Aviation History Posts

Photography is an activity pursued by many interested in aviation. For photographers who started before the digital age, storing slides, negatives, and prints was not only an out of space problem but also spacious signal that might suggest a hoardin…

As it would any dedicated aviation geek, the photo of the P-82 Twin Mustang with Betty Jo emblazoned on its nose at the start of a New York Time’s obituary caught my attention. So did the headline, “Robert Thacker, 102, Dies; Survived Pe…

Among the six naval aviators recommended for command of an aircraft carrier was Captain Amy Bauernschmidt, a 1994 Naval Academy grad and helo pilot who ticked an essential box on the carrier command checklist when she was the first female to serve a…

Unless you’re an aviation history geek or just a pilot who resides in Illinois, you might not have heard of Octave Chanute. I only knew the name early on when I joined the Air Force because there was a Base in southern Illinois named for the f…

Living with an editor’s mindset is no easy thing, especially when faced with inconsistent “facts” in stories presented by different sources on a common topic. In this case it was the death of Chuck Yeager. Publicity throughout his …

Many an aviation scribe has described what flying was like in now bygone days. Little did I suspect that the Civil Aeronautics Board was among them, or that Part 60 of the Civil Air Regulations (CAR), Air Traffic Rules, would paint such an effective…

General Aviation Thrives on Kettle Moraine GrassSituated along the Scuppermong River in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, the Village of Palmyra is, says the welcoming sign across the street from the Palmyra Municipal Airport (88C), “The Heart of …

Discovering the Logbooks of a Life Rarely DiscussedCovid sequestration is, it turns out, an inescapable cloister (especially now, with Wisconsin’s record-setting infections), perfect for undertaking long put off tasks you’ve always mean…

Instead of Ghostly Nostalgia, a Living Connection to What WasPandemic stir-craziness manifested itself on a glorious mid-August Sunday afternoon. From my second-floor window, I watched scattered cumulus clouds in a blue sunny sky dapple my small to…

An excavator dismembers OSH’s terminal, making way for its replacement. SM SpanglerLike several hundred thousand others who normally spend the summer preparing for their annual pilgrimage to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I’ve been anxiously tryin…

Semantically, Students and Learners Are Not SynonymousThe AOPA online headline about the 2020 update of the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook immediately captured my attention because — What’s Behind the FAA’s Switch from Student to…

A Concise Look at Human Flight with an Unexpected FocusWith my knowledge bank bereft all but the most rudimentary information about Zeppelins (aka rigid airships), my curious eye immediately focused on the tail end of the Zeppelin under the title, …

NASAAs it did when Alan Shepard kicked off the US Space program with his suborbital flight in 1961, I eagerly anticipated watching the program’s most recent chapter, the resumption of flights launched from American soil. Watching the preparat…

Bob Crandall retired in 1998 as chairman, president, and CEO of AMR, parent organization to American Airlines and while many people today might not remember his name, they’ll pretty quickly recognize what he created while he was at the helm.B…

Unless you’ve been a disconnected intraterrestial for the past week or so, you’ve probably seen the memes noting the triple one-week whammy of the change to daylight savings time (for those of you living in states subjected to it), a ful…

Wandering through Netflix’s streaming options hoping to trip over something that would hold my attention, in the Hidden Gems category I saw Mission Control: The Unsung Heroes of Apollo. Having visited the recently restored facility (See 87 Ste…

With the end of World War II lining up for its 75th anniversary celebration at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, one might think there was little new information about the pilots who fought it. I was one of them, until I read the review of Race of Aces: WWII&…

Seeking refuge from the gloomy, overcast skies that are growing darker as a winter storm crawls across Wisconsin, I turned to my bookshelves in the hope that the title of a tome once read would catch my eye and lift my spirits. As my eyes slid acros…

To be honest, my interest in extraterrestrial explorations waned with the establishment of the International Space Station. Sometimes I felt guilty about this, usually when I watched the luminous dot race across the night sky (forewarned by an Astro…

To the aviation minded, interest in World War I stops at the aerodrome because that’s where aeronautics’ voice changed as its technology matured. But interest in the conflict in which it fought—the War to End All Wars—never captured the …

As it seemed last year, the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels low-level fly-by at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh this year seemed to catch many people by surprise. I don’t mean to shatter your illusions, but nothing at AirVenture happens as a surprise, es…

Journey to Mission Control Enriches Memories of Apollo 11A half century ago, I was one of the millions worldwide who watched Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin bounce and bound across the surface of the moon. But I didn’t fully appreciate their a…

One of history’s many rewards is discovering little known stories that enrich the significance of its mass market events, such as the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri (BB-63) in Tokyo Bay in September 1945. There are a number of them…

Trying to be a good father, I spent a rainy weekend making a recycling run though boxes that have lived unopened for more than a decade in the closet of the spare bedroom. Accepting that my expiration date, while unknown, is growing ever closer, I d…