-aviation.com
phone: 800-527-6829
fax: (863) 655-6225 Parts:

Aircraft Spruce WEST
225 Airport Circle
Corona, CA 92880
www.aircraftspruce.com
toll free: 800-824-1930
phone: 951-372-9555
fax: 951-372-0555

Powder Puff Derby Cachet, 1947-1966

2011-11-09T09:15:00.001-08:00

I'm putting together a virtual museum for Powder Puff Derby material.

Here's a cachet from 1966, sold to raise funds for the Powder Puff Derby.

Here's what the card says:
The Powder Puff Derby this year marks a significant achievement-the only aviation event to function for 20 consecutive years...a race run by women for women. We are proud of its success and its contribution to general aviation.

During this 20 year period, with our first race numbering all of 2 entries, we have totaled 1009 entries, 3,382,746 race miles, and 73 cities in these United States have served as official stops, some as many as 8 times.

This year we anticipate another exciting race from the Evergreen State of Washington to the Sunshine State of Florida. In purchasing this cachet, you have supported the POWDER PUFF DERBY.

What's a cachet?

In philately, a cachet is a printed or stamped design or inscription, other than a cancellation or pre-printed postage, on an envelope, postcard, or postal card to commemorate a postal or philatelic event. There are official and private (independent of postal authorities) cachets. They commemorate everything from the first flight on a particular route, to the Super Bowl. Cachets are also frequently made, either by private companies or a government, for first day of issue stamp events or "second-day" stamp events. They are often present on event covers.

The first cacheted FDC (first day cover) was produced by prominent philatelist and cachet maker George Ward Linn in 1923, for the Harding Memorial stamp issue.

Cachet-making is considered an art form, and cachets may be produced by using any number of methods, including drawing or painting directly onto the envelope, serigraphy, block printing, lithography, engraving, laser printing, attachment of photographs or other paper memorabilia, etc. Frequently flight cachets (which have also been used in space and on the moon) are rubber-stamped.

The largest and best-known cachet-making companies, which typically produce thousands or tens of thousands of printed cachets for U.S. stamp issues, are Artcraft, Artmaster, Fleetwood, House of Farnam, and Colorano.

Five questions with a Snowbird

2011-11-08T15:43:00.000-08:00

From The Spec.com: Five questions with a Snowbird

Lieutenant Colonel Maryse Carmichael is a history maker.

She’s the first woman to be appointed commanding officer of the Snowbirds, the Royal Canadian Air Force’s aerobatic team. The 40-year-old native of Quebec City was given the command in May 2010.

Making history is old hat for Carmichael — the mother of daughters aged 2 and 5 was selected in 2000 to join the Snowbirds, becoming the first female pilot to ever fly with the team. She signed up with the Canadian Forces in 1990 and has flown VIPs around the world — including the prime minister — on CC-130 Hercules transport planes out of Trenton. She is based in Moose Jaw, Sask.

The Snowbirds flew in 54 air shows over the summer and might make an appearance at the 2012 Hamilton air show. An announcement is expected in December.

Carmichael was in Hamilton Friday for an event at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. It was billed as A Dessert Date with Madame Snowbird.

The Spectator sat down with the Lt.-Colonel and asked her five questions.

1 Why did you want to become a pilot?
“I started with the Air Cadets when I was a teenager, actually. One of my older brothers is also a pilot, so I kind of followed in his footsteps. First, when I was 16 doing my glider’s scholarship and then my permanent pilot licence at 17. I really loved it. It was a bit of a passion, so I decided to join the Canadian Forces because ultimately what I wanted to do was fly jets and that’s not something you can really do on civilian streets, or you can, but it’s not as accessible as with the Canadian forces.”

2 How did you become commander of the Snowbirds?
“This is actually a change for the squadron ... the person that you would see flying and leading the formation in the air was also the commander on the ground. In January 2010, the leadership of the Canadian Forces decided to change that because what you see actually on the road travelling, the show team, is actually just a small part of the entire squadron. We have more than 80 people within the squadron. So it became really hard for the commanding officer to be on the road all the time and then to manage all our personnel back at home. So, they created a new position of commanding officer (of the team) and that is where I came in.”

3 How do you feel about becoming the first female commander?
“There are slowly more and more female pilots and I think the statistics are the same whether we are talking about military pilots or civilian pilots, the numbers are very similar ... Perhaps at my level it is still a new thing to have a female, a woman, as a commanding officer, but for me it’s been my entire career working with them. I don’t see anything different.

4 What is the value of the Snowbirds to Canadians?
“Our mission is to demonstrate to the Canadian public the skills, the professionalism and the teamwork of all the men and women of the Canadian Forces ... It’s sometimes hard to quantify what we do. How can you say that we motivate young people to have dreams? I am one of those who saw the Snowbirds when I was a kid and thought that was something I wanted to do. How many people do we recruit? Again, it’s hard to quantify, but we are certainly there for Canada’s pride. We saw it with the Olympics a few years ago how Canada was behind its athletes. That’s also what we do with the Canadian Forces.”

5 How do you do your job with two young kids at home?
“It’s a work-life balance, of course. But you know what? Both my husband (fighter pilot Major Scott Greenough) and I do what we love ... Sometimes there is creative scheduling. For example, I am going back tomorrow (Saturday), we have a big party at home and then he is leaving Sunday for a couple of days ... We are very fortunate the military is helping us in being co-located. Sometimes it does not work out for some of the families ... with the ranks we have, we have a little bit of say in our schedules. Sometimes at the end of the month we both have to be away at the same time. I call my mom and she flies in from Quebec.”

Heather E. Schwartz Inspires Young Girls to Serve Their Nation

2011-11-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

From GeekMom.com: Heather E. Schwartz Inspires Young Girls to Serve Their Nation

Earlier this year, GeekMom Kathy recommended I contact one of her colleagues, children’s author Heather E. Schwartz, about reviewing her two books about women in the U.S. armed forces that were published earlier this year. She thought I’d be an appropriate candidate, not only as a military member myself, but because I have elementary-school aged children of the appropriate age-level for the books — even if they aren’t girls.

Ms. Schwartz graciously sent me her two books and my sons read them this summer with enthusiasm. They especially enjoyed Women of the U.S. Air Force: Aiming High, since they live in an Air Force family in an Air Force community. They were less interested in the Marine Corps version, Women of the U.S. Marine Corps: Breaking Barriers. That’s certainly no fault of the author. My oldest son read it anyway to help with his Accelerated Reader goals for his 3rd grade class.

These are perfect non-fiction books for elementary-aged children who are on the cusp between picture books and chapter books. Both books are similarly laid out. Aiming High and Breaking Barriers both have 32 pages in 4 chapters, plus a glossary, timeline, internet sites and an index.

The first chapters feature recent notable military women, who have worked hard and both had opportunities to to be the first women to perform high-visibility roles. In Aiming High, Ms. Schwartz interviewed Major Nicole Malachowski, the Air Force’s first female pilot for The Thunderbirds, the service’s aerial demonstration team. In Breaking Barriers, chapter one featured Major Jennifer Greives, the first-ever Marine One VH-3D pilot. I enjoyed these particular choices of role models for the books because in both cases, these are women who could excel and break gender barriers in a more reasonable point in their careers, rather than as General officers. Kudos to Ms. Schwartz to giving girls a more of a goal than “I want to be a General in the armed forces.” I know that sounds rather odd, that we should always tell our girls to be whatever they can be, but I think to be a pilot is a very attainable goal with very clear intermediate objectives.

The second chapters feature histories of women in their respective services. The histories are brief and are written to a 4th-5th grade level, which means that although much detail is omitted, there’s no doubt that a child will learn a lot here, thanks to the age-appropriate word choices. Definitions of several military jargon words, such as “deployment”, are defined as breakout-boxes on the same pages. Ms. Schwartz did a great job pulling historical images; I especially like the “Lady Leatherneck” cartoon about Lucy Brewer she found for Breaking Barriers on page 11.

The third chapter discusses the current process by which a young woman can join the service, attend training, and learn a skill from pilot training to engineering to even serving in the astronaut corps!

Finally, the fourth chapters cover the future of women serving and provides gems of inspiration for how girls can themselves serve in the armed forces. It provides some statistics about women serving, some insights into women in combat, and some other inspirational role models in the Air Force . Great inspiration for no matter what she wants to be when she grows up — it’s just as applicable to the armed forces. At the end of Chapter 4 in both books are a “Fast Facts” section and a timeline.

In summary, if you see a future Zoomie or Jarhead in your daughter or other young lady in your life, these books would make great gifts!

P.S.: It’s a coincidence that the day I wrote this review, the U.S. Air Force press service published this article about an all-female cargo aircraft crew flying in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. This now happens more often than one might think, and to the girls on board, they barely even notice they’re all-women. To them they’re all Airmen!

___________
Patricia Vollmer is a geeky meteorologist mother of two emerging geek sons, ages 6 & 9. She spent 10 years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force before becoming an AF Reservist in 2005. Hobbies include crocheting, running, cooking, and exploring the world with her boys. Ask her why the sky is blue at your own risk. She blogs about her Air Force family life at Ground Control to Major Mom. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the United States Air Force.

Honor the Veterans, including the women

2011-11-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

From the Picayune Item: Honor the Veterans, including the women
By Dr. Stanley Watson/Syndicated Columnist
The Picayune Item

PICAYUNE — The Times-Picayune ran a story once titled "Service Women Get Own Monument." The monument is located at the entrance of Arlington Cemetery and the dedication was attended by a great number of service women and veterans of wars, some going back to WW I. Frieda Hardin summarized the change in a woman's status in these words: "When I served in the Navy women were not even allowed to vote. Now women occupy important offices. In my 101 years of living, I have observed many wonderful achievements but none as meaningful as ... women ... taking their rightful place in society."

The second story informed us that the Marine's first female striker pilot is from Meridian Mississippi. These two events took me back in memory to a high school girl at Randlett, Okla. In those days, classes were small and everyone knew everyone else on a kissing cousin basis.

Jewel Pfeifer was a classmate. She was petite, with curly black hair, intelligent blue eyes, and a ready smile. I remember her as one who could draw pictures of her classmates and teachers that were remarkably real and her caricatures were downright funny.

Many years later, during WW II, I heard that she had joined the U.S. Air force. The army had just established the Women's Air force Service Pilots (WASP's) which was set up to make use of women pilots. They ferried planes and participated in turning raw male recruits into skilled pilots. In spite of the fact that their record was exceptional, the program was canceled before the war ended, probably because it was specifically for women.

Jewel had joined and completed her training in the last WASP class and never got to serve. She was deeply disappointed but refused to let the dream die. In compensation for her loss and, as a memorial to the considerable contribution of women in the military, Jewel sculptured three bronze statutes:

The first statue was placed in the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, Texas and was dedicated by astronaut Neil Armstrong.

The second is located in Sweetwater where the WASP's training center was located in the 1940's.

The third statue is a life-size figure of a young woman in military uniform stepping forward and looking upward with a parachute on her back. It stands in the library of the Texas Women's University, Denton, Texas.

Jewel and I dated during our junior year, going to the movies or school events but not to dances. I had no problem with dancing but Jewel explained that her Methodist church was beginning to frown upon it. Not to worry, the young people, always respectful, simply changed the name of our dances to "swinging games" and continued our wayward ways.

Fifty years later Jewel contacted me to speak at the high school reunion. Johnie was not up to the trip but was quite tolerant when I confessed that I had hugged the "girls" at the reunion. (I shook hands with the "boys".) Jewel was a talented writer and the four file folders of letters she wrote to me over the next few years would be worth publishing. She sent copies of her award winning poetry, pictures of our class members and herself and long interesting letters that always included a funny joke or one of her remarkable poems.

In one of her letters Jewel described a reunion of five of the WASP women pilots she had in her home in Dallas. "Yes, we had a glorious jubilee! Three solid days and evenings of laughter! Can't ever remember of having such a time. Everyone was so glad to see everyone else and our informal home atmosphere and reminiscences, stories and getting caught up on one another was so perfect. We laughed (and wept a bit) and hugged and just sat like idiots looking into eyes that looked back at us with more love than any poet could describe. What a blessing — all those old women pilots who lived through three wars and a lifetime of joy and horrors and still come back smelling like roses. God has been good to us all and survival being foremost, has helped us with a sense of gratitude and a sense of humor.”

Dr. Banks used to say, “Everybody says ‘I don't want to live to be a hundred' and that's what they think until they're 99!'"

I have a suggestion for remembering the veterans on this Veteran's Day: If you have a copy of The Greatest Generation, published by the Picayune Item, pull it out and look at the pictures and stories of the young people from this area who served in the military in time of war. (I understand copies are still available down at the paper office.) Also recall the special days at church when the veteran's were asked to stand or come down front and be recognized.

While the advance of women has been rapid and dramatic in the military, nothing can compare to the traditional role of wife and mother. This is because the family is the very foundation of our nation — the source of our greatness. For example, Jewel married Tom Estes decades ago and filled the traditional role of wife and mother as admirably as she used her artistic genius to commemorate military women in bronze.

The Challenges Of Being A Female Pilot In The Nigerian Aviation Industry

2011-11-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

From Nairland.com: The Challenges Of Being A Female Pilot In The Nigerian Aviation Industry

Nigeria’s Aviation industry is still a male dominated world. Though over the past few decades, the female presence in the airline industry has been on the increase, by comparison, women still have a paltry presence. According to data compiled by Women in Aviation international (www.wai.com) women represent 6% of the pilot population.

In Nigeria this is no exception.

Aero Contractors (www.flyaero.com) prides itself in its contribution to the development of aviation expertise inNigeria as a whole, but in particular in the support of female involvement. Aero has 101 pilots (as at October 29 2011) in total and 13 of them are female. This is a percentage of just under 13, which is more than double the industry average.

In 2009, Aero, a Nigerian airline, became the first airline inAfricato operate a flight with an all female cockpit and cabin crew.

What are the challenges that cause barriers to entry into aviation (particularly the cockpit) for women inNigeria? This is an Aeros female pilot’s account.

Several factors determine what kind of challenges a female pilot would have. One of the main ones would be what part of the world she is flying, mindset of the populace or tradition. In the developed world, a female captain probably wouldn’t attract too much attention if passengers sighted her while boarding an aircraft. But in Africa, orNigeriaspecifically where I fly, she would definitely get a second look, and yes, believe it or not a consideration of returning to the departure hall and getting on a different flight ostensibly owing to the lack of confidence of having a woman in command.

Don’t get me wrong, over the years; I believe it has become more acceptable to see women on the flight deck. A few ‘more traditional thinking’ men may still have reservations about being at the mercy of a ‘mere’ woman while being flown in this very sophisticated equipment over several hundreds of miles. Some folks console themselves by believing she is just a ‘co-pilot’ and doesn’t really fly the plane. (She couldn’t possibly have an idea how to, not with all those buttons and switches).

Well, in all fairness, I have received several encouraging and pleasant remarks from Nigerian passengers, mostly women though!

Another factor that would probably cause any challenges to a female pilot in the Nigerian airline industry has to do with physiological issues which affect every female, regardless of geographical location. If you’re single, unlike men, there’s always the ‘biological clock’ factor and the conflict between your career and settling down. The social pressure is massive. In our society, the woman is reminded that it is hard enough locating your ‘soul mate’ let alone worrying if he’ll be supportive of your profession. If you’re married, sooner or later, you get pregnant and you can’t fly for too long after that sometimes for about a whole year. I mean, there’s nothing as joyful as having a baby! But it does slow down your career quite significantly.

Personally speaking, I wouldn’t say the challenges outweigh the pros of me being female pilot. I’m married to a pilot and this works perfectly for me. They say pilots talk about flying a lot. It’s true, it never gets boring, no two days are really the same and usually I can’t wait to get home and tell him about some weird escapade and vice versa ( be at peace, pilots don’t take passengers up and hunt escapades). I also have a 3 year old and another on the way, which means I’ll have to stop flying soon.

Every job has its challenges to women as well as to men I guess, but trust me, there’s very few jobs I’d swap mine for.

Violet Enahoro, is a female pilot with Aero Contractors company of Nigeria Limited (www.flyaero.com)

Memorial honors female pilot

2011-11-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

This bronze sculpture of Doris Tracy is one of two in a memorial for the WASP that will be unveiled Nov. 11 in LaVeta.

From the Chieftain (La Veta, CO): Memorial honors female pilot
LA VETA — A memorial honoring woman pilot Doris Bristol Tracy will be unveiled at 3 p.m. Nov. 11 in the courtyard between the public library and Francisco Fort Museum.

Tracy, a longtime La Veta resident who died July 29, 2010, served as a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilot) from 1943 to 1945. She and other WASPs were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for their service to the United States in March 2010.

The memorial comprises two larger-than-life bronze sculptures — one of Tracy as a pilot in flight gear and one of a girl holding an airplane — by La Veta artist Joan Hanley.

After getting to know Tracy and hearing about her adventures as a WASP, Hanley thought Tracy would be an inspiration to young women and to the community, and she launched the Doris Tracy Memorial Project.

The project has involved many people, including young women from the Sangre de Cristo Center for Youth in Walsenburg who have learned about sculpture and how large bronzes are created, and about aviation and the WASP program.

Hanley said involving the young women was "a really good fit."

"She (Tracy) was a role model. You have to do something with your life, have to have some passion, and hers was flying."

Hanley is a painter, sculptor and illustrator whose work has been exhibited at the Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center in Pueblo, the Denver Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago and is part of many public and private collections.

A fundraiser for the project, a progressive wine tasting, will be held Saturday starting at 4 p.m. at Deerprint Wine and continuing at Next Door Deli and the La Veta Inn.

More information about the memorial is available at http://doristracy.blogspot.com.

The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship ch 2

2011-11-06T01:34:00.000-07:00

The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship,
By Margaret Burnham, first published 1912
CHAPTER II.

SUSPENSE AND ACHIEVEMENT.
It was a week after Fan Harding's visit to the Prescott home, on one windless, steamy morning, when the pearl-gray mist still lay in the smooth hollows running back from the coast, that The Golden Butterfly was wheeled out of her cocoon--so to speak--and dragged up the hillside at the back of the white, green-shuttered cottage. Miss Prescott, a sweet-faced old lady, whose cheek was still blooming despite the passage of the years, stood on the back porch of the house watching the process.

If Miss Prescott's face had been somewhat less cheerful than usual since her talk with Mr. Harding, all the clouds had been chased from it now. She watched as eagerly as a girl while Roy and Peggy, aided by Jess and Jimsy and two other lads, friends of Roy's from the village, dragged the brand new aeroplane up the hillside.

The excited chatter and laughter of the young folks rang out merrily as they worked--for it was work to get the 'plane, light as it was, up the grade. Fortunately--for Roy had no desire of a crowd to witness his initial ascent in the new 'plane--the Prescott house was some distance out of the village, and there were no near neighbors. The place had, in fact, once been a farm house, and although the acreage still was in the possession of Miss Prescott it was not worked.

A more ideal place for flying could not be imagined. Smooth slopes--unwooded, except in clumps--were all about. To the north glimmered the sparkling waters of Long Island Sound, while to the south stretched fertile farming land, devoted to crop-raising and pasturage.

Very business-like the young people looked as they hauled the monoplane up the hill. Roy and Jimsy wore leather puttees, trousers fashioned somewhat like riding breeches, and leather coats. On their heads were caps of the latter material, well padded within and provided with visors pierced with goggles.

The girls wore shirt waists, outing skirts and "sensible" walking boots. Jess had on her "Shaker" motoring bonnet, in which she looked very captivating indeed. Peggy's glossy hair, unadorned, but tightly confined in a net, formed her hair covering. Both girls were all a-tiptoe with excitement, for although Roy had had experience with aeroplanes, and so, in a limited way, had Jimsy, this feature of the sport was new to them.

At last the summit was reached, and Roy, after calling a halt, took a brief but comprehensive survey of the Golden Butterfly. This done, he climbed into the chassis--or body--of the thing, and leaning over the machinery he rapidly tested all the adjustments and examined the lubricating devices to see that all was in order. Everything appeared to be.

"Well," said Roy, with some self complacency, stepping out of the machine, "everything seems to be ready for the initial flight of the Golden Butterfly, my lords and gentlemen."

"And ladies, if you please," put in Jess, in a voice that was vibrant with excitement, despite her endeavor to keep calm.

"And ladies," added Roy, with a gallant bow in her direction.

Peggy in the meantime, like an anxious little mother fussing over dolls,
had been examining the aeroplane once more. Suddenly she gave a little cry. The exclamation interrupted Roy who was explaining, with great satisfaction, that everything was all right.

"I've looked it over and if there had been anything wrong it couldn't have escaped my notice," he observed rather pompously.

"Oh, Roy! Just look here! The spring of this landing wheel is all slack!"

This was the exclamation from Peggy that brought up Roy somewhat shortly in the midst of his self-confident harangue.

"By George, so it is, sis!" exclaimed Roy, reddening a little, while Lem Sidney, one of his chums, observed with a chuckle to Jeff Stokes, that Peggy appeared to know as much, if not more, about the machine than did Roy.

The spring was soon tightened by means of a monkey wrench. But that did not prevent them all realizing that had it not been for Peggy's acute observation a serious accident might have occurred. This done, even Peggy's anxious glances could not detect any other flaw in the machine.

"What time did that aviator fellow say he would show up?" then demanded Jimsy, abruptly.

"He should be here now," rejoined Roy. "I've half a mind to start anyhow. I can manage the machine I am very certain."

"Oh, Roy!" cried Peggy, reprovingly, "you know you promised aunty that you wouldn't do anything till Mr. Hal Homer got here."

"All right, sis," put in Roy, hastily, "don't be scared. I'll stick to my word."

"Hullo!" cried Jimsy, suddenly, "there comes an auto now."

"So it is," exclaimed the others, as a black touring car came whizzing down the road below them. It soon halted, and a figure in leather garments with gaitered legs alighted and hastened across the fields toward the party clustered about the aeroplane. The car was left in charge of the chauffeur.

As Jimsy had guessed, the new arrival proved to be Hal Homer, the well-known cross country flier, from whom Roy had taken some vacation time aviation lessons.

"He's awfully good looking," whispered Jess to Peggy, after introductions to the dapper young aviator had been extended by Roy.

"Oh, so--so," rejoined Peggy, with a toss of her head.

"Maybe you know some one who is handsomer?" questioned Jess with a mischievous side glance of her fine eyes.

Peggy flushed under her fair skin. But Jess laughed with good-humored raillery.

"Jimsy surely is a good-looking boy," she said, "if he hadn't a pug nose."

"A pug nose!" flared up Peggy. "Oh, Jess, how can----"

Then she stopped short in confusion while Jess laughed the more at her discomfiture.

Young Mr. Homer lost no time in starting operations. He ordered his helpers to secure the machine to a small tree growing nearby by means of a stout rope Roy had brought with him. This done, and the monoplane thus secured from flying away when her engine was started, he set the sparking and gasolene levers and threw in the switch. Roy and Jimsy, the latter acting under Roy's instructions, flew to the propeller.

The Golden Butterfly being a monoplane, this was in front of the machine.

"Be careful when you feel it start, to leap aside," warned Roy, "or you might be beheaded."

"I never lose my head in an emergency," joked Jimsy.

But just the same his heart beat, as did those of all of them but Hal Homer's, as he and Roy started to swing the great shiny wooden driving appliance.

Once, twice, three times they swung it round, exerting all their force. The fourth time they were rewarded by a feeble sigh from the engine--a sixty horse power motor.

All at once--Bang!

"Let go!" yelled Roy, jumping backward.

Jimsy in his hurry to obey stumbled and fell backward in a heap. He rolled some distance down the hill unnoticed, before he succeeded in stopping his motion. In the meantime the others--even Peggy--were too absorbed in the sight before them to watch Jimsy.

Simultaneously with the sharp report the propeller had whirled around swiftly. The next instant it was a mere gray blur, while a furious wind from its revolving blades swept the onlookers. Blue smoke spurted from the exhausts, mingled with flame, and the uproar was terrific.

The Golden Butterfly, like a thing of life, struggled at her moorings. The rope stretched and strained, taut as a violin string, under the pull. But it held fast, and after a while Aviator Homer slowed down the engine and finally stopped it, after adjusting a miss-fire in one of the cylinders. As the propeller became once more visible and then came to a stop, the boys broke into cheers, while the girls, too, voiced their enthusiasm.

"Oh, Peggy, isn't it a darling!" cried Jess.

"Aeroplanes are not usually called 'darlings,'" responded Peggy with assumed severity, "but--oh, Jess, it's--it's--a jewel and----"

"I'm dying for a ride in it!" burst in Jess.

"Then if you will consent to live a little longer I hope to have the pleasure of saving your life," put in Roy, gallantly.

"Oh, Roy! I can ride in it now!" gasped Jess, while Peggy clasped her hands and snuggled up close to her chum.

"Well, no, hardly just yet," laughed Roy, "but after Homer has tested her thoroughly out I guess you girls can take a spin."

"You know I'm going to learn to handle one," declared Peggy, as Roy made off once more. "I know a good deal about the theoretical part of it already."

"Well, theory wouldn't do you much good in a mile-long tumble," quoth Jess, sagely.

"Nonsense," rejoined Peggy. "Mr. Homer says one is as safe in an aeroplane, if one is careful, as in an auto."

"Safer I guess, the way that brother of mine drives sometimes," replied Jess. "He calls it 'burning up the road.' But--oh, look, they're casting off, or whatever it is you do to an airship when you turn her loose. Oh!"

Snatching off her motoring bonnet Jess began waving it furiously. While they had been talking the rope had been cast loose, and now, with Mr. Homer himself at the driving wheel, in cap and goggles, the engine was being started once more.

In wrapt excitement both girls stood breathless. So intent were they on the scene transpiring before them that they had not noticed the approach of a second auto on the road below. From it Fan Harding had alighted and hastened up the hill, after "parking" his machine, as if in fear that he would be too late to view the proceedings.

A sneering look was on his rather handsome face as he rapidly climbed the hill. He reached a position behind the two girls just as the aviator gave the signal to let go of the machine--to the rear structure of which Lem Sidney and Jeff Stokes were perspiringly clinging, their heels digging into the soft turf to steady themselves.

As Mr. Homer's hand swung backward and downward they let go. Instantly, like an arrow from a bow, the monoplane--the work of Peggy and Roy--was off. How it scudded across the hill top! Blue smoke and flame shot from its exhaust. Its operator sat hunched over his machinery looking, with his goggles, like some creature of the lower regions. Peggy clasped her hands and stood a-tiptoe breathlessly as it scudded along.

"Oh, will it rise?" she breathed, her color coming and going in her excitement.

"I'll bet ten dollars it won't fly any more than an earthworm."

Peggy turned swiftly, indignantly. Her color flamed and her eyes blazed angrily. Jess, hardly less indignant at the sneering tone and words, also faced about.

"Good morning, girls," said Fan Harding, easily, raising his motoring cap nonchalantly, "I came to see the ascension, but I'm afraid that it's going to be a descension."

"I think you're hateful to talk like that," cried Peggy, angrily, stamping her foot. "Our aeroplane will rise. It just will, I tell you--oh, gracious!"

She broke off in confusion and stood aghast for a moment. The swiftly scudding aeroplane had stopped its skittering over the grass and had come to an abrupt stop at a distance of about five hundred yards.

Already the boys were running across the turf toward it at top speed. The girls could see Mr. Homer clambering out of the chassis as the machine came to a standstill.

"Ha! Ha! just as I thought," chuckled Fan Harding, viciously, "that thing is a dead failure."

Poor Peggy, tears in her eyes at this seeming disaster, was stung fairly out of herself. She switched round on Fan Harding with a suddenness that made her skirt fly out and that young gentleman step precipitately backward.

"It isn't a failure, Fan Harding," she cried, with blazing eyes. "How dare you come here to sneer at us. We didn't invite you. Oh, I could----"

But Jess had seized her arm and succeeded in checking Peggy just in time. She whispered something to the indignant girl, who, with a scornful look at Fan Harding, turned and, with her friend, ran lightly off toward the stranded aeroplane.

"By Jove, I really thought for a minute she was going to slap my face," chuckled Fan Harding to himself. "How pretty she is when she is angry. But I guess if she knew what I do about certain affairs she wouldn't be quite so fresh with me."

He cast a glance at the aeroplane around which the anxious young people were now clustering thickly.

"If that thing is a success," he mused, as he strode off to join them, "so much the better for me. I think I could use an aeroplane. I don't see why I should let Roy Prescott beat me out at anything. Ah! They've started the engine again and--by ginger, she's rising! She's going up! She's flying!"

The small irregularity in the working of the engine, which had brought the plane to a stop, had been quickly remedied. Even Fan Harding, little as he liked Roy, could not help but join in the cheers as the Golden Butterfly, swinging in an easy circle, began to climb--higher and higher toward the fleecy clouds that flecked the blue dome above.

As for Peggy, she jumped up and down in her enthusiasm till her golden hair was tumbling in a tangle about her pink shells of ears.

"Oh, goody! goody! goody!" she squealed in the intensity of her joy.

LADY AVIATORS: In History and Popular Fiction From the 1700s to World War II

2011-11-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

Jack French, a former Navy officer and retired FBI Agent, is a well-known historian of the Golden Age of Radio; his book Private Eyelashes: Radio's Lady Detectives won the Agatha Award and is available from Bear Manor Media. He is a member of the Society of Phantom Friends (a group that collects girls series books) and has written several historical articles for their journal, "The Whispered Watchword."

A month or so ago, Jack gave a presentation at the 2011 Nostalgia Convention in Maryland, on women aviators, entitled: LADY AVIATORS: In History and Popular Fiction
From the 1700s to World War II.

He very kindle allowed me to put his entire presentation on the You Fly Girl website, so check it out at: http://volcanoseven.com/YouFlyGirl/JackFrench.html

Fiction: The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship

2011-11-04T10:41:00.000-07:00

The Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airshipby Margaret Burnham
Published in 1912

This book is in the public domain. We'll share a chapter every other day.

CHAPTER I. THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY.

"Roy! Roy! where are you?"

Peggy Prescott came flying down the red-brick path, a rustling newspaper clutched in her hand.

"Here I am, sis,--what's up?"

The door of a long, low shed at the farther end of the old-fashioned garden opened as a clattering sound of hammering abruptly ceased. Roy Prescott, a wavy-haired, blue-eyed lad of seventeen, or thereabouts, stood in the portal. He looked very business-like in his khaki trousers, blue shirt and rolled up sleeves. In his hand was a shiny hammer.

Peggy, quite regardless of a big, black smudge on her brother's face, threw her arms around his neck in one of her "bear hugs," while Roy, boy-like, wriggled in her clasp as best he could.

"Now, just look here," cried Peggy, quite out of breath with her own vehemence. She flourished the paper under his nose and, imitating the traditional voice of a town crier, announced:

"Hear ye! Hear ye! Hear ye! Roy Prescott or any of the ambitious aviators--now is your chance! Great news from the front! Third and last
call!"

"You've got auctioneering, the Supreme Court and war times, mixed up a bit, haven't you?" asked Roy with masculine condescension, but gazing fondly at his vivacious sister nevertheless.

Peggy made a little face and then thrust forth the paper for his examination.

"Read that, you unenthusiastic person," she demanded, "and then tell me if you don't think that Miss Margaret Prescott has good reason to feel somewhat more enthusiastic than comports with her usual dignity and well-known icy reserve--ahem!"

"Good gracious, sis!" exclaimed the boy, as he scanned the news-sheet, "why this is just what we were wishing for, isn't it? It's our chance if we can only grasp it and make good."

"We can! We will!" exclaimed Peggy, striking an attitude and holding one hand above her glossy head. "Read it out, Roy, so that Monsieur Bleriot can hear it."

M. Bleriot, a French bull-dog, who had dignifiedly followed Peggy's mad career down the path, gazed up appreciatively, as Roy read out:

"Big Chance for Sky Boys!

"Ironmaster Higgins of Acatonick Offers Ten Thousand Dollars In Prizes for Flights and Planes."

"Ten thousand dollars, just think!" cried Peggy, clasping her hands one minute and the next stooping to caress M. Bleriot. "Oh, Roy! Do you think we could?"

"Could what? you indefinite person?" parried Roy, although his eyes were dancing and he knew well enough what his vivacious sister was driving at.

"Could win that ten thousand dollars, of course, you goose."

Roy laughed.

"It's not all offered in a lump sum," he rejoined. "Listen; there is a first prize of five thousand dollars for the boy under eighteen who makes the longest sustained flight in a plane of his own construction--with the exception of the engine, that is; and here's another of two thousand five hundred dollars to the glider making the best and longest sustained flight, and another of one thousand five hundred to the boy flying the most carefully constructed machine and the one bearing the most ingenious devices for perfecting the art of flying and--and--oh listen, Peggy!"

"I am--oh, I am!" breathed Peggy with half assumed breathlessness.

"There's a prize offered for girls!"

"No!"

"Yes. Now don't say any more that girls are downtrodden and neglected by the bright minds of the day. Here it is, all in black and white, a prize of a whole thousand to the young lady who makes a successful flight. There, what do you think of that?"

"That Mr. Higgins is a mean old thing," pouted Peggy, "five thousand dollars to the successful boy and only one thousand to the successful girl. It's discrimination, that's what it is. Don't you read every day in the papers about girls and women making almost as good flights as the men? Didn't a--a Mademoiselle somebody-or-other make a flight round the bell tower at Bruges the other day, and hasn't Col. Roosevelt's daughter been up in one, and isn't there a regular school for women fliers at Washington, and--and----?"

"Didn't the suffragettes promise to drop 'Votes for Women' placards from the air upon the devoted heads of the British Parliament, you up to date young person?" finished Roy, teasingly.

Peggy made a dash for him but the boy dodged into the shed, closely followed by his sister.

But as she crossed the threshold Peggy's wild swoop became a decorous stroll, so to speak. She paused, all out of breath, beneath a spreading expanse of yellow balloon silk, braced and strengthened with brightly gleaming wires and stays,--one wing of the big monoplane upon which her brother had spent all his spare time for the past year. The flying thing was almost completed now. It stood in its shed, with its scarab-like wings outspread like a newly alighted yellow butterfly, which, by a stroke of ill luck, had found itself installed in a gloomy cage instead of the bright, open spaces of its native element.

In one corner of the shed was a large crate surrounded by some smaller ones. The large one had been partially opened and Peggy gave a little squeal of delight as her eyes fell on it.

"Oh, Roy, that's it?"

"That's it," rejoined the boy proudly, lifting a bit of sacking from the contents of the opened crate, "isn't it a beauty?"

The lifted covering had exposed a gleam of bright, scarlet enamel, and the glint of polished brass. To Roy the contents of that crate was the splendid new motor for his aeroplane. But to Peggy, just then, it was something far different. A bit of a mist dimmed her shining eyes for an instant. Her voice grew very sober.

"Three thousand dollars--oh, Roy, it scares me!"

Roy crossed the shed and threw an arm about his sister's neck.

"Don't be frightened, sis," he breathed in an assuring tone, "it's going to be all right. Why, can't you see that the very first thing that happens is a chance to win $5,000?"

"I know that. But that contest is not to come off for more than a month and--and supposing someone should have a better machine than you?"

For an instant that air of absolute assurance, which truth to tell, had made Roy some enemies, and which was his greatest fault, left him. His face clouded and he looked troubled. But it was as momentary as the cloud-shadow that passes over a summer wheat field.

"It'll be all right, sis," he rejoined, confidently, "and if it isn't, I can always sell out to Simon Harding. You know he said that his offer held good at any time."

"I know that, Roy," rejoined Peggy, seriously, "but we could never do that. We could neither of us go against father's wishes like that. He--well, Roy, it's not to be thought of. Poor dad----"

Her bright eyes filled with tears as her mind travelled back to a scene of a year before when Mr. Prescott had ceased from troubling with the affairs of this world, and commended his children to the care of their maiden aunt--his sister with whom, since their mother's death some years before, the little family had made their home.

Poor Mr. Prescott had been that hopelessly impracticable creature--an inventor. Fortunately for himself, however, he had a small fortune of his own so that he had been enabled to carry on his dreaming and planning without embarrassing his family. Roy and Peggy had both been sent to good boarding schools, and had known, in fact, very little of home life after their mother's death which had occurred several years before, as already said.

Mr. Prescott, in his dreamy, abstract way, had cared dearly for his children. But those other children of his--the offsprings of his brain--that surrounded him in his workshop, had, somehow, seemed always to mean more to him. And so the young Prescotts had grown up without the benefit of home influences.

On Peggy's naturally sweet, vivacious character, this had not made so much difference. But Roy had developed, in spite of his real sterling worth and ability, into a headstrong, rather self-opinionated lad. His success at school in athletics and the studies which he cared about "mugging" at had not tended to decrease these qualities.

It had come as a shock to both of them a year before when two telegrams had been despatched--one to Peggy's school up the Hudson, and the other to Roy up in Connecticut, telling them to return to the Long Island village of Sandy Bay at once. Their father--that half-shadowy being--was very ill.

The messages had not exaggerated the seriousness of the situation. Three days after his children reached his side Mr. Prescott gently breathed his last, dying, as he had lived, so quietly, that the end had come before they realized it. But in those last brief moments Roy came to know his father better than ever before. He learned that the dream of his parent had been to produce an aeroplane free from the defects of its forerunners,--a safe vehicle for passengers or freight. How far he had progressed in this there was no time for him to tell before the end came. But Roy, interested already in aeronautics at school, where he had been president of "The High Fliers"--a model aeroplane association,--eagerly took up his father's desire that he would try to carry on his work, and began to take lessons in flying.

In the shed which had been Mr. Prescott's workshop the framework of an aeroplane already stood. And with the aid of what money his father had left him, Roy had carried on the work till now it was almost completed. But the three thousand dollars which had gone for the motor had completely exhausted the lad's legacy. As Peggy put it, all their eggs were in an "aerial basket."

But how much Peggy had aided him, in what had, in the last few months possessed all his thoughts, Roy did not guess. To what extent her encouragement had spurred him on to surmount seemingly unconquerable difficulties, and how she had actually aided him in constructing the machine, his ambition never realized. Not innately selfish, Roy was yet too used to having his own way to attribute his success to any one but himself.

Sometimes, brave, loyal little Peggy, try as she might, could not disguise this from herself, and it pained her a good deal. But she had uncomplainingly, ungrudgingly, aided her brother, without hoping for, or expecting, the appreciation she sometimes felt she was really entitled to. But her great love for her brother kept Peggy from ever betraying to him or any one else an iota of her inner feelings.

So intent had the brother and sister been on their talk that neither of them had noticed, while they conversed, that a big four-door touring car, aglitter with gleaming maroon paint, and with a long, low hood concealing a powerful engine, had glided up to the white gate in the picket fence surrounding Miss Prescott's old fashioned cottage.

From it a frank, pleasant-faced lad and an unusually striking girl, tall, slender and with a glossy mass of black hair coiled attractively on her shapely head, had alighted.

Hearing the sound of voices from the open door of the shed in which The Golden Butterfly, as Peggy had christened it, was nearing completion, they, without ceremony, at once made their way toward it. Peggy, glancing up from her sad reverie at the sound of footsteps, gave a glad little cry as she beheld the visitors standing framed in the sunlight of the open door. While she and the tall, dark-haired girl mingled their contrasting tresses in an exuberant school-girl caress, the lad and Roy Prescott, were, boy fashion, slapping one another on the back and shaking hands with just as much enthusiasm.

"Why, if this isn't simply delightful, Jess, you dear old thing," cried the delighted Peggy, as, with both hands on her chum's shoulders, she held Jess Bancroft off at arm's length, the better to scrutinize her handsome face, "and Jimsy, too," as she turned to the lad with a bright smile of welcome; "wherever did you two come from?"

"From the clouds?" demanded Roy.

"No, hardly, although I don't wonder at your asking such a question," laughed Jess, merrily, exchanging greetings with Roy. "Roy Prescott, positively I can see your wings sprouting."

They all laughed heartily at this, while Jess ran on to explain that she and her brother were stopping for the summer at Seaview Towers, a summer estate which their father, a Wall Street power, had leased for the season. Of course, explained the merry girl, who had been Peggy's closest chum at school, her first thought had been to take a spin over in her new motor car and look up her friends, for Roy and James--or Jimsy--Bancroft had been almost as close chums as the girls.

"And so this is the wonderful Golden Butterfly that you wrote to me about?" exclaimed Jess enthusiastically after the first buzz of conversation subsided.

"Yes, this is it," said Roy with great satisfaction in his tones, "and I'm proud of it, I can tell you. I think I've made a success of it."

Jess and Jimsy exchanged glances. And then Jess stole a look at Peggy, but no cloud had crossed the face of Roy's sister.

"Oh, you darling," thought Jess, "you're too sweet for anything. I just how much you contributed to the Golden Butterfly's existence, and yet you won't detract a bit from Roy's self satisfaction."

As for Jimsy Bancroft, he said nothing. He glanced rather oddly at Roy for an instant. Then his eyes turned to Peggy's face. Perhaps they dwelt there for rather a long period of time. At any rate, they were still fixed on her brave beauty when a sudden shadow fell across the stream of sunlight that poured into the open portal of the workshop.

"Ah! So this is the place in which young genius finds its habitation;" grated out a rather harsh, unpleasant voice.

They all looked up. Perhaps none of them--Jimsy least of all--was pleased at the interruption. The newcomer was a tall, angular man, with a withered, clean-shaven face,--what Peggy called a "money making face"; and surely that described Simon Harding, as he stood there in his black, none-too-new garments, and his square-toed shoes. One could fairly catch the avaricious glint in his eyes as he squinted rapidly over the new aeroplane's outlines.

By his side stood a youth who was, so far as dress went at any rate, the exact opposite of the elder man. Fanning Harding--or Fan as he was usually called--was dressed in elaborate motoring costume. His goggles, of the latest and most exaggerated design, were shoved up off his countenance now, exposing to view a good-looking browned face. It was marred, however, by the same restless, strained look that could be seen on his father's visage.

"We're not intruding, I hope," he hastened to say, coming forward with a cordiality that seemed somewhat forced.

"Not in the least," said Peggy, hastily, realizing that none of them had perhaps looked very cordial, "won't you come in?"

Fan Harding, bestowing an admiring glance on her, seemed to be about to accept. His father, however, struck in:

"I'll leave you with the young folks, my boy, while I go up to the house. I have some business with Miss Prescott."

As he shuffled off, Peggy and Roy exchanged somewhat uneasy glances. What business could this old man--in some respects a power financially and otherwise in Sandy Beach--have with their aunt?

"Say Peggy," spoke up Fan Harding, suddenly, "ain't you going to introduce me to your friends? And how about inviting us all to have some of those strawberries Pop and I noticed as we came down the path?"

"Well, he isn't a bit backward about coming forward!" thought Jess as the young people, with due formality, went through the ceremony of introductions.

Keep 'em Flying! : Unleaded Swift fuel tested in radial engine

2011-10-30T14:24:00.001-07:00

From AOPA online: Unleaded Swift fuel tested in radial engine

An unmodified Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine running on Swift Enterprises’ high-octane unleaded fuel 100SF showed no signs of knock in an informal round of testing, Purdue Research Park announced Oct. 25.

High-powered radial engines, designed to run on 115/145-octane fuel, present a significant challenge to any developer of an unleaded fuel. These engines already must run on reduced power settings on today’s lower-octane 100LL, and losing the knock protection provided by lead could further shrink their operating margins. The testing was part of an effort to prove that the fuel can meet the needs of engines that demand high-octane fuel, like the radial-engine aircraft that play an especially critical role in transporting people and supplies in Alaska—a question that Swift Vice President of Renewable Fuels Jon Ziulkowski said frequently arises during meetings with industry.

“Everybody says, ‘Yeah, but will it work in a radial engine?’” he said. Now, the company can say, "Yes," he added.
AOPA Top Stories

* FAA launches Web page for laser incident reports
* Aviation groups: Costly proposals won't work
* Real-time runway status alerts coming
* Keep flying: 180 hp, one passenger, driver's license medical
* Former medical certification manager advanced FAA policies
* Unleaded Swift fuel tested in radial engine

“It turns out it’s at least as good as 100LL."

A&P mechanics at Anderson Aeromotive Inc. conducted testing over three days in Grangeville, Idaho, operating at 115- to 145-octane takeoff power settings with no sign of engine knock, Purdue Research Park said. The R-2800 burned more than 100 gallons of 100SF, which produced a higher detonation threshold than 100LL, the business incubation complex added.

Norman Koerner, president of TriCap International Inc., organized the testing at Anderson Aeromotive, an outfit with significant radial engine experience, Purdue Research Park noted in a news release. Texas-based TriCap provides consulting and management services for aircraft modification, specializing in high-performance piston aircraft such as the Douglas A-26 and DC-3 and the Lockheed PV-2.

Swift’s fuel will undergo another, more extensive, formal round of radial engine testing in 2012, the release noted. Ziulkowski said Swift expects to conduct those tests in the demanding environment of Alaska, running the fuel on an aircraft there and measuring such performance parameters as detonation and resistance to detonation, compatibility with the engine, and cold-weather performance.

The testing also will explore the possibility of operating at higher power settings than on 100LL because of 100SF’s slightly higher octane, Ziulkowski said. “To an air carrier in Alaska, that makes all the difference,” he said.

Koerner said in the news release that the testing will help pave the way for legacy aircraft to continue to provide essential services.

"Additionally, 100SF will be able to power the heritage aircraft that are indispensable in preserving the history of World War II,” Koerner said. “I think it's the right thing to do, so let's 'keep 'em flying!'"

Only in Print: Kendal at Hanover residents publish book of war memories

2011-10-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

WASP Louise Brown shares her stories in World War II Remembered.

From Union Leader.com: Only in Print: Kendal at Hanover residents publish book of war memories

HANOVER — He was injured at both the D-Day landing in Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, but his assignment to oversee an emancipated concentration camp in Germany when World War II ended was what left the most lasting impact on Clinton Gardner.

“The memory of it is so deep, it has affected me ever since,” he said.

He tells his story “Three Unlikely Wounds” in the new book World War II Remembered, a collection of 56 memoirs by residents of the retirement community Kendal at Hanover. The book was released this week.

Gardner, 88, managing editor in the book’s publication, said Wednesday that residents of Kendal at Hanover were inspired after reading a book of World War II memoirs written by residents of the retirement community Wake Robin, in Shelburne, Vt.

Wake Robin individuals gladly consulted the Kendal residents on the project, Gardener said. “We thought it was a great idea and we gave them a call and asked them how they did it.”

Kendal residents Jane Barlow, Robert Christie, Elinor Horne, Mary Jenkins, James Sheridan and Robert Stanbaugh also served as editors of the book.

“My memoir, I’ve given the title ‘Three Unlikely Wounds.’ I received the first wound on D-Day. … Everyone around me thought I was gone. My helmet was split in half by a shell that went through it. … The second was during the Battle of the Bulge. And the third — I am calling it a wound, but it was a psychological wound — was when I was put in charge of the Buchenwald concentration camp,” Gardner said. “That was one of the big concentration camps. In fact, it was one of the first concentration camps freed.”

When the U.S. Army freed the camp, there were 20,000 people in it — “3,000 were half alive and dying at a rate of 50 a day.”

Buchenwald was where the some of the first reports of the Auschwitz gas chambers were reported by prisoners, so officers were brought in to interview them.

While he had quickly recovered from his battle wounds in army hospitals, the scars left by the horrors of his three months in the camp have stayed with Gardner; he said he has memories of seeing the huge number of dead and visiting the morgue daily.

“World War II Remembered” tells other stories from both the European and Pacific fronts, as well as those who did their part at home or who lived under Nazi rule.

Gardner is quick to point out two-thirds of the memoirs were written by women. Louise Brown flew planes to various locations within the country as a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots. The WASPS, as they were called, never saw combat but Brown had a close call.

Jean Sonder wrote a detailed account of her childhood living in Nazi-occupied Holland. She recalls the day parachutes of the invading army rained down on The Hague and how she was taught to protect herself and her family. “We children were warned by our parents, and also by a teacher, to watch what we said in public, as the Germans were encouraging people to tell them what they heard or saw of anti-German behavior and tricking the younger children at school into revealing that their parents listened to the BBC,” she wrote.

Her father, who was Jewish, was eventually sent to Auschwitz, where he died while her mother, who had dual citizenship, fled with the children to the United States.

“I think the most interesting thing for me is the effect of seeing such varied reports of the war,” Gardner said.

“World War II Remembered” was published by the Kendal Residents Association. The book is priced at $22.95 and available at the Dartmouth Bookstore. An order form for the book is also available on the Kendal at Hanover website, kah.kendal.org.

Generations unite: Reservists serve alongside WWII WASPs

2011-10-23T02:10:00.000-07:00

From the 442nd Fighter Wing: Generations unite: Reservists serve alongside WWII WASPs
Senior Master Sgt. Regina Brewer escorts Flora Bell Reese, World War II Woman Airforce Service Pilot, during the Midland Airshow in Odessa, Texas, Oct. 7, 2011. Brewer attended the event as a representative of the 442nd Human Resources Development Council, part of the 442nd Fighter Wing. The 442nd FW is an A-10 Thunderbolt II Air Force Reserve unit at Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. (U.S. Air Force photo/Courtesy photo)

- WHITEMAN AIR FORCE BASE, Mo. -- In October, two members of the 442nd Fighter Wing and 27 other Citizen Airmen from 10th Air Force, attended the Midland Airshow in Odessa, Texas. Unique to this airshow however, was the opportunity for the servicemembers to escort Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) from World War II.

With less than 300 WASPs remaining today, their heritage is quickly fading - something Senior Master Sgt. Regina Brewer, 442nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron support technician, said she doesn't want to see happen.

"These are amazing women," she said. "They've accomplished so much in their lives, and most people have never even heard about them. But they're the reason I'm in the Air Force today."

During World War II, the need for pilots was great - and while there were volunteers - many of them were disqualified based on their gender. These females knew they wanted to serve their country and knew they had the bravery and skills to do so as pilots.

"We paid our own way over there to the war," said Merriem Roby Anderson, WASP of class 44-4. "We flew the planes and fought in the war, and then one day they just told us to go home."

The women were given no military honors, medical privileges or G.I. benefits. Instead, many returned to a society that didn't accept their service to the country.

The WASPs had become the first women to fly American military aircraft. More than 1,000 women earned their wings during World War II.

Finally, in 1977 after 30 years, the WASPs were given veteran status.

In 2010, five members of the 442nd Fighter Wing traveled to the nation's capitol to pay respect to the women as they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Brewer began studying about the WASPs after she attended a Women in Aviation Conference a few years ago. She said she has always loved learning about history, and until the WIA conference, had never heard about the WASPs.

"I was never taught about these women - but it's because of them that I'm in the military today," she said. "Spending time with them is a humbling experience - one that everyone - men and women - could all learn so much from."

As a member of the 442nd Human Resources Development Council, Brewer has volunteered to become an instructor for Wright Flight - a program where servicemembers teach high school students about aviation.

"I would love to have a WASP come talk to the students about her experiences," Brewer said. "I don't know why this stuff isn't in history books, because the WASPs are a huge part of our history."

Brewer said the WASP she escorted to the Midland Airshow, Flora Belle Smith Reese of class 44-4, will be part of her family for the rest of her life.

"Everyone who attends these events and meets these women gets to know them so well and will probably have a connection with them for the rest of their lives."

Col. Gregory Eckfeld, 442nd Fighter Wing vice commander and president of 442nd HRDC, said there will be more opportunities like this for reservists in the future. For more information about HRDC, you may contact him at (660) 687-4008.

Why You Should Get Your Girl - or Boy - ClaireBear stuff for Christmas

2011-10-20T01:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.powderpuffpilot.com/products/claire-bear-aviatrix.aspx

Claire Bear Flies to Oshkosh...Just in time for Christmas

2011-10-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

Received this press release today: Powder Puff Pilot Releases New Aviation Book for Children

visit www.PowderPuffPilot.com or call toll free at 888-801-6628.
Or: http://www.powderpuffpilot.com/products/claire-bear-aviatrix.aspx

Aurora, Colorado – It’s never too early to start ground school for the next generation of pilots, even if they’re preschoolers! Denver-based publisher Powder Puff Pilot makes learning about aviation fun with a series of full-color picture books starring Claire Bear, a pink‑clad aerobatic performer and mentor for aspiring young pilots. The release of their newest book, Claire Bear Flies to Oshkosh is just in time for parents and grandparents to share their love of aviation with the next generation of pilots at Christmas.

In her fourth aviation picture book, author Sue Hughes describes a visit a to EAA’s AirVenture, “The World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration,” held every summer in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. She implements her characteristic lyrical rhymes to follow Claire Bear as she flies to the event and performs in the world’s greatest airshow.

Anyone who has used the special flight procedures implemented during AirVenture will relate to Claire when she rocks her wings and lands on the green dot at Oshkosh’s Wittman Regional Airport. These are just a few of the unique arrival procedures that enable air traffic controllers to handle more daily air traffic during the 10 days of AirVenture than Atlanta’s Hartsfield, Chicago’s O’Hare, or New York City’s JFK airports.

The Claire Bear series is the brainchild of Sue Hughes—a pilot since 1996 and a current flight instructor and aviation technical writer—whose goal is to introduce the thrills and exhilaration of aviation to a new generation. With her latest title, Hughes describes the enormity and excitement of AirVenture, “although it’s difficult to convey how big this event really is, and how special it is to aviation fans,” explained Hughes. “I’ve been to Oshkosh five times, and can’t wait to go again.”

Hughes credits illustrator Linda Terentiak for really bringing the Oshkosh experience to life. The two met at Oshkosh in 2010 and later, when Hughes needed an illustrator for her next book, Terentiak rose to the top of her wish list. “This project took longer than usual,” said Terentiak, “because the drawings were based on actual photos, and we took great pains to get them correct. It is so exciting to see it come together!”

EAA Communications Director Dick Knapinski vouches for the accuracy of the new release, saying, “The book was definitely written by someone who had flown the Oshkosh approach before.” He added, “Love the book and I hope it does great!”

The first in Hughes’ picture book series, Claire Bear Presents… The Pilot Alphabet, now in its fourth printing, was published in 2008. It teaches Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, and the rest of the words that pilots and air traffic controllers use to communicate clearly over the radio. In 2009, Hughes published her second picture book, Claire Bear’s First Solo, which accurately depicts a pilot’s first solo experience—an exhilarating flight that every aviator vividly remembers. Last year she released her third book, Claire Bear Explains… What Pilots Fly, which offers an overview of the wide variety of missions and aircraft that pilots fly. All three titles have been named by USA Book News as National Best Book finalists.

In addition to publishing, Powder Puff Pilot designs and sells pilot gear and accessories for women, such as a pink pilot logbook, pink aviation headsets, and pink seat cushions. They also carry over 20 biographies, flight adventures, fiction, and children’s books that are by and/or about amazing aviatrixes.

Powder Puff Pilot was founded in November 2008 by Sue Hughes of Aurora, Colorado. Among her other published works are This Day in Women’s Aviation, a page-a-day calendar for 2012 that celebrates events and milestones achieved by women in aviation. Powder Puff Pilot products are sold online and at over 60 retailers, including aviation museums, pilot shops, and bookstores. For more information or to order Powder Puff Pilot products, visit www.PowderPuffPilot.com or call toll free at 888-801-6628.

More women earn their wings at Lufthansa and other airlines

2011-10-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

From Deutche Welle: More women earn their wings at Lufthansa and other airlines
Female aviators have flown combat missions for the military, but it's taken them much longer to break the gender barrier at commercial airlines. The percentage of women pilots is still extremely low, but rising.

Back in the 1960s, the head of Lufthansa's pilot training school, Alfred Vermaaten, once quipped: "A woman has a better chance of becoming a world heavyweight boxing champion than an airline captain". It took decades to prove Vermaaten wrong. Lufthansa's first female pilot took to the skies in 1988, and went on to becoming the German flag carrier's first female captain in the year 2000.

Lufthansa currently employs nearly 300 female pilots, which means women account for little more than 5 percent of the airline's pilots an industry average based on a random sampling of major commercial airlines compiled by Deutsche Welle.

Today the odds of a woman being a commercial airline pilot are better than becoming a heavyweight boxing champion, but they're still a lot lower than the 12 percent on the supervisory boards of Germany's major DAX companies. Furthermore, 36 percent of judges in Germany are women and nearly 40 percent of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet is female.

No discrimination in the cockpit
In Vermaaten's time, it was unthinkable for a woman to be in the cockpit of any commercial airline, even though many female pilots had flown for the military during the previous half-century.

"We had a saying that 'if God meant women to fly, he would have painted the sky pink, not blue,'" said Captain Jörg Handwerg, a spokesman for the airline pilots' association Vereinigung Cockpit. However, gender discrimination is no longer an obstacle to a career in the cockpit, he added. Quite the contrary.

"When (women) apply for a job, airlines are happy. They want to get rid of the stigma they discriminate against women. They want to encourage women to become pilots, but with only an 8 percent application rate, you cannot have 50 percent women pilots," he said.

Although there are no quotas or numerical targets in its recruitment of female pilots, Lufthansa sponsors an annual program called Girls' Day, in which companies present vocational choices to teenage girls. "We try to promote the job of an airline pilot, flight engineer or mechanic to high school girls, to show them that these kinds of career paths are options for them," explained Lufthansa spokesman Michael Lamberty.

Lack of female role models
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Women fly for the German military, but few other female role models exist
That so few women apply for the flight training programs airlines offer is puzzling, especially since the pay is good. The starting salary at a major commercial airline such as Lufthansa is about 60,000 euros ($82,000), which is more than that of a junior hospital doctor or lower level federal judge in Germany.

First officer Rieke Hurler, 25, earned her pilot's license in 2010 after completing an in-house flight training course that lasted nearly three years. Hurler, whose father is also a pilot, had already dreamed about flying as a child.

"I think if my father would not be a pilot, I would not have even thought about it," Hurler said, adding that the lack of female role models could be a reason why so few women consider a career in the cockpit. "In the movies and TV, it's always the male heroes who are flying the airplanes".

Too technical for women?
Perhaps flying jets, like fixing cars, is simply one of those 'male' tasks which doesn't appeal to most women?

"The female pilots we have are wonderful, but women in general just don't seem to be interested in this very technical job," said Handwerg. But Hurler believes many women are frightened off by the perception that flying is a purely technical career.

"You don't need to study maths or physics to be a pilot. Lots of women think it's only a technical job, but you need communication and team skills, soft skills too," said Hurler. "I think there's no difference whether you're a woman or man flying an airplane. There's nothing that a woman can't do in this job," she added.

For many younger women, the technical demands of the job and sexism are not the primary issue keeping them away from the runway. What matters is whether a company offers family friendly policies that make it easier for women to combine work with motherhood.

Combining flying with motherhood
"The job of a pilot is not Monday to Friday 9-5. It's not very regular, but it is planable," said Lufthansa spokesman Lamberty, who explained that pilots can choose from several part-time schemes that allow them to fly a fraction of their regular roster.

Furthermore, flight simulators allow pregnant pilots to keep honing their skills so they don't lose their seniority when they come back to work after maternity leave.

"Of course I'd like to have a family in the next few years and with my job it's not a problem. It's a question of organization," said Hurler, who is married, but childless.

What can be difficult is being thousands of miles away from home at a four or five day stretch - a schedule demanded not just of pilots, but of cabin crew as well. And then there are contingencies such as a volcanic ash cloud that can leave the entire flight crew stranded for days and wreck havoc with childcare arrangements back home.

"For every mother it is hard to leave small children," said Martina Stickler-Posner, who was once a flight attendant, but is now a labor lawyer representing pilots. "What I found hard for me and my colleagues is the standby regulation. You're reading a book to your child, suddenly the phone rings and mummy goes off."

Part-time pilots cost more
Stickler-Posner said that while airlines do officially offer part-time modules to accommodate the work-life needs of their pilots, such practices are sometimes not popular with airline managers because it costs more to train and maintain two part-time pilots than just one full-time pilot.

"There are airlines who say we can't afford to have more part-time workers, that pilot education is so expensive," she said. The cost of training one pilot at Lufthansa is roughly 180,000 euros, of which one third is usually paid back by the trainee in the form of a salary deduction during their first few years of work.

Ironically, when the industry is in a slump, employers are happy to reduce the workload of working mothers and some pilots might even be forced to reduce their hours involuntarily. But during an economic boom or peak travel times of the year, part-time work is discouraged, said Stickler-Posner.

The airline industry is always one of the first to feel the effect of global economic developments, from changes in the price of oil to political unrest. But one steady trend is emerging: In the past decade, the proportion of female pilots at Lufthansa has more than doubled and the number of pilot trainees has tripled to make up 15 percent of the training roster. While it's still rare for passengers to hear a female voice emanating from the cockpit, their absolute numbers are growing quickly.

Woman pilot files harassment complaint: LHC asks PIA to submit reply

2011-10-19T09:16:00.000-07:00

From the Brecorder.com (Pakistan's Premier Financial Daily): Woman pilot files harassment complaint: LHC asks PIA to submit reply
The Lahore High Court here on Wednesday sought a reply from the administration of Pakistan International Airlines in a petition filed against alleged sexual harassment the women pilots face in the national carrier. The petitioner, Captain Riffat Haye, alleged that officials caused sexual harassment to women pilots during flights or in offices.

And if their demands are not met they create hurdles towards their promotions. She claimed that she had also submitted a complaint with PIA women development standing committee but no action was taken. She prayed that action should be taken against those found guilty under the law against women harassment.

Elite Aviation Partners With Piaggio Aero to Expand North American Sales Centers

2011-10-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

The company may be womaned-owned... but there's no info on their website as to who is the owner, how many pilots are women - if any - and so on.

From Market Watch: Elite Aviation Partners With Piaggio Aero to Expand North American Sales Centers
VAN NUYS, Calif., Oct. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Elite Aviation, the premier global private jet company with an extensive and diverse fleet that serves high net worth individuals with flights worldwide and Piaggio Aero, makers of the renowned Piaggio Aero P180 Avanti II turboprop aircraft, announced today a partnership to expand aircraft sales in North America. Elite Aviation will be the West Coast sales center for Piaggio, serving California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada, and spearhead sales of Piaggio Aero's P180 turboprop aircraft out of their office in Van Nuys, California. The move into sales is a logical extension for Elite Aviation, known for providing the highest levels of personal service to their clients in the air and on the ground.

"This relationship cements Elite Aviation's status as a full-service charter jet company assisting our clients in the acquisition, management and maintenance of aircraft," said Chris Holifield, president and CEO, Elite Aviation. "We're honored to be working with Piaggio Aero in multiple states, and through this partnership we'll be able to provide clients with additional guidance enabling them to make smart purchasing decisions."

Elite Aviation is the female-owned premier global private jet company specializing in full-service aircraft management from turnkey acquisitions to maintenance to crew selection and aircraft sub-leasing. The company provides 24-hour access to staff, industry-leading concierge services and catering.

"We're focusing efforts to expand our presence in North America and this new partnership will help us achieve this goal," said John M. Bingham, President and CEO of Piaggio America. "Elite Aviation has the experience and capabilities needed to connect with buyers, coordinate negotiations and influence purchasing decisions."

For more information on Elite Aviation visit www.eliteaviation.com . For further information on Piaggio Aero visit www.piaggioaero.com .

About Elite Aviation
Elite Aviation, LLC is a female-owned global premier private jet company with a diverse fleet that can handle short hops and long-range flights worldwide. The company specializes in full-service aircraft management from turnkey acquisitions to maintenance to crew selection and aircraft sub-leasing. Elite Aviation has achieved the highest level of flight safety with receipt of the prestigious Platinum ARG/US and WYVERN certifications. The company serves the needs of high-net worth individuals in delivering a complete luxury experience in the air and on the ground through a concierge service approach that fulfills every imaginable need. For more information, visit www.eliteaviation.com or call (888) 988-JETS.

On travel til Wednesday

2011-10-08T16:10:00.001-07:00

I'm visiting elderly relatives in Box Elder, SD who do not have internet.

Will try to sneak out now and again to an internet cafe to post, but more than likely will not be posting until Wedneday.

Camels ad from Ladies Home Journal, 1940s

2011-10-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Ad features Civil Air Patrol officer, former socialite, Gay Gahagan.

Advert: Chesterfields 1940s ad

2011-10-01T14:39:00.001-07:00

A magazine ad from the 1940s - don't know which mag.

Advert: Chesterfields, 1938 Ad

2011-10-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

A magazine ad from the 1938 - don't know which mag.

Aviation Week Presents 2011 A&D Programs Conference and Awards on Oct. 24-26 in Phoenix

2011-10-01T01:30:00.000-07:00

A REMINDER:

From Yahoo News: Aviation Week Presents 2011 A&D Programs Conference and Awards on Oct. 24-26 in Phoenix
NEW YORK, Sept. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Aviation Week will present the on October 24-26 at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona. With continuing economic pressures, falling budgets, and increasing calls for industrial investment, it is critical that government contractors and customers strategize their approaches toward performance, innovation and sourcing today. During the event, Aviation Week will also present the Program Excellence Award Winners and Innovation Challenge Finalists, the industry's preeminent awards for program managers and tiered suppliers in the A&D industry.

At the event, attendees will gain valuable business and program intelligence related to key issues, such as progress in supply chain health, DoD and NASA acquisition strategies, program performance trends, and OEM strategic sourcing efforts. Speakers will present in-depth case studies for developing and executing subcontracts, shared services models, and changes in affordability. Program leaders, such as Tom Kilkenny, general manager of IBM Global Aerospace & Defense Industry, will discuss global supply chain optimization, integration and risk mitigation. Other prestigious speakers include:

Craig Blue, Director, Office of Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy Industrial Technologies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Charles Burbage, EVP/GM, F-35 Program Integration, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co.
Byron Callan, Director, Capital Alpha Partners
Tom Captain, Vice Chairman and Global A&D Leader, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Tom Clancy, VP, Advanced Concepts, Aurora Flight Sciences
Tom Dolan, President, Hi-Rel Products
Maureen Dougherty, VP/Program Manager, Next Generation Tanker, Boeing Military Aircraft
Phil Dunford, COO, Boeing Military Aircraft
Bob Fecteau, CIO, BAE Systems Intelligence & Security
Doug Fronius, Chief Engineer, Air and Land Systems, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
Vivek Kamath, VP, Supply Chain Operations, Raytheon
Jason Kinder, Director, Product Management, Deltek
Lisa Kohl, Sector VP, Supply Chain, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
Kenneth Krieg, Founder, Stamford Global, and Former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense-AT&L
Roger Krone, President, Boeing Network and Space Systems
Zachary Lemnios, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
Mike Madsen, President, Honeywell Defense & Space
Philip McAlister, Special Assistant to the Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems, NASA
Doug McCrosson, COO, CPI Aero
Mike Owens, VP, ISC, Americas, Honeywell Aerospace
Mark Sirangelo, Corporate VP, Sierra Nevada Corp. Space Systems
Allan Swan, VP, Supply Chain Planning and Control, Rolls-Royce N.A.
Don Theriault, President, Industrial Tool, Die & Engineering
Jeff Wilcox, VP, Engineering, Lockheed Martin Corp.

For more information or to register, visit . On Twitter, follow @avweekevents or search for #ADP11. Special rates apply before Sept. 16 and for government, military, media, alumni, and groups of three or more.

A&D Programs is produced by Aviation Week, with support from Forecast International, International Centre for Complex Project Management, and Supply Chain Council. The diamond sponsor is IBM. The emerald sponsor is Oracle. Dassault Systemes is the gold sponsor. The charter sponsor is Deloitte. Silver sponsors include Deltek, Parametric Technology Corp., and Software AG. Bronze sponsors are Constellium, Infotech, and Siemens. Program excellence sponsors are BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. Media support is provided by Aviation Week & Space Technology, Bvents.com, Defense Procurement News, Defense Technology International, and Military Suppliers & News.

About Aviation Week:
Aviation Week, part of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is the largest multimedia information and services provider to the global aviation, aerospace and defense industries, and includes http://AviationWeek.com, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Defense Technology International, Business & Commercial Aviation, Overhaul & Maintenance, ShowNews, Aviation Daily, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, The Weekly of Business Aviation, Aviation Week Intelligence Network, and MRO Links. The group also produces major events around the world.

Female military pilots

2011-09-22T13:45:00.000-07:00

From Aviation Knowledge: Female military pilots

It is only in the last 30 years that females have been accepted into most Air Forces around the world. In the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF), females were only allowed in from 1977. The first female pilot was Angie Dickinson, who graduated in 1988. She, along with a few others, became the first females to be in operational roles within the RNZAF, including several fighter pilots. These fighter pilots were, in essence, in a combat position. These combat positions for females were constantly under scrutiny, due to the widespread, but not complete, belief that combat positions should be filled only by males. This was world-wide, not just in New Zealand.

History of females in the military
The initial jobs available for females in the military were limited to traditional jobs, such as nursing and administration. Most Western nations followed this trend, with many not allowing females into the main military until the 1970's. The way that females were employed was through the introduction of women's forces, such as the Womens Army Corp (WAC) in the United States of America. There were also nursing corps, as well as auxilary air force arms set up across the world. The main exception to this was in the former Soviet Union, where females were allowed in the main military corps from the early 1900's.

Hofstede’s masculinity/femininity descriptions are one way of identifying the differences in military aviation culture, with the more traditional culture of military pilots being the masculine side. “Masculinity stands for a society in which social gender roles are clearly distinct: Men are supposed to be assertive, tough, and focused on material success; women are supposed to be more modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.”

World War Two was the first main period where females became more included into the militaries around the world, although still in limited roles. In the USA females started to be included in flight crew, however not in a pilot role or in combat aircraft. The introduction of more women's corps marked the beginning of a changing in culture in the military.

The first females to officially fly were part of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) during WWII. They were restricted to ferrying flights and support roles, with no combat roles available for them.

Women in combat
Women were first included in combat by the former Soviet Union, soon after suffering huge losses during World War Two. They were included in aviation combat, in bomber and fighter regiments. There were female-only regiments, as well as combined regiments. In Western nations, there were no females in combat in World War Two.

Psychology of females in the cockpit
The psychology of females in the cockpit is one of continuing interest to many in both the military and civilian worlds. Within the civilian world, there have been similar struggles to allow them to fly with males, such as the battles of Deborah Wardley and Ansett Airlines. An example of this that highlighted the publics’ attitude at the time towards female pilots, where she was confronted by someone who was concerned about his safety simply because she was a woman pilot.

Within the military environment, the females in the RNZAF were only allowed in non-combat flying roles, as it was believed that the “introduction of females into combat units would hinder the development of close relationships that led to trust in life-or-death situations” (Collings & Laine, 2010). This is representative of the culture that is still prevalent within many militaries around the world.

There is little evidence available about the culture within the confines of a military cockpit, other than the above thoughts about trust in a life-or-death situation. However, it can be deduced from the experiences of being a female RNZAF officer that there would be very few issues within the cockpit, provided that all crew are confident and know what their role/task is. The main crux of it is to be a professional, as anecdotally there are no longer the issues of believing that females are not as capable as males when it comes to flying ability. If the crew understands their job and does it professionally, it is believed that there would be very few issues surrounding discrimination and harassment.

Currently, there are many females serving as pilots in defence forces around the world. Some countries have them restricted to non-combat flying, but the flying they do is still dangerous, entering combat zones to evacuate wounded personnel. The only difference is that they are not going up to purely fight; they are performing a vital support role. In that sense, the military has not changed hugely in that females are still doing more support roles rather than combat. It is just the means of doing the support roles have evolved more.

Practical implications of female flight crew
The main implications of female flight crew is in relation to the equipment and whether they suit the female body shape and size. The facilities provided also need to accommodate females.

Equipment is vitally important to a pilot, so the correct sizing and fitment is crucial. Specialist equipment such as G-suits for fighter pilots must fit properly; otherwise there can be serious consequences as they may not function correctly. Many female fighter pilots have said that they had to get their G-suits tailored specifically for them, as female anthropometrics are different to males. Other areas that have to be changed or adapted are the cockpit seats, and the reach available to get to the instruments and controls. Most equipment can be modified to accommodate female pilots; these are just two examples that are commonly faced.

Facilities need to be modified also, so females based in combat areas such as Afghanistan are looked after in terms of their personal needs. Generally, females will have their own quarters rather than having unisex ones. Ablutions are usually unisex, however depending on the unit and location they may need to be modified to have separate female and male ablutions.

Changing the equipment and facilities is a huge cost to the military/government funding the process, and as such, many militaries do not allow females in areas where there would be excessive changes needed to accommodate them.

Acceptance of females around the world
Many air forces around the world accept females with few restrictions. In terms of flight crew, there are still not many female fighter pilots, however there are generally no barriers to females being a fighter pilot. Generally females are accepted into military aviation, whether it be as a pilot or crew.

In India, females are not allowed in their Air Force, and there are no plans in the foreseeable future to allow them. It is said that the “Indian Air Force does not want any disruption, which he feels is inevitable when a woman pilot gets married and has children” (Parsons, 2009). The cost to train a pilot can be up to 1.7 million Euros, and up to 14 years of active service to recoup that money in India. Many militaries around the world have a similar view in relation to a return of service to recoup the money spent.

The Soviet Union allowed females to fly in combat during World War Two, the only country to do so. This decision may have come from the communist ethos, where everyone is equal and should work regardless of gender in order to get the job done.

One of the best ways to achieve acceptance is to treat all crew the same, regardless of gender. “As a pilot and member of an aircrew, we see each other as just that – a crew; there is no difference” (American Forces Press Services, 2009). This seems to fit into the military culture in general, where there are very few concessions made for the differences between males and females.

The culture within the RNZAF is one of acceptance, as long as everyone is professional in their conduct and execution of their jobs. This has transferred into the cockpit, where females are subject to the same training as their male counterparts. There have been no measures taken to help support the females specifically, rather, everyone has the same support available throughout their career.

References
1. American Forces Press Service. (2009). Female Soldiers Continue Footprint in Army Aviation. Retrieved from http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=553832. Australian Government. (2010). Aviatrices – Australian Women of the Air. Retrieved from http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/aviation/aviatrices/3. Dawson, B. (2002). High Flyers: Celebrating the Extraordinary Women of the RNZAF 1977 – 2002. Auckland: Penguin Books.4. Feltus, P. (n.d.). Women in the Military in World War II. Retrieved from http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Air_Power/Women/AP31.htm5. Hofstede, G.H. (2001). Hofstede: Masculinity/Femininity. Retrieved from http://www.andrews.edu/~tidwell/HofstedeMasculinity.html6. Parsons, G. (2009). No Women Fighter Pilots for the IAF. Retrieved from http://www.key.aero/view_news.asp?ID=1111&thisSection=military

PR: Flying Musicians Perform at Airportfest: Hartford, CT, USA

2011-09-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

Airport Fest, Hartford Brainerd Airport, Connecticut
September 22 - that'd be today! - until the 24th.

The Flying Musicians Association’s (FMA) members in the North East will be showcased daily on the Main Stage at Hartford-Brainard Airport during the Airportfest portion of the AOPA Aviation Summit. “This is our chance to showcase members in the North East,” says FMA co-founder John Zapp! Come out for lunch at the airport and enjoy truly fantastic music by truly talented Flying Musicians. FMA’s appearance is sponsored by Sennheiser.

FMA will also have booths at Airportfest as well as in the convention center, #1215. Stop by to find out how you can become involved or how FMA can provide music at your next aviation related event. “We are in the midst of establishing chapters at Colleges and Universities around the country,” says John Zapp. Find out how you can help start one at your alma mater.

FMA will give a presentation on Thursday at 3:30 in Conference room 7. All are encouraged to attend to find out more about FMA, how you can become involved: as a member, corporate member, sponsor, or volunteer. Light snacks will be provided!

FMA will also have their annual meeting at the Hartford Marriot Downtown in conference room 7 on Friday from 3:30 until 4:30pm. The meeting is open to all FMA members, to those interested in aviation and/or music, and to friends of FMA.

Performers and Schedule at Airportfest:

• Thursday (9/22)
o 11am - Jon Greene Group (Funk/Rock/Jazz/Fusion)
o 12:30pm - Max Gross (Country/Folk/Bluegrass)
• Friday (9/23)
o 11am - Ravi (Rock/Pop Singer/Songwriter)
o 11:45am - Ian Blair Fries, MD (Accordion)
o 12:15pm - Lee Ross (Classic Rock)
• Saturday (9/24)
o 11am - Jon Greene Group (Funk/Rock/Jazz/Fusion)
o 12:10pm - Nik Tarascio (Rock, Alternative Rock)

Jimmy Leeward

2011-09-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Leeward (Born c. 1931 - Sept 16, 2011) was an American air racer, owner of the Leeward Air Ranch in Florida, and the pilot of the heavily modified P-51 Mustang racing aircraft "Galloping Ghost."

He competed in air races in the United States from the 1970s through his death. Leeward was killed on September 16th, 2011, when his aircraft went off course and crashed into the crowd at an air race in Reno, Nevada, killing and injuring a number of spectators.

As of this moment, Jimmy's Facebook page is still actie:
http://www.facebook.com/JimmyLeeward

His Air Ranch website has been taken down (or is overwhelmed with traffic):
http://www.leewardairranch.com/

The Youtube video below is from a year ago:

Tragedy in Reno - Jimmy Leeward Crashes

2011-09-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

Official: More than 75 injured in air race crash

..RENO, Nevada (AP) — A plane plunged into the stands Friday at an air race event in Reno in what an official described as a "mass casualty situation."

It wasn't immediately known how many people were killed, but a medical official said more than 75 people were injured.

Stephanie Kruse, a spokeswoman for the Regional Emergency Medical Service Authority, said 25 people were critically injured and another 25 people were seriously injured in the crash.

More than 25 more people were treated for minor injuries, she said.

Kruse said the critically injured were considered to have life-threatening injuries.

So far, 40 people have been taken to local hospitals by ambulance and one person has been flown to a hospital, she said.

The P-51 Mustang plunged into the crashed into the box seat area at the front of the grandstand at the National Championship Air Races at about 4:30 p.m., said Mike Draper, a spokesman for the event.

Draper identified the pilot as Jimmy Leeward.

Jeff Martinez, a KRNV weatherman, was just outside the air race grounds at the time of the crash. He said he saw the plane veer to the right and then "it just augered straight into the ground."

"You saw pieces and parts going everywhere," he said. "Everyone is in disbelief."

The National Championship Air Races draws thousands of people every year in September to watch various military and civilian planes race.

The races have attracted scrutiny in the past over safety concerns, including four pilots killed in 2007 and 2008. It was such a concern that local school officials once considered whether they should not allow student field trips at the event.

The competition is like a car race in the sky, with planes flying wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet (15.2 meters)off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph (800 kph). Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.

Donation Opportunity: Statue of Jerrie Mock

2011-09-12T01:30:00.000-07:00

Jerry Mock's Cessna 180, "Spirit of Columbus", hanging in the Smithsonian Institute.

HOW TO HELP

Donations to the Jerrie Mock Aviation Pioneer Sculpture Fund may be made to the Licking County Foundation, P.O. Box 4212, Newark, OH 43058.

For more information or to schedule a presentation about Jerrie Mock, call Susan Reid at (740) 344-8425.
From Newark Advocate: href="http://www.newarkadvocate.com/article/20110828/NEWS01/108280308">Ohio town raises funds to honor pioneering female pilot
NEWARK -- On April 17, 1964, Bill and Mary Kelley piled their five children into the car and drove to Port Columbus International Airport to see history being made.

The Heath family watched as Newark native Jerrie Mock successfully landed her Cessna 180 -- named The Spirit of Columbus -- making her the first woman to complete a solo flight around the world.

Bill Kelley said he never will forget the excitement he felt that day as he watched a Newark native achieve a major aviation milestone.

"We thought it was something to be really proud of," he said.

Now, Kelley is working to make sure Newark residents remember Mock and her accomplishments

Kelley, 83, has partnered with Susan Reid, Mock's younger sister, to raise money to build a bronze statue to honor Mock. They need to raise $45,000 for the statue, which they hope to have placed in the LeFevre Courtyard at The Works.

"I feel like it's past time," Kelley said. "I want to get this done while I'm still here and she's still here."

A lifelong dream
Mock's dream of flying around the world started when she took her first airplane flight at age 7.

"I remember looking at the houses and cars (from above)," Mock said. "I told my parents, 'I'm going to fly an airplane.'"

A lover of geography, Mock wanted to see faraway places.

"I told my girlfriends that I was going to fly around the world. They wanted to go to Hollywood and be movie stars. They thought I was crazy," she said.

Mock enrolled in the Aeronautical Engineering Program at Ohio State University and earned her private pilot certificate in 1958, Reid said. Mock went on to manage several airports and open a flying services company while raising three children.

In 1962, Mock was living in Bexley and looking for a new challenge when her husband suggested she try to fly around the world. After two years of planning, Mock left Columbus on March 19, 1964, to begin her flight.

Wearing a blue suit, heels and pearls, Mock circled the globe in 30 days, stopping to meet with foreign officials and explore different cultures along the way.

She struggled with engine and radio problems and ice formed on the wings of her plane, but she never gave up, Reid said.

"We knew Jerrie was very careful. We had a lot of faith in her," Reid said. "(Our family) never considered the fact she wouldn't be successful."

After completing her flight, Mock was recognized in magazines and newspaper articles across the country. She was invited to the White House, where she received the FAA Gold Medal for Exceptional Service from President Lyndon Johnson.

She continued flying and set several other records for distance and speed. As time went on, Mock's story faded away and many people forgot about her accomplishments. Even in Newark, many people don't know her story, Reid said.

"They remember Amelia Earhart because of the mystery, but Jerrie didn't disappear, except from the public eye," she said.

'Long overdue'
Ever since he saw her land in Columbus 47 years ago, Kelley hoped someone would build a statue dedicated to Mock.

Several weeks ago, he decided it was time for action.

"I kept waiting for someone else to take the initiative," he said. "But now we are living on borrowed time, and I'd like to see it done."

After partnering with Reid, Kelley contacted local sculptor Renate Burgyan-Fackler and asked her to create the statue.

Burgyan-Fackler's initial sketches and models show Mock holding a model of her Cessna or a newspaper that describes her accomplishments.

It will take about $45,000 to bring those sketches to life. Kelley and Reid will be meeting with community leaders and individuals to ask for donations.

Reid said she hopes the statue will be completed by this time next year.

"It's long overdue," she said. "This is definitely something the community needs."

'Dreams do come true'
Marcia Downes, managing director of The Works, said she is thrilled at the prospect of Mock's statue being displayed in the LeFevre Courtyard.

"People in this community don't know about Jerrie," Downes said. "I think her story needs to be told, and what a great way to do that by memorializing her."

Now a resident of Quincy, Fla., Mock said she was surprised when she heard about Kelley and Reid's plan for a statue.

"I wish them luck," she said.

A retired teacher and librarian in Heath City Schools, Reid has spent several years giving presentations about her sister's flight and accomplishments. She said she gladly will talk with any group who wants to know more about Mock or the statue project.

By learning about Mock's flight, Licking County residents, especially children, can learn an important lesson, Reid said.

"She always wanted to inspire people, especially women and children, that if you have a dream it may seem impossible, but if you work at it, dreams do come true," Reid said.

Who is Jerrie Mock:
Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock (born November 22, 1925 in Newark, Ohio) was the first woman to fly solo around the world.[1] The trip ended April 17, 1964 and took 29 days, 21 stopovers and almost 22,860 miles.[2] She was subsequently awarded the Louis Blériot medal the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.

The United States Air Force named a street in honor of her at Rickenbacker AFB (presently Rickenbacker International Airport) in Lockbourne, Ohio (near Columbus).

Jerrie now resides in Quincy, Florida and a plaque bearing her accomplishments can be found in the Tallahassee Regional Airport's Aviation Wall of Fame.

She is a member of Phi Mu Fraternity and the mother of three children.

Early lifeGeraldine "Jerrie" Mock was born November 22, 1925 in a suburban neighborhood of Newark, OH. She was the oldest of 3 sisters, but during her childhood she found more in common with the boys. Her interest for flying was sparked when she was 12 years old when she and her father had the opportunity to fly in the cockpit of a Ford Trimotor airplane. In high school she took an engineering course of which she was the only girl and decided flying was her passion. She graduated from Newark High School (Ohio) in 1940 and went on to attend Ohio University majoring in engineering.

Accomplishments and RecognitionsOfficial World Aviation Records Set or Taken 1964-1969(Sanctioned and accepted by the National Aeronautic Association and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale)

1964

Speed around the world, Class C1-c
Speed around the world, Feminine
1965

Speed over a closed course of 500KM, Class C1-b
1966

Distance in a straight line, Feminine
1968

Distance in a closed course, Class C1-c
Distance in a closed course, Feminine
Speed over a recognized course
1969

Speed over a recognized course
Significant “Firsts”First woman to fly solo around the world
First woman to fly U.S. – Africa via North Atlantic
First woman to fly the Pacific single-engine
First woman to fly the Pacific West to East
First woman to fly both the Atlantic and Pacific
First woman to fly the Pacific both directions
Awards in Recognition of Accomplishments in AviationMetals, Plaques, Trophies:

Federal Aviation Agency Gold Metal for Exceptional Service
Ohio Governor’s Award
Louis Bleriot Silver Metal(World-Wide award of Fédération Aéronautique Internationale)
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Special Award
Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce Award of the Year
Experimental Aircraft Association Special Award
Ohio Aviation Trades Association Sparky Award
Amelia Earhart Memorial Award, 1964
Aero Classic Aviation Progress Award, 1965
National Aviation Trades Association Pilot-of-the-Year Award, 1964
Glenn Hammond Curtiss Silver Metal, Pittsburgh OX-5 Club
Milestones in Manned Flight Trophy, Trans World Airlines
Wadsworth, Ohio, Aero Club Special Award
Kansas 99’s Special Recognition Medallion
Special Award of Bexley Civic Association
Women’s Aero Association of Wichita Award
Award of Appreciation, Licking County (Ohio) Historical Society
Columbus Transportation Club Special Award
Sports Woman of the Year, Columbus Citizen-Journal, 1969
Citation of Wichita, Kansas, Chamber of Commerce

News: Thunder Lab produces Afghan Air Force "Best of the Best"

2011-09-11T01:27:00.000-07:00

From Sept 1

From Defense Video & Imagery Distribution Systems: News: Thunder Lab produces Afghan Air Force "Best of the Best"

KABUL, Afghanistan - For Afghan Air Force 2nd Lt. Yar Mohmmad, it's always been a dream to serve his country in the AAF. Coming from Laghman province in eastern Afghanistan, the 25 year-old Afghan lieutenant now has that chance thanks to a program called "Thunder Lab."

Standing up in May 2010, Thunder Lab is an environment aimed at immersing select AAF lieutenants into English language training with a goal of improving their comprehension prior to pilot training, where they will eventually hope to graduate and become pilots in the Afghan Mi-17, Mi-35 or C-27 aircraft. Currently, 17 male students and eight female students live at the lab with U.S. and British mentors in an effort to supplement English skills they've learned at Kabul English and Language Training Center.

Created by former vice commander of the 438th Air Expeditionary Wing, Col. Creig Rice, Thunder Lab has three focus areas according to officials. The first area is to develop professionalism and officership which will ultimately prepare the officers for follow-on training. Second is to instill a sense of teamwork and understanding that as a group they can accomplish more than as one individual and the third is to improve English comprehension levels.

Rice initiated the program after noticing AAF lieutenants scheduled to attend U.S. pilot training had months between the time they graduated from initial English language training until they departed the U.S. for follow-on training. During this interim period, the AAF lieutenants' English language skills atrophied. According to officials, they were not engaged in speaking English and reverted back to their native languages, hence losing a great deal of the skills they had developed.

By all indications, the curriculum seems to be working as Thunder Lab instructors have seen English comprehension scores jump by 20 percent. In addition, seven out of 22 former male Thunder Lab students met the language requirements for pilot training in approximately two months as compared to the previous average of 13 to 14 months.

In October 2010, the lab fully integrated the first four Afghan female officer candidate school graduates who have recently arrived in San Antonio, Texas, to start the Defense Language Institute Program. Once they obtain the minimum score necessary to advance from DLI, the students will continue to rotary-wing pilot training at Fort Rucker, Ala., with hopes of returning to Afghanistan to support the AAF in the Mi-17 helicopter.

"When students first arrive at Thunder Lab there is an initial reluctance of males and females to mix," said Flight Lt. Luke Meldon, Royal Air Force. However, with the full-time nature of Thunder Lab, and with various team building exercises, students very quickly begin to from new friendships, regardless of gender."

'Selection Process'

Male students first begin their military training at the Afghan National Military Academy and the females attend the Afghan National Officer Candidate School. During the final phases of those courses, AAF leadership selects a pre-determined amount of students to fill positions in the Afghan Air Force. Those students are then sent to the initial Air Operations Course at Pahantoon-e-Hawayee or "Afghan Air Force Air University." After finishing courses at PeH, some students begin English immersion training at KELTC. Those identified as pilot qualified and meeting a basic English competency level are then interviewed by Thunder Lab staff for possible entrance into the program.

If lieutenants volunteer and are found to meet the standards set by the Thunder Lab staff, they are brought into the program on a volunteer basis.

"The Thunder Lab is an intense leadership and language training environment. It is a must for each student to be a volunteer for the program; this gives the program the best chance of success," said Lt. Col. Daryl Sassaman, officer in charge of the Thunder Lab. "Those that are volunteers usually will put forth as much effort as required to achieve the end goals, which are professionalizing the AAF and increasing each student's English comprehension level to a score that qualifies them for pilot training."

'Daily Routine'

A typical day for Afghan lieutenants and mentors begins at 5:00 a.m. with formal physical fitness training. Students are broken down into two groups, each performing a workout on alternating days. The groups conduct a regimented fitness program with class leaders aimed at improving their physical strength and cardiovascular fitness.

After their physical fitness session, the group forms up for breakfast providing students and staff the opportunity to discuss the upcoming day and address any areas of concern, including appointments, tests or language questions. Upon finishing breakfast, the students either attend classes at PeH or KELTC. Although the goal of KELTC is to improve English proficiency, students know they must at least achieve a score of 70 out of a possible 100 in order to continue on to more advanced language training and enter training on basic aviation math and science skills.

"As a member of the Armed Forces, it is essential that the lieutenants have a good level of fitness. This physical robustness is a necessity for all military leaders as they must be able to withstand the physical rigors of military life without losing their mental capacity, said Royal Air Force Flight Lt. Carol Walker, who is a full-time mentor at the lab. "Training with the mentors means we set an example to the lieutenants on what is expected from them physically, ensuring they have good form in all the physical fitness they partake in. We also eat breakfast with them, and that interaction is a time for the students to talk with the mentors in a less formal setting and allows a closer relationship to be built up with them, whilst improving their English."

During the afternoon, students continue to attend training before returning to the lab for their afternoon professionalism and leadership lesson aimed at increasing their officership, cultural understanding and military knowledge. This class was developed based on feedback provided by graduated Thunder Lab lieutenants, DLI instructors and AAF advisers. During this course, students learn new skills such as leadership, followership, time management, teamwork and communication.

"One of the main mission areas of the 438th AEW is to help professionalize the AAF. What a great opportunity to help shape the future of the AAF by instilling in its young leaders the sense of leadership and professionalism," explained Sassaman. "Yes, our curriculum focuses on enhancing their English language [skills], and introduction to aviation is important, but if the lieutenants can't grasp the concepts of leadership and professionalism, we [as mentors] fall short on our mission of setting the conditions for a professional, fully independent and operationally-capable AAF."

After leadership class, students form up for dinner with all members of the team and staff accompanying each other to share a meal and discuss their day. Staff members indicate this is an important time used to work on the students' conversational English in a non-classroom environment.

"Dinner is not just about learning to speak better English, but building relationships that will last a lifetime," said Maj. Anthony Graham, 438th AEW and part-time mentor. "The interaction we have with each other will help affect the future of the AAF. Learning English is secondary to building relationships. Our goal is to help build a better Afghanistan."

After dinner, students and staff meet at the lab in an effort to continue to improve their English listening comprehension skills. The students drink tea with the staff and converse in English as well as play games and watch English-speaking movies in order to hone their skills.

For many students, the time spent in the evening with the mentors is the most valuable.

"Evening activities are good," explained AAF 2nd Lt. Khan Afha Ghaznavi. "We work on our English language skills and help each other improve."

'Thunder Lab Cadre'

Currently, the lab employs three full-time mentors, including two British Royal Air Force officers and a U.S. Air Force officer in charge. In addition, there are five part-time mentors at the lab that have regular jobs throughout the Kabul International Airport compound but live at the lab and help with activities in the morning and evening. The mentor's ranks range from senior airman to lieutenant colonel and represent the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and RAF. Officials say the staff brings a wide variety of experience to the lab having served in such positions as pilots, personnel experts, navigators, squadron leadership positions and public affairs.

The staff also includes two members from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Afghanistan Pakistan Hand program who live and teach at the Thunder Lab. The mission of Afghan Hands is to build long-lasting, positive partnerships with Afghan entities and civilians in order to demonstrate the long-term commitment of the International Security Assistance Force in an effort to build capacity and capability within Afghanistan and deny support among the Afghan people to insurgents. These mentors are experts who speak the local language, are culturally attuned and are focused on Afghanistan for an extended period. Officials indicate these qualities have a dramatic impact in the bonding efforts between staff and students.

"The mission of the Thunder Lab and the mission of Afghan Hands, in my opinion, are synonymous. Although Thunder Lab is focused on improving the English ability of its lieutenants, no one can learn a foreign language without speaking their own," said Sassaman, who, in addition to being officer in charge of Thunder Lab, is also an AFPAK Hand graduate. "Having AFPAK Hands graduates as mentors in the Thunder Lab is a necessity, as it helps us build the bonds of trust and understanding with the students.

Each student can see the level of commitment of the coalition mentors as they demonstrate an understanding of the Dari language and the culture of Afghanistan."

He went on to explain that because each Afghan Hands has come directly from a similar program at DLI which teaches them Dari or Pashto, they understand the difficulty that the students are experiencing. This provides insight that others may not have and helps the mentors shape and design curriculum to train and professionalize the future leaders.

The lab also brings in senior-leaders guest instructors in an effort to provide a different prospective on AAF efforts. This effort aims to demonstrate to the students the commitment shared between the U.S., Great Britain and AAF.

'Thunder Lab Future'

On July 7, four Afghan female pilot candidates made history becoming the first to graduate from Thunder Lab. After graduating, they traveled outside Afghan borders for the first time in their lives to San Antonio, Texas, with a goal of finishing DLI and pilot training. This stop is another step in their journey to become pilots in the AAF. In an interview with the Associated Press after arriving stateside, one of the pioneers explained what they hope to achieve for women across Afghanistan.

"We're going to open the door for ladies in Afghanistan," 2nd Lt. Sourya Saleh said. "It's a big deal for us to open this door for the others. That these other ladies who have the dream and think they can't do it, we want to show them."

According to Thunder Lab staff, the future of the lab is bright and will soon integrate into the AAF's hub for pilot development located in Shindand, Afghanistan, with a goal of making the base the "crown jewel" of the AAF. The mission and focus of the lab won't change, but the number of students that it trains will increase. Officials maintain the desired goal of the lab is for it to become a prerequisite for all students identified as candidates for pilot training, with most of its graduates attending follow-on pilot training within Afghanistan's borders. Students identified as top performers will have a limited opportunity to train in the U.S.

Although the lab is young, students and staff see a bright future for young Afghans working toward a peaceful nation.

"In Afghanistan, I think [it's been] 32 or 33 years of war. The women of Afghanistan couldn't do anything [in] that time," said 2nd Lt. Mary Sharifzada, also among the four women training to become pilots. "Now we should show that we are strong and we can serve our country."

Flying’s all in a day’s work for Nancy Robertson

2011-09-10T01:24:00.000-07:00

From Snohomish County Business Journal: Flying’s all in a day’s work for Nancy Robertson

The world’s fascination with vintage World War II military aircraft has gotten John Sessions’ restored B-25, “Grumpy,” its share of YouTube videos, but Nancy Robertson of Snohomish, one of the bomber’s pilots, remembers one in particular that amuses her.

“On the video, you can hear the mother saying the plane is a B-25 World War II bomber landing at Paine Field,” she recalls. “Then you hear her young son exclaim as he spots the pilot, ‘Mom! It’s a girl!’ ”

Being a woman pilot was out of the norm when she began flying in 1987, “just for the fun of it,” but today, when many women have pilots’ licenses and airlines are hiring women pilots, it’s less common for people to be surprised.

What does surprise people is that her daily business is flying corporate jets and that her spare time flying often finds her at the controls of a B-25 Mitchell, a twin-engine bomber.

In fact, she’s one of only three women in the world rated by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly B-25s. She and her husband, Lance, earned their B-25 ratings on the same day at Paine Field. Both of them regularly fly the bomber for Sessions’ Historic Flight Foundation aviation museum and restoration center at Paine Field.

“Corporate jets are a great way to travel but flying them is just a job that pays the bills. The real fun comes from flying planes like the B-25 and the museum’s 1930s Lockheed Lodestar,” she said. The Lodestar is the type of aircraft pioneering female aviator Amelia Earhart flew on her ill-fated attempt at an around-the-world flight in 1937.

There are fewer than a dozen Lodestars in flyable condition, Robertson said, admitting she thought a lot about Earhart while she was flying it. Robertson said it’s the plane she loves to fly most, second only to “Grumpy.”

“Grumpy gets around a lot, including airshows at Abbotsford, B.C., Olympia, Boeing Field, Arlington, Spokane and Princeton, B.C., among others, such as the Heritage Flight Museum, our sister museum in Bellingham,” she said. “Everywhere we go, we offer rides in Grumpy, too, for $425 per person.”

Her love affair with flying began in 1987 when she took Everett Community College’s aviation ground-school class, which ended with students taking the FAA’s ground-school test, the first step toward getting a pilot’s license.

“I took the class with my aunt, Nona Anderson. She didn’t go on to get her license but I did,” Robertson said.

That class dramatically changed her life.

“I was a personal banker for Sea-First Bank at the time and thought I’d take a flight lesson or two just for fun,” she said. “Once I started flying I loved it so much I never looked back.”

She earned her private pilot’s license at Harvey Field in Snohomish, the town where she grew up and the area where she lives today, soloing in a single-engine Cessna 152. For many people, that would have been enough.

But for Robertson, each flight only supercharged her enthusiasm for more flying.

Her next challenge was completing instrument flying, distancing herself from fair-weather visual flight rules, followed by earning a commercial rating and then her multi-engine aircraft rating, all at Harvey Field.

Along with loving her flying lessons, she discovered she also loved her flight instructor and future husband, Lance Robertson.

“We didn’t start dating until I was halfway through my commercial license,” she said. “Now we often fly the B-25 together. We even have landing competitions in different planes to see who can make the smoothest landing or hit a predicted spot on the runway. But, with the B-25 our competition is to see who can start the engines the best. They’re temperamental.”

Lance Robertson, who is on the board of directors of the Pacific Northwest Business Aviation Association, has flown for more than 25 years, including piloting 727s, MD-80s, 757s and 767s for TWA. Today he is the chief pilot for the Nordstrom Flight Department, based at Boeing Field.

Nancy Robertson never did get back to the banking world. Instead, she began flying corporate aircraft for different clients, including a twin-engine Beechcraft Barron for Northwest Composites at Arlington Airport. In 1990, she stepped up to jets when she was hired to fly a Cessna Citation for Reuland Electric, a California firm. She’s also flown for Lakeside Industries, an Issaquah-based paving company with contracts in Washington and Oregon.

Being a female pilot during those years was a more unusual challenge than it is today. There’s no doubt Robertson was a pioneer in many areas of aviation, not only as a corporate pilot but also in the close-knit warbirds community.

“Flying corporate aircraft and warbirds has always been a good ol’ boys network,” she said. “Fortunately, when I met John Sessions, he let me fly, provided encouragement and opened some doors for me.”

She began co-piloting a Cessna Citation 500 with Sessions seven years ago and recalls sitting in the plane listening to him talk about his dream of opening the Historic Flight Foundation at Paine Field. Later she worked for him as the building was under construction and the first warbirds began coming in, providing her an opportunity to fly a T-6 Texan and then “Grumpy” after Sessions flew it from England where it had long been a favorite of air show crowds.

“Paine Field is a wonderful place for the foundation and its historic planes,” she said. “Besides the Historic Flight Foundation’s planes, you’ve got Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection across the runway, the Future of Flight and Boeing tours at the north end of the field, the Me-262 project and the Museum of Flight’s restoration center. How many places can you find all of these aviation venues at the same airport?”

What does she like best about flying?

“It’s the freedom of flight and the experiences that flying offers. Like tomorrow morning, I fly a jet charter to Alaska in the morning, have lunch, then fly back home and I’m in Snohomish in time for dinner,” she said. “Also, the surprises in aviation. Who knew that flying corporate jets would lead to flying vintage military aircraft?”

Slidell skydiving is wish come true for 85-year-old birthday girl

2011-09-09T01:19:00.000-07:00

From 2nd:
From Nola.com: Slidell skydiving is wish come true for 85-year-old birthday girl
Skydiving for your 85th birthday may seem a bit out of the ordinary to some. But for the friends and family of Willa Cristina of Harahan, it’s just “classic Willa.”

The very active octogenarian shared her adventure on Aug. 28 with all five of her children, her grandchildren, and several of their spouses. Each completed their jumps with the help of the Sky Dive N’Awlins staff at the Slidell Municipal Airport.

Cristina said she was inspired to attempt the feat by George Bush Sr., who did the same in celebration of his 85th birthday. “I decided I wanted to give it a try,” she said.

Although her birthday was actually Monday, she hoped to host the skydiving adventure a day early so everyone would be off of work and able to attend.

When not leaping from airplanes in extreme celebration of milestone birthdays, Cristina walks two miles twice a week and works out at the Elmwood Fitness Center twice a week. She also was a member of a 3-on-3 basketball team from Louisiana that participated in the National Senior Olympic Games this summer in Houston.

Determined to make her birthday celebration a memorable event, she took almost two years of planning to ensure everyone would be in Slidell for “jump day.” Relatives from the New Orleans metro area were joined by residents of Florida, California and North Carolina.

A crowd of about 20 supporters were waiting at the airport when Willa, smiling and wearing a neon yellow T-shirt printed with “Willa 85 Let’s Sky Dive” arrived with her extended family in tow. She also had T-shirts printed for family members and friends who jumped that day.

Exercise buddies from the fitness center, fellow parishioners from St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, and old friends were on hand to share the experience. Even the heat of the morning did not diminish the excitement.

“Willa’s just a great lady. It has been fun being here with her and sharing her excitement,” said Eric Lochburnner, a member of St. Paul’s and one of the first jumpers of the day.

After the necessary paperwork had been completed, Cristina and company were given instructions on how to leave the plane, what to expect in the air, and then practiced body positions on the floor of the hanger/office.

Granddaughter Robin Sakakini got the honor of diving with Cristina.

“She didn’t know I was coming today, so it was part of her birthday surprise,” said Sakakini, of Calabasas, Calif. “I have skydived before, so I told my cousins I should go with her.”

While the plane was gaining altitude with the birthday girl on board, Sky Dive N’Awlins owner Brenda Grafton visited with the rest of the party and helped them prepare for their jump. Grafton pointed out that although Cristina’s jump is impressive, she is not the organization’s oldest jumper. “We had a former World War II pilot here last year to jump for his 90th birthday,” Grafton said. “He even wore the flight suit he used to fly in for the jump.”

Soon, all eyes looked skyward, and the excitement grew with the sound of the plane engine throttling back, signaling the jump was starting. With the plane nearly invisible in the bright, cloudless sky, it was a few moments before two brightly colored parachutes opened and the people on the ground could follow the earthbound jumpers. A little more than a minute later, the red, white and blue parachute carrying Christina, strapped to instructor Rick Payne, touched down alongside the airport’s taxiway.

“It was great!” she said as she hugged her granddaughter and daughters, Janna Clark, Julie Johns and Nancy Kreig, the official designated family landing zone photographers and videographers.

“I didn’t especially like the jerk you feel when we left the airplane. But the best part was once the parachute opened and we were just sailing,” said Cristina, extending her arms out wide.

Her jump done and wearing a smile that lit up her face, Willa jogged back to her adoring public, who were applauding her feat and celebrating with her.

So what’s next for Willa Cristina? Answer: She has promised her grandson, Eric Johns, that she will go snowboarding with him during February in Vail, Colo. The people gathered Aug. 27 at Slidell Municipal Airport have no doubt. She will be there.

Flight Sim: Golden Age Sim Boeing Model 75 Stearman Released

2011-09-08T01:16:00.000-07:00

From FlyAway Simulation: Golden Age Sim Boeing Model 75 Stearman Released
The Boeing Model 75 Stearman is perhaps the most widely known and recognized biplane in the USA, as it was that country's primary basic trainer throughout World War 2. This famous biplane began life as a design of the Stearman Division of United Aircraft (at that time United Aircraft also owned Boeing and United Airlines), which Boeing acquired as a wholly owned subsidiary in 1934.

At the time of the takeover, development on the X-70 training biplane was well advanced, and Stearman continued work on the type under Boeing ownership. The prototype of the Stearman Model 75, as the X70 became, flew for the first time in 1936. That year Stearman delivered the first production Model 75s, as the PT13, to the US Army Air Corps. That service immediately found the Lycoming R680 powered PT13 to be an ideal basic trainer, the airframe was rugged and forgiving; the slow turning radial engine reliable and reasonably economical.

Boeing Model 75 Stearman in FSX.
America's entry into World War 2 brought with it massive requirements for pilot training and the US Army and Navy went on to buy thousands of PT13s and Continental engined PT17s and N2Ss. During the war almost all American pilots undertook basic training on the PT13 or PT17, and the type was exported to Canada (as the Kaydet), Britain and other nations. Apart from in Canada the Kaydet name was unofficially widely adopted for the type.

Golden Age Simulations has recreated this venerable warbird for FSX. Included in the package are four distinct aircraft: the 220 hp Continental R-670 powered PT-17 and N2S-3, the A75L300 representing a post war civilian conversion powered by the 300 hp Lycoming R-680 and finally the "Super" Stearman IB75 show plane fitted with a 450 hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp Jr. and the addition of two more ailerons in the upper wing. Each version is unique and with its own flight dynamics and sound file. The models make use of the full range of FSX effects including dynamic shine, self shadowing and bump mapping. The aircraft are designed to be flown from the virtual cockpit and there is no 2D panel.

Included in the package is scenery offering, by FSRealscenes.com, Stormville Airport, circa 1960. Stormville N69 officially became an airport in Oct. 1927 and although now closed was the hub of general aviation in the Hudson Valley of New York State.

Female pilots are living the dream

2011-09-07T01:14:00.000-07:00

From Arabian Aerospace: Female pilots are living the dream

Women in the Middle East are flying high as more and more female pilots earn their wings. Liz Moscrop reports.

Alia Twal is feisty. At 24 she has earned her seat with Royal Jordanian Airlines after flying with Mideast Aviation Academy as a flight instructor.

She said: “We had a careers day at school and I knew then that I wanted to be a pilot. I finished my training in Jordan to become a chief flying instructor and became the youngest female pilot in the Middle East. I had students my age and older than me.”

Although some students were “a bit nervous” the first time they went up with her, they soon came to trust her. She explained: “Even if you are female it has nothing to do with your job. Aviation is not a male world. If we have the skills we can fly a plane. By the time students came for the second time they felt comfortable.”

Twal has just taken over the governorship of the Middle East branch of female pilots’ networking group, the 99s, from veteran pilot Yvonne Trueman. Twal said: “Living in the Middle East we are engulfed in a fast-moving culture that is yearning for change. There is an environment that is full of people who are open to change and are seeking to experience life; more so now, than ever before.”

Trueman agreed: “Women in this region are totally serious about aviation when they enter it. They go in to be professional pilots and they succeed. They are determined and feisty.”

Twal added: “This culture is rich in issues of politics, religion, gender and so much more. These issues have caused a wave of generations that are hungry to make a difference and influence this world. I am a part of that wave and that is why I wanted to play a key role in the 99s. All of these issues directly affect aviation.”

Her role as governor means that she is helping female aviators in the Middle East get exposure to ways they can grow and develop.

Twal believes that the networking gives them a voice, “to unify with those who can help them learn about who they can become”.

She continued: “Since I have become governor, I have brought eight members to the 99s and, in the process, have unified these women and empowered them in their own community. They are developing relationships and interacting for advice and assistance. We are all looking forward to a bright future of Arabian pilots and we are all hoping to open doors for the women to come.”

There are 27 members of the Arabian section of the 99s, stretching from Egypt down to Oman. The region now has more members than Austria, Brazil, UK, Far East, Finland, France, India, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway and Russia.

The new members include Captain Adelle Nahas and Deema Saber, a first officer in Royal Jordanian Airlines.

There’s also Captain Mavis Uzzaizia, the third rated female pilot in Jordan who started flying in 1993, as well as Captain Bassmah Bani Ahmad, the first female glider pilot in the Middle East who started her flying in 2005. She was only the second flight instructor in Jordan and is chief pilot for the Royal Aero Sports Club of Jordan.

Captain Carol Rabadi is also one of the new recruits. She is the second rated airline captain in Jordan and started in 1999 with Royal Jordanian Airlines.

Samar Oran, the second rated female pilot in Jordan is also now a member. She has been flying since 1976, joined Royal Jordanian in 1978 and was the first Muslim Arab pilot to cross the Atlantic.

Bahrain-based Trueman said: “As past governor, I took the mantle with just seven female pilots from Saudi, who worked with their husbands within Aramco. When they left and went back to the States, they stayed loyal to the section and, to this day, still remain members.”

Trueman recalled her earlier flying days in Bahrain. She said: “When I first arrived in the 1970s, general flying was very small and I used to hire an aircraft out of Dubai, file an international flight plan and manage to do a lot of flying, including an epic trip to Dhahran – probably one of the first for a lady pilot at that time.”

Airlines in the Middle East will no doubt eye the 99s with interest as they are hiring women in droves.

This June Etihad Airways celebrated the success of its first Emirati female to graduate from the airline’s cadet programme as a co-pilot. Salma Al Baloushi operated her first flight as a first officer on Thursday, June 9, on flight EY 091 from Abu Dhabi to Athens. Captain Richard Hill, chief operations officer said: “Salma is a leader in our expanding female Emirati community and will be an example for her colleagues to follow.”

Back in 2007 Al Baloushi joined Etihad as part of the airline’s second group of cadet pilots. She completed her initial studies at the Horizon International Flight Academy in Al Ain, followed by a further two years of training,

She and Aisha Al Mansoori were Etihad’s first two female pilots.

Al Baloushi said: “I am just stunned to be living my dream. It was such an honour to be awarded the rank of first officer. We all worked extremely hard to reach this point and my family, who have fully supported me from day one, are extremely proud of me. I can only hope my accomplishment encourages many of my Emirati sisters and brothers to push the boundaries and reach their goals.”

Etihad has five UAE national female pilots training to fly for the airline as well as a strong track record in promoting women. Last October it hired its first female captain, Sophie Blanchard from France. She joined Etihad in 2007 as a first officer, after flying for Etihad Crystal Cargo with Air Atlanta. She said: “It is a great privilege to be the first woman to take full command of a commercial flight. The company has been very supportive in my aim to become a captain.”

Two other women keen to promote female aviation in the Middle East are Kinda Sarrage, business development director for Ayla Aviation Academy in Jordan, and Carol Ronan-Heath, who established a regional branch of the International Aviation Women’s Association (IAWA) in Dubai. The branch now boasts more than 100 local members.

Sarrage is looking to promote women working in the aviation industry while, as part of the team that buys engines for Emirates, Ronan-Heath believes a local branch of IAWA will encourage other women to enter the industry and develop their careers. She said: “I started in IAWA as a junior lawyer many years ago. I was invited to one of its conferences and was blown away by the motivational effect.”

Oct 24-26: Aviation Week Presents 2011 A&D Programs Conference and Awards

2011-09-06T20:28:00.000-07:00

From Yahoo News: Aviation Week Presents 2011 A&D Programs Conference and Awards on Oct. 24-26 in Phoenix
NEW YORK, Sept. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Aviation Week will present the on October 24-26 at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona. With continuing economic pressures, falling budgets, and increasing calls for industrial investment, it is critical that government contractors and customers strategize their approaches toward performance, innovation and sourcing today. During the event, Aviation Week will also present the Program Excellence Award Winners and Innovation Challenge Finalists, the industry's preeminent awards for program managers and tiered suppliers in the A&D industry.

At the event, attendees will gain valuable business and program intelligence related to key issues, such as progress in supply chain health, DoD and NASA acquisition strategies, program performance trends, and OEM strategic sourcing efforts. Speakers will present in-depth case studies for developing and executing subcontracts, shared services models, and changes in affordability. Program leaders, such as Tom Kilkenny, general manager of IBM Global Aerospace & Defense Industry, will discuss global supply chain optimization, integration and risk mitigation. Other prestigious speakers include:

Craig Blue, Director, Office of Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy Industrial Technologies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Charles Burbage, EVP/GM, F-35 Program Integration, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co.
Byron Callan, Director, Capital Alpha Partners
Tom Captain, Vice Chairman and Global A&D Leader, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
Tom Clancy, VP, Advanced Concepts, Aurora Flight Sciences
Tom Dolan, President, Hi-Rel Products
Maureen Dougherty, VP/Program Manager, Next Generation Tanker, Boeing Military Aircraft
Phil Dunford, COO, Boeing Military Aircraft
Bob Fecteau, CIO, BAE Systems Intelligence & Security
Doug Fronius, Chief Engineer, Air and Land Systems, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
Vivek Kamath, VP, Supply Chain Operations, Raytheon
Jason Kinder, Director, Product Management, Deltek
Lisa Kohl, Sector VP, Supply Chain, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems
Kenneth Krieg, Founder, Stamford Global, and Former U.S. Undersecretary of Defense-AT&L
Roger Krone, President, Boeing Network and Space Systems
Zachary Lemnios, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
Mike Madsen, President, Honeywell Defense & Space
Philip McAlister, Special Assistant to the Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems, NASA
Doug McCrosson, COO, CPI Aero
Mike Owens, VP, ISC, Americas, Honeywell Aerospace
Mark Sirangelo, Corporate VP, Sierra Nevada Corp. Space Systems
Allan Swan, VP, Supply Chain Planning and Control, Rolls-Royce N.A.
Don Theriault, President, Industrial Tool, Die & Engineering
Jeff Wilcox, VP, Engineering, Lockheed Martin Corp.

For more information or to register, visit . On Twitter, follow @avweekevents or search for #ADP11. Special rates apply before Sept. 16 and for government, military, media, alumni, and groups of three or more.

A&D Programs is produced by Aviation Week, with support from Forecast International, International Centre for Complex Project Management, and Supply Chain Council. The diamond sponsor is IBM. The emerald sponsor is Oracle. Dassault Systemes is the gold sponsor. The charter sponsor is Deloitte. Silver sponsors include Deltek, Parametric Technology Corp., and Software AG. Bronze sponsors are Constellium, Infotech, and Siemens. Program excellence sponsors are BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. Media support is provided by Aviation Week & Space Technology, Bvents.com, Defense Procurement News, Defense Technology International, and Military Suppliers & News.

About Aviation Week:
Aviation Week, part of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is the largest multimedia information and services provider to the global aviation, aerospace and defense industries, and includes http://AviationWeek.com, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Defense Technology International, Business & Commercial Aviation, Overhaul & Maintenance, ShowNews, Aviation Daily, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, The Weekly of Business Aviation, Aviation Week Intelligence Network, and MRO Links. The group also produces major events around the world.

7 Sept, in Wichita: Founder of Women in Aviation to speak Wednesday

2011-09-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

From Blogs.Kansas.com: Founder of Women in Aviation to speak Wednesday

Peggy Chabrian, president and founder of Women in Aviation International, will be the keynote speaker at the Wichita Aero Club luncheon Wednesday.

A local chapter is forming.

Chabrian will speak about the challenges facing women and men seeking careers in the aviation and aerospace industries.

The non-profit organization provides networking, education, mentoring and scholarship opportunities.

Chabrian is a pilot with commercial, instrument, multi-engine, helicopter and seaplane ratings and a flight instructor. She has 2,300 flight hours.

The luncheon begins at noon at the Wichita Airport Hilton.

Cost is $30.00 for members and $40.00 for non-members.

For tickets contact the Wichita Aero Club.

Aviation film producer to receive award for Breaking Through the Clouds

2011-09-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

From Dayton Daily News: Aviation film producer to receive award

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE — The National Aviation Hall of Fame will present an award and $20,000 cash prize to filmmaker Heather Taylor, of Columbia, Md., for her documentary about a 1929 race between female pilots flying from Santa Monica, Calif., to Cleveland, Ohio.

The aviation hall, based in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, said Tuesday it will present its Combs Gates Award to Taylor on Oct. 11 at the National Business Aviation Association’s annual meeting in Las Vegas, Nev. The award is given in recognition of aviation history research and preservation efforts.

Taylor’s film, “Breaking Through the Clouds: The First Women’s National Air Derby,” used actual footage of the 1929 summer air race. The competition featured pilots including Amelia Earhart. Taylor spent 13 years researching, writing and producing the film. Information about the film is available online at www.breakingthroughtheclouds.com.

Pilot Pinky brings home the big one (Marine pilot (Boats))

2011-09-06T10:45:00.000-07:00

Not an aviation craft but a ship, but I thought it was interesting.
From Nigerian Daily News: Pilot Pinky brings home the big one

“You feel like you are one in a million, even captains give you a surprised look when you get on board a ship as a female maritime pilot,” said Pinky Zungu, who in the face of the blustery 28 knots winds safely guided the giant container vessel MSC Chicago into Durban harbour yesterday.

Zungu, a mother to a three-year-old boy, Sinothando, who does not yet understand the magnitude of his mother’s achievement of being one of only five female marine pilots in KwaZulu-Natal, said the ship was the largest she had docked.

The MSC Chicago is on her maiden voyage to South Africa.

Zungu, who learnt on Friday that she would be piloting the ship, described the two-hour task as nerve-wracking and requiring a lot of brain work.

“When I was done I felt relieved, it takes a lot of brain work and you can only breathe once the ship has pulled in,” she said.

She said she had no doubts that she could pull it off, but the nerves were still there.

“Despite the nerves I kept calm; you can’t afford to let the nerves play out because when you dock the ship you have to communicate with six people, giving them all different instructions,” she said.

Zungu said she could not have pulled off the task without the support of her family and colleagues.

“I was happy when I was asked to do this, but at the same time I knew it would be a challenge because all eyes were on me. But I believed I could do it, and I did it,” she said.

She said setting course was not hard, but the difficult part came when she had to turn the ship, because “it’s heavy and poweful”. She said this was particularly difficult because the water becomes shallower the closer you get to the harbour mouth.

The Lamontville-born pilot said she hoped the contribution she makes to the industry would inspire other women.

“I hope they can see that if one woman can do it, then they can do it as well.”

Master pilot marks 66 years of safe flying

2011-09-06T01:11:00.000-07:00

From Argus Leader.com: Master pilot marks 66 years of safe flying

HARTFORD - Earle Geide is a quiet man drawn to quiet spaces. So no one's quite certain what this farmer/pilot is thinking when he's soaring through the sunlit silence in his 1946 Luscombe aircraft - with heaven above him and earth below.

Perhaps, Connie Geide says, her husband simply is admiring the patchwork of corn and soybean fields beneath his wings. Or maybe, she suggests with a smile, he just thinks he's a bird.

The 86-year-old aviator has been soaring through the firmament over South Dakota since the first weeks of peace at the end of World War II. Because he's done it so successfully, with barely a moment of panic, the Federal Aviation Administration has awarded him its Wright Brothers "Master Pilot" Award.

Only 21 South Dakotans have received the honor. Geide was the latest, in a ceremony Aug. 27 in Spearfish. It is given to pilots with 50 consecutive years of "building and maintaining the safest aviation system in the world ... through practicing and promoting safe aircraft flight operations."

In other words, in 66 years of flying, covering more than 4,000 hours, Geide never has flown recklessly enough to have his license revoked or to have caused any serious concern in the cockpit.
Or not much, anyway.

There was that one episode - the Geides say it was 30 years ago, though friends think it might have been 50 - when the couple was flying back from Mason City, Iowa. The front right landing gear had frozen and, as he neared home, Geide couldn't get it to go down.

They decided to put down at the Sioux Falls airport. Connie Geide recalled how her husband tried to "make abrupt drops up and down to try to jar it loose." It didn't work. With firetrucks standing by if needed, the plane found the runway and limped along on the left and rear wheels until it fell onto its right wing.
"I was scared that time," Connie Geide said. "And those abrupt drops ... I didn't like that part much, either."

Still, in 58 years of marriage and chasing the wind across the sky, it might be the only time Connie Geide worried in the passenger seat. As for her husband, he simply shakes his head when asked whether he's ever been afraid at the control of a plane.
(Page 2 of 3)
This is a guy who has taken off and landed innumerable times on a 2,400-foot strip no more than a quarter mile from the family farm southwest of Hartford. "I picked out the levelest piece of ground I could find on the farm," explained Geide, whose maintenance of that airstrip involves occasional mowing and filling in a gopher or badger hole every now and then.

Flying always has had a practical purpose for Geide. It was a good way to check his crops and his cattle near Lake Vermillion. In 15 minutes, he could be up in the air, survey his domain and be back on the ground.

"It became a part of his farming operation," said his friend, Bud Sittig, a retired Air National Guard general officer and Delta Air Lines pilot who now lives in Centennial, Colo. "It became a piece of equipment for him to operate, like a combine."
But it has been more than that to Geide, too, Sittig said. Even if his friend doesn't say it, there is "a spirit of freedom that any aviator feels when they strap on an airplane, and I know Earle feels that, too."

He certainly must have dreamed about that freedom when, as a farm boy growing up during the Depression west of Sioux Falls, he stood in his yard and watched planes passing overhead from horizon to horizon.
"I think you wanted to be up there," his wife said, "like a bird."

He bought his first airplane, a Navy surplus 1940 BL65 Taylorcraft, in Yankton at the end of World War II. It cost him $450, plus another $200 to recover the hail-damaged wings.

After he was married, Geide would fly his wife and two children - Orrin and Joy - to visit relatives in Indiana. Sittig's father, Harold, talked Geide into joining a group called the Flying Farmers & Ranchers, and the couple became heavily involved in that, flying to conventions or just to other members' homes for monthly gatherings. At one point, the Geides even flew to Alaska and back.
"You know, I can't honestly give you a good answer to what it is he likes about flying," said his daughter, Joy Hohn, who reportedly was the first female commercial pilot in South Dakota and, like her brother, got her passion for flight from their father.

(Page 3 of 3)

"He just loves the aspect of being up in the air," Hohn said of her dad. "If you can't talk flying or farming with my father, it's hard to talk with him."
When he does open up, Geide will tell you that he wishes there was more interest in groups such as the Flying Farmers today. Its membership is shrinking, he said, "because the young people aren't interested. They buy motorcycles so they don't have to get the physicals you need to fly."

The truth is, it's probably safer up there with the eagles than it is careening down an interstate or gravel road in a car or on a motorcycle, Sittig said. And that's why honoring people such as Earle Geide is important to the aviation industry in South Dakota, said Steve Hamilton, executive director of the S.D. Pilots Association.

He is a role model to the more than 2,000 South Dakotans who fly for pleasure or spray crops or operate helicopters and aircraft for hospitals, Hamilton said, adding, "he's one of the reasons we have a good reputation here in South Dakota for our aviation system."
How much longer he will add to that reputation is difficult to say. Geide doesn't say much about retiring, though he concedes that it's a little tougher these days to climb in and out of the cockpit, or to pay the price of airplane fuel.

"I think," he softly said, "that it's maybe getting about time to quit."
Seriously? No more sunlit silence? No more strapping on his plane to check the cattle?

Geide stared straight ahead. That was all he was going to say.

Reach reporter Steve Young at 331-2306.

This is a guy who has taken off and landed innumerable times on a 2,400-foot strip no more than a quarter mile from the family farm southwest of Hartford. "I picked out the levelest piece of ground I could find on the farm," explained Geide, whose maintenance of that airstrip involves occasional mowing and filling in a gopher or badger hole every now and then.

Flying always has had a practical purpose for Geide. It was a good way to check his crops and his cattle near Lake Vermillion. In 15 minutes, he could be up in the air, survey his domain and be back on the ground.

"It became a part of his farming operation," said his friend, Bud Sittig, a retired Air National Guard general officer and Delta Air Lines pilot who now lives in Centennial, Colo. "It became a piece of equipment for him to operate, like a combine."

But it has been more than that to Geide, too, Sittig said. Even if his friend doesn't say it, there is "a spirit of freedom that any aviator feels when they strap on an airplane, and I know Earle feels that, too."

He certainly must have dreamed about that freedom when, as a farm boy growing up during the Depression west of Sioux Falls, he stood in his yard and watched planes passing overhead from horizon to horizon.
"I think you wanted to be up there," his wife said, "like a bird."

He bought his first airplane, a Navy surplus 1940 BL65 Taylorcraft, in Yankton at the end of World War II. It cost him $450, plus another $200 to recover the hail-damaged wings.

After he was married, Geide would fly his wife and two children - Orrin and Joy - to visit relatives in Indiana. Sittig's father, Harold, talked Geide into joining a group called the Flying Farmers & Ranchers, and the couple became heavily involved in that, flying to conventions or just to other members' homes for monthly gatherings. At one point, the Geides even flew to Alaska and back.
"You know, I can't honestly give you a good answer to what it is he likes about flying," said his daughter, Joy Hohn, who reportedly was the first female commercial pilot in South Dakota and, like her brother, got her passion for flight from their father.

"He just loves the aspect of being up in the air," Hohn said of her dad. "If you can't talk flying or farming with my father, it's hard to talk with him."

When he does open up, Geide will tell you that he wishes there was more interest in groups such as the Flying Farmers today. Its membership is shrinking, he said, "because the young people aren't interested. They buy motorcycles so they don't have to get the physicals you need to fly."

The truth is, it's probably safer up there with the eagles than it is careening down an interstate or gravel road in a car or on a motorcycle, Sittig said. And that's why honoring people such as Earle Geide is important to the aviation industry in South Dakota, said Steve Hamilton, executive director of the S.D. Pilots Association.

He is a role model to the more than 2,000 South Dakotans who fly for pleasure or spray crops or operate helicopters and aircraft for hospitals, Hamilton said, adding, "he's one of the reasons we have a good reputation here in South Dakota for our aviation system."
How much longer he will add to that reputation is difficult to say. Geide doesn't say much about retiring, though he concedes that it's a little tougher these days to climb in and out of the cockpit, or to pay the price of airplane fuel.

"I think," he softly said, "that it's maybe getting about time to quit."
Seriously? No more sunlit silence? No more strapping on his plane to check the cattle?

Geide stared straight ahead. That was all he was going to say.

Red Arrows tribute at Wings & Wheels

2011-09-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

From August 30, GetSurry.co: VIDEO: Red Arrows tribute at Wings & Wheels

A MINUTE'S silence was held at Wings & Wheels over the bank holiday weekend, in memory of Red Arrows pilot Flight Lieutenant Jon Egging, who died when his Hawk T1 aircraft crashed at a display in Dorset on August 20.

A moving poem, 'High Flight' - penned by a pilot who was killed in a mid-air collision in the Second Word War - was also read and visitors on both days of the aviation and motoring show at Dunsfold Park paid their personal respects by signing books of condolence that will be passed on to Flt Lt Egging's widow.

The Red Arrows had been due to open the first day of the event on Sunday and a large group of friends of former Cranleigh School pupil and Red Arrow pilot, Zane Sennett, were at the show.

"The tragic thing is that Zane used to instruct the pilot who died," said his former history teacher, Mike Payne.

"It was his first year flying with the Red Arrows and a third year pilot is always selected as a mentor. Zane was chosen to be his [Flt Lt Egging's] mentor and so had had a particularly close bond with him."

The Red Arrows were sadly missed at Wings & Wheels but a thrilling solo display in a Hawk T1 was provided by the RAF Hawk Display Team's first female pilot, Flt Lt Juliette 'Jules' Fleming.

Fittingly, Bank Holiday Monday was 'Women in the Air' day, held to mark the 100th anniversary of the first British woman to get a pilot's licence - it was Hilda Hewlitt, who made history just down the road at Brooklands on August 29 in 1911.

The aircraft has a special link with Dunsfold as the first Hawk flew in 1974 and its maiden flight took place at the airfield.

Wings & Wheels is now established as one of the best airshows in the UK and vistors were treated to a host of RAF legends in an action-packed, five-hour flying display on both days.

This year has marked the 60th anniversary of the Hawker Hunter fighter jet, which is still in active service, and it made history at Dunsfold in 1953 when Neville Duke achieved 727.6mph in the modified first prototype and broke the world air speed record.

Dunsfold showgoers enjoyed another 'first' with a unique display by a Royal Navy Hawker Sea Fury and the psychedelic 'Miss Demeanour' Hunter, plus some epic close-formation aerobatics by the only Hawker Hunter display group - Team Viper.

The most famous RAF aircraft of all, the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster, provided a fabulous flypast for the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, and a Second World War P-51 Mustang also performed an aerial duet with a Spitfire IX.

Sadly, the Avro Vulcan Bomber was a last-minute no-show. The only delta-wing giant still flying, which was relaunched in 2007 following the most complex restoration ever undertaken, developed a hydraulics fault en route to Dunsfold on Sunday and also missed Monday's show.

Striking a blow for the Army, The Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment Parachute Team - better known as The Tigers - made a dramatic grand entrance, dropping in at 70mph from a Royal Navy Sea Lynx, shortly after the helicopter had given an incredible display of its versatility by looping the loop and executing a 180-degree wingover.

Visitors were treated to a swift succession of mind-boggling aerial displays that all seemed to defy the laws of gravity, in which show commentator Brendan O'Brien led the way by taking time off to land his Piper J-3 Cub repeatedly on the back of a moving truck.

Women in the Air day was also memorably celebrated by the world's only formation wingwalking team - the Breitling Wingwalkers - whose two fearless 'babes in lycra' performed high kicks at speeds of up to 150mph and 'G' forces of up to 4G.
On Sunday they also had to combat a sudden shower which, the crowd was informed, would have felt like being "slashed with razors".

Help for Heroes, Brooklands Museum, Cranleigh Village Hospital Trsut and Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance will all benefit from the success of this year's show.

Dunsfold Park chief executive Jim McAllister said: "Over the last seven years, Wings & Wheels has helped Dunsfold Aerodrome raise more than £250,000 for charitable causes.

"Each year a small team of staff and a dedicated group of volunteers work tirelessly to ensure the airshow happens and is a huge success.

"I would like to thank all these individuals and all those who have supported the show through sponsorship, donations and by purchasing tickets

Annual Fly-In and Air Show Soars into Town

2011-09-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

Labor Day Show is of course over, but this is now on my calendar and I'll report it in good time for next year.

From Watsonville Patch: Annual Fly-In and Air Show Soars into Town
The 47th Annual Fly-In and Air Show will soar into town Friday through Labor Day Weekend at the Watsonville Municipal Airport, and there's an array of events packed into the three-day affair.

The event, established in 1964, was created to help educate the public about aviation history and to support local charities and nonprofit organizations. This year, event proceeds will go to organizations like the Pajaro Valley Historical Association, said Theo Wiedsma, executive director for the Fly-In and Air Show.

Wiedsma said this is the second time the air show has taken place over Labor Day weekend, after previously being a Memorial Day celebration.

“Last year we had it on Labor Day instead of Memorial Day weekend, and it was one of the most successful years,” Wiedsma said. “Chances for good weather are better in early September than in the end of May. We're always fighting heavy fog on Memorial Day weekend.”

With temperatures in the high 60s predicted Friday through Monday, event attendees don't need to worry about missing any of the events this weekend, which include an assortment of activities for people of all ages.

Event attendees should expect to see around 300 antique, classic and neoclassic aircrafts, as well as warbirds and military displays. Attendees can also take a helicopter or airplane ride with the sounds of DJ-style music below, along with plenty of food vendors and an antique car show on Saturday.

“We've had a car show before, but it was limited," Wiedsma said. "This time we anticipate around 200 antique cars to show up.”

With so many activities taking place, attendees might want to pick and choose their events carefully. Below is a list of a few event highlights:

Friday:

•Spaghetti dinner, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the National Guard Armory on the corner of Aviation Road and Airport Boulevard. The spaghetti sauce is made by Watsonville resident, Peter Kavacich, and is supposed to be out of this world. Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for children from 6-12. Dinner proceeds support the Girl Scouts. Call 831-818-8967 to reserve tickets.
•The air show is 6:30-8 p.m. Planes will soar through the air above the Watsonville airport. All the pilots performing dazzling tricks can be read about here.
Saturday and Sunday:

•The Antique Car Show will be from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Stroll along Aviation Road and view around 200 antique cars.
•The air show will be noon to 4 p.m. at the National Guard Armory. Aircraft judging will conclude at 1 p.m., and winners will be announced at the Pilot's Dinner & Awards Presentation from 6-9 p.m. There will be 20-25 categories of judging. The pilot awarded as grand champion is considered the best of the best, and the image of the pilot's plane will be featured as the event logo next year. There will also be special awards given for oldest pilot, youngest pilot, longest distance flown and best display. Tickets for the Pilot's Dinner and Award Presentation are $16 for adults and $10 for kids.
Where: Watsonville Municipal Airport, 370 Airport Blvd.
When: Labor Day Weekend

Tickets are $15 for adults, or $35 for a three-day pass; $10 for children ages 6-12 and free for kids under 6 years old. Parking is $5, and there's a shuttle available from the auto parking ticket entrance to the vendor area on airport grounds. Pets aren't allowed.

For more information call 831-763-5600

Betty Skelton, ‘fastest woman on Earth,’ dies at 85

2011-09-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

From Sept 3

From Washington Post, Post Local: Betty Skelton, ‘fastest woman on Earth,’ dies at 85

Betty Skelton, a daredevil pilot who was a three-time national aerobatics champion and became known as the “fastest woman on Earth” when she set speed records in airplanes and automobiles, died Aug. 31 at her home in The Villages, Fla. She was 85.

She had cancer, said Dorothy S. Cochrane, a friend and the curator of general aviation at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Ms. Skelton, who made her first solo flight — illegally — at age 12, went on to become a pioneering and charismatic pilot in the days of propellers and open cockpits. She gave her first aerobatics performance when she was 19, appearing in the same show in Jacksonville, Fla., in which the Navy’s precision flight team, the Blue Angels, made its debut in 1946.

In her brightly painted Pitts Special biplane, the Little Stinker, Ms. Skelton performed awe-inspiring feats of airborne daring. She was the first woman to attempt the “inverted ribbon cut,” in which she would fly upside down only 10 feet off the ground, slicing a ribbon with her propeller.

The first time Ms. Skelton attempted the stunt, Cochrane said, her engine died. She calmly righted her plane and landed on the wheels. She then started it up and went back into the air.

“She enjoyed challenges, she enjoyed speed, she enjoyed technology,” Cochrane said.

From 1949 through 1951, when she retired from competitive flying, Ms. Skelton was the international women’s aerobatics champion. Years later, she donated her biplane to the National Air and Space Museum. Restored and repainted in its original red-and-white pattern, the Little Stinker now hangs in the entrance of the museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles International Airport.

When she wasn’t astonishing crowds at air shows, Ms. Skelton pursued the outer limits of what airplanes — and pilots — could accomplish. She twice set light-plane altitude records, reaching a maximum height of 29,050 feet in a Piper Cub in 1951 — higher than Mount Everest.

At that altitude, the temperature outside her airplane was 53 degrees below zero.

“I usually fly bare-footed,” Ms. Skelton said in 1999 interview for a NASA oral history project, “and my feet darn near froze to death.”

She set an unofficial women’s air speed record of 421 mph in a P-51 Mustang, but the engine exploded in mid-flight, and she had to guide the plane back to the ground at an Air Force base in Florida. She did not get credit for the record because she did not land where she took off.

Nevertheless, Ms. Skelton broke so many barriers in the air and on land that she became known as the “first lady of firsts.”

In 1954, she became the first woman to be a test driver for the auto industry. She was the first female boat jumper in the United States, memorably flying a boat over a Dodge convertible in a publicity stunt in 1955.

As an advertising executive in the 1950s and 1960s, she worked on the Corvette account as a test driver and as a spokeswoman at auto shows. In 1957, driving a translucent, custom-made gold Corvette, she became the first woman to drive a pace car at the Daytona 500.

Amelia Earhart Photo Collection

2011-08-29T14:30:00.001-07:00

Walking on Air: THe Aerial Adventures of Phoebe Omlie

2011-08-28T22:48:00.001-07:00

Just discovered this book at Amazon today. Will do a review of it shortly, but for now:

Aviation pioneer Phoebe Fairgrave Omlie (1902-1975) was once one of the most famous women in America. In the 1930s, her words and photographs were splashed across the front pages of newspapers across the nation. The press labeled her "second only to Amelia Earhart among America's women pilots," and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt named her among the "eleven women whose achievements make it safe to say that the world is progressing."

Omlie began her career in the early 1920s when aviation was unregulated and open to those daring enough to take it on, male or female. She earned the first commercial pilot's license issued to a woman and became a successful air racer. During the New Deal, she became the first woman to hold an executive position in federal aeronautics.

In Walking on Air, author Janann Sherman presents a thorough and entertaining biography of Omlie. In 1920, the Des Moines, Iowa, native bought herself a Curtiss JN-4D airplane and began learning how to fly and perform stunts with her future husband, pilot Vernon Omlie. She danced the Charleston on the top wing, hung by her teeth below the plane, and performed parachute jumps in the Phoebe Fairgrave Flying Circus.

Using interviews, contemporary newspaper articles, archived radio transcripts, and other archival materials, Sherman creates a complex portrait of a daring aviator struggling for recognition in the early days of flight and a detailed examination of how American flying changed over the twentieth century.

1952 Powder Puff Derby Program

2011-08-26T20:09:00.000-07:00

Giving you a preview of what's in store for you. I've got a 1952 Powder Puff Derby program, and I'll be scanning it and sharing it here.

Here's the cover.

Aviation High soars into the future, landing next to Boeing Field

2011-08-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times: Aviation High soars into the future, landing next to Boeing Field
Some gravel, some dirt, a lot of weeds and, in one corner, a portable toilet. That's about all that's been sitting in this vacant lot north of the Museum of Flight along East Marginal Way South.

To imagine this as the site of a cutting-edge educational facility that will help produce tomorrow's engineers, scientists, pilots, technicians and entrepreneurs takes vision.

Fortunately, vision is the common denominator among those who will gather Tuesday for the groundbreaking of the $43.5 million Raisbeck Aviation High School.

Donors and dreamers, educators and museum professionals, industry and government leaders, architects, planners and builders, even students have their stamp on the three-story school building due to open in 2013.

"We want to inspire the generation that's going to write the story of the second century of flight," said Douglas King, Museum of Flight CEO.

King said the museum — long before he came on board early this year — decided its goal wasn't just to collect and preserve aviation history but to help shape it.

Aviation High School, a public school that's part of the Highline School District, actually opened in 2004. It operated for its first few years at South Seattle Community College and, more recently, on the campus of a Des Moines middle school.

"We've been nomads," said Reba Gilman, principal since the school opened.

From the school's inception, the museum has been envisioned as its eventual home, Gilman said. Not only will it provide ready access to the museum's resources, it will put the school at the doorstep of some 200 flight-related businesses operating out of the Boeing Field area.

"Our goal is that every student is connected with a mentor in the aviation/aerospace industry," Gilman said. "We want them [the mentors] to come for lunch with students, share their education and career pathways, and be a true member of our learning community."

Every aspect of the building will reinforce its mission, Gilman said, including project labs in which students can build robots, rockets, model airplanes — even a small airplane.

Instead of athletics, the school will field "sports of the mind" teams, on which students use science, technology, engineering and communication skills to tackle real-world projects.

The building, designed by Bassetti Architects and being built by Porter Brothers Construction, will have a high-tech computer lab as well as meeting spaces where small groups can collaborate. A balcony looks out toward Boeing Field, where some 300,000 takeoffs and landings a year reinforce the nature of the school's curriculum.

The museum also will benefit from the juxtaposition, King said, by tapping the energy and vitality of high-school students to help with exhibits and programs at the museum.

When the school moves to its new quarters, its new name will honor the commitment of James and Sherry Raisbeck of Seattle, who have donated $3 million toward the school's construction. James Raisbeck heads Raisbeck Engineering and Raisbeck Commercial Air Group, innovators in aviation design.

Boeing has contributed $4 million. Jim Albaugh, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO, said the school could be an important part of producing the company's future workforce, noting that half of Boeing's engineers are expected to retire over the next five years.

Gilman said the school is looking for students "who are inspired by aviation and aerospace" and ready to pursue a rigorous education in "STEM" subjects: science, technology, engineering and math. The school intends to stay small to focus effectively on individual students. This fall's freshman class of 115 was drawn from a pool of some 275 applicants, Gilman said.

Half of the school's 425 students come from the Highline School District; the others are drawn from a wide area around Puget Sound. Of 330 students who graduated in the school's first four classes, 95 percent have gone on to college.

Some of those graduates will participate in a ceremonial fly-in at Tuesday's event.

Among them will be Joey Marco, 21, of Des Moines, who's wanted to be a pilot since he was a toddler. He recalls cross-country flights to see relatives or go on vacation, "And it was always the trip I looked forward to, not the destination."

Marco was in Aviation High School's initial graduating class, 2008 — the same year he got his pilot's license. This year, he graduated from Florida's Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, completing four years of curriculum in three.

He soon will head to basic training in the Air Force, where he hopes to become an officer and fighter pilot. The value of his experience at Aviation High School, which included learning directly from pilots and aviation engineers, was evident at Embry-Riddle.

"We had students from all over," Marco said, "and I felt I was better prepared than most."