Military Posts

Tipped off by the movie being made about its story of Jesse Brown and Medal of Honor recipient Tom Hudner (see “Devotion: Bearcats, Corsairs, and Real Moviemaking Oh My!“), I found the book in our local library system. In Devotion: An Ep…

Nothing ruins the enjoyment of a good aviation film more thoroughly than computer-generated images. Real moviemaking, filming real airplanes is what makes movies like “12 O’Clock High” and “Top Gun” so memorable. That&#…

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…

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 …

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…

With thunderstorms lined in assaulting waves on radar and pathfinding drops splattering themselves against my office window, changing my Saturday morning plans for a two-wheel ride to Rio, Wisconsin, seemed prudent. Remembering that the EAA Aviation…

Aviation danger zones exist in all phases of flight, and they most often catch people on the ground, especially when another task attenuates their situational awareness. Almost walking into a stationary prop protruding from the Innovation Showcase b…

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…

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…

Anyone who has investigated becoming a pilot knows that aviation is sold by the flight hour. Anyone who’s ever rented one should find this interesting: the Fiscal Year 2019 Department of Defense Fixed-Wing and Helicopter Reimbursement Rates fo…

Reading that the US Air Force will be requesting proposals from engine makers to propel the B-52’s active-duty service through 2050 didn’t surprise me. It continues the decades-long return on aircraft investment, its ability to continue …

With retention of active duty aviators and recruitment of qualified newcomers to fill empty cockpits a growing challenge for America’s armed forces, might it be time to reopen the flight training door to enlisted pilots who meet the physical a…

As a former Navy photographer’s mate, the big aerial cameras under the long, windowed nose of the dark blue straight-wing jet drew me to the McDonnell F2H-2P photo Banshee. It was the Navy’s first photoreconnaissance jet. And the airplan…

If there is a long forgotten annex that has preserved World War II combat veterans for eventual display at the National Museum of Naval Aviation, it is Lake Michigan. Without the inevitable accidents that occur when new naval aviators are learning t…

Am I the only aviator who wants the pilot’s perspective when examining an interesting aircraft? Or am I suffering from unrequired Walter Mitty daydreams? Either way, with a cockpit crawl of more than a dozen aircraft, from the F11F Tiger to th…

A lot has changed since I last visited the National Museum of Naval Aviation 46 years ago, when I was a student at the Naval Schools of Photography that once called the Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, home. The photo school, and the occupation…

Standing at the bent and battered nose of a Vietnam-era C-123 Provider at the National Museum of the US Air Force and wondering why there was a World War II P-47 Thunderbolt snuggled under its left wing, a middle-aged blonde walked up, looked at the…

After its unusual start, EAA AirVenture Oshkosh returned to its predicable ways as the week passed the halfway mark. But is was just setting us up, out of the west, just above the trees and behind the backs of everyone facing the flight line for the…

The DC-3, a C-47 “Gooney Bird” when it’s dressed up for the military, conjures intense memories for me, like when my parents bought me an airline ticket to fly back from school in Champaign IL to Chicago one Thanksgiving. That Ozar…

Following Interstate 70 from one assignment in Indiana to the next in Maryland, a sign announcing the approach of Dayton inspired a deviation. I could spare a few minutes for a quick walk through the fourth building at the National Museum of the Uni…

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and the ongoing rampage of Irma (with Jose and Katia on her heels), let’s give a moment of silent thanks to Igor Sikorsky who made the inaugural flight of the world’s first practical helicopter, the V…