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Aviation history
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Hear Dan Patterson's aviation heritage  commentaries on WYSO Public Radio, 91.3 FM. 
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The National Aviation Heritage Area is a part of the National Park Service's National Heritage Areas program.
November 21, 2013
JFK anniversary increasing interest
in National Museum's Air Force One
Photo of SAM 26000 (JFK's Air Force One) 
SAM 26000 (Air Force One) arriving at National Museum on May 20, 1998. (Photo: USAF)

The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force has increased access to John F. Kennedy's Air Force One as interest in the airplane has grown because of its association with the approaching 50th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. 

Photo of Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One
Vice President Johnson takes oath of office aboard Air Force One (Photo: USAF)
Special Air Mission (SAM) 26000 is on display inthe museum's Presidential Aircraft Gallery, which is only accessible by shuttle bus. The museum is running four shuttles per day to the annex until Dec. 1, according to a museum news release.

Kennedy flew aboard SAM 26000 to Dallas, Texas, where he was shot to death in a motorcade. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in on the airplane as the new president, and it was then used to carry Kennedy's body and Johnson back to Washington, D.C.

"When visitors walk through this aircraft, they have the opportunity to be in one of the most historic places on earth," Museum Historian Jeff Underwood said in the news release. "They can stand in a place that shaped American history."

The VC-137C, an Air Force version of the Boeing 707 airliner,  was the first jet made specifically for use by the president of the United States. Visit nationalmuseum.af.mil for a fact sheet about the airplane.
Poll: Armstrong's moonwalk event most Americans wished they saw
NAHA Portrait of Neil Armstrong
Photo: NASA

Neil Armstrong's historic moonwalk is the single event from the past 50 years that the highest percentage of Americans wish they could witness, according to a new Harris Poll.

To mark its own 50th anniversary, market research firm Harris Interactive asked 2,003 U.S. adults earlier this month which single event over the past 50 years they wished they had witnessed firsthand. The first human footsteps on the moon, made by Ohioan Neil Armstrong in 1969, topped the list. The fall of the Berlin Wall and Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech were other top choices.

We can't revisit the past, but the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta gives visitors a chance to learn about Armstrong's life and see original aviation and space artifiacts.
Tom D. Crouch named AIAA fellow
Photo of Tom D. Crouch
Tom D. Crouch (Photo: Smithsonian)

Tom D. Crouch, senior curator for aeronautics at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., and a NAHA trustee, has been named a Fellow of the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

A Dayton area native, Crouch is well known as author of The Bishop's Boys and other books about the Wright brothers and aviation history.

"The title of AIAA Fellow is among the highest honors that one can earn in the aerospace community," AIAA President Mike Griffin sad in an announcement. "It represents the acknowledgement of peers that one's work is truly outstanding, and that you have made lasting contributions to significantly advancing the state-of-the art of aerospace science and technology." Crouch and the other new Fellows are to be presented at AIAA's Aerospace Spotlight Awards Gala in Washington on April 30, 2014. 
WSU public history intern helping Armstrong Air and Space Museum
Photo of Paul Ciaravolo at desk
Paul Ciaravolo (Photo: Armstrong Museum)
 
Paul Ciaravolo has been working at the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta for nearly two months and has spent more than 150 hours building the museum's archive, according to Phases, the museum's newsletter.

Ciaravolo is a graduate student in Wright State University's public history program, which prepares students for work in archives, historical societies and museums. His work at the museum satisfies a graduation requirement, according to the newsletter.

Ciaravolo created four collections within the new museum archive, including historic documents related to the museum's construction and opening and correspondence between Viola Armstrong (Neil Armstrong's mother) and the museum. These boxes of materials are now organized and labeled, housed in non-acidic folders and boxes, and described in finding aids so that they can be more easily located and used by museum staff and future researchers.
Flight scholarship deadline Nov. 30 
Photo of airplane taxiing
 
Deadline is Saturday, Nov. 30 for applications for NAHA's aviation scholarship. The scholarship provides $1,500 worth of flying lessons towards earning a Private Pilot or Light Sport Pilot's Certificate to a person between ages 15 and 21 who lives or attends school in one of the eight counties in the Heritage Area-Auglaize, Champaign, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery, Shelby, or Warren.

The name of the scholarship is the Mitchel Cary/Don Gum Memorial Aviation Scholarship. It is named in honor of two pilots who lost their lives in 2011 in the commemoration of the Wright brothers' invention of aviation.

Visit NAHA's scholarship page for more information.
The National Aviation Heritage Alliance (NAHA) is a private, not-for-profit corporation designated by Congress as the management entity of the National Aviation Heritage Area. The Heritage Area encompasses an eight-county area in Ohio (Montgomery, Greene, Miami, Clark, Warren, Champaign, Shelby and Auglaize counties.) NAHA's vision is to sustain the legacy of the Wright brothers and make the Dayton region the recognized global center of aviation heritage and premier destination for aviation heritage tourism.

PO Box 414 * Wright Brothers Station * Dayton, OH 45409