Indy Transponder 04-FEB-2011 0500z

Aerobatic team Surya Kiran set to fly into sunset - Daily News and Analysis | The Surya Kiran aerobatic team (SKAT) of the Indian Air Force (IAF) will perform for the last time at the biennial air show, Aero India, in Bangalore to be held from February 9-13, before being disbanded.  Citing shortage of aircraft for training purposes, a source told DNA that these aircraft will ...
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Al Ain air show finally begins as weather clears - The National | AL AIN // It's all systems go as the 2011 Al Ain Aerobatic Show kicks off today at the Al Ain International Airport after being delayed for two days due to ...

MMRCA contenders will showcase full flight display at Aero India 2011 from Defence Aviation | The Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) Competition,  commonly known as the MMRCA Tender that involves six contenders bidding for the deal, will be showcasing their full flight display at Aero India 2011. The MMRCA deal is an ongoing competition to supply the Indian Air Force with 126 Multi-Role Combat Aircraft in order to modernize and expand the Indian Air Force. The Defence Ministry has allocated INR 42,000 crore (US$9.11 billion) for the purchase of these aircraft’s. ...

British aerospace firms eye partnerships at air show - Sify
British Minister for Defence Equipment Support and Technology Peter Luff will lead a large defence and business delegation to the five-day air show at the ...
   
Wings of Freedom Tour stops in Fort Myers - Wink News | Visitors can get an up-close look at the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, a consolidated B--24 Liberator and a P-51 Mustang. The B-17 on display is one of only ...

Saturday - Saturday, Feb 26, 2011 - Mar 5, 2011 - Fantasy of Flight's NightFlight Phase 2, Polk City, FL from FunPlacesToFly.com Aviation Events | Phase 2 of our popular paranormal investigations continues as we dig deeper into the mysterious female spirit M in the Officers Club the new approach in the Carrier Deck with the cluster of Naval carrier-based aircraft the expansion of the investigation into new areas, especially the Restoration Shop and the EVP experience within the PBY Catalina. 863-984-3500, info@fantasyofFlight.com

Thursday - Saturday, Feb 10-12, 2011 - Fantasy of Flight's Legends Legacies: They Dared to Fly - Featuring Tuskegee Airmen, Polk City, FL from FunPlacesToFly.com Aviation Events | Fantasy of Flight's Legends Legacies Series continues with They Dared to Fly in honor of Black History Month. Join several of the original Tuskegee Airmen as they share their personal experiences of wartime military service during segregated America. This event features open-forum/question-and-answer sessions. Fantasy of Flight's permanent ...

Flightline UK - RAF Waddington International Airshow 2011  Source: www.airshows.org.uk
RAF Waddington International Airshow is the RAF's premier airshow of the year. RAF Waddington is in Lincolnshire, long regarded at the home of the Royal Air Force. The show is well liked by families and enthusiasts alike bring together some of Europe's top display acts alongside very strong support  ...

Air show tickets on sale; Kestrel highlighted in aviation journal - Times Record | Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority officials announced this week that tickets are on sale for this August's Great State of Maine Air Show & Business ...

This is How it’s Done, Ladies and Gentlemen! from US Army Golden Knights by Rachel Medley | SGT Brandie Phillips of the Black Demonstration Team lands perfectly on the dead center after having exited the aircraft more than two miles above the earth. Brandie is one of the top accuracy shooters on Black Team, and was fourth overall best target score for the entire 2010 show season. SGT Phillips is originally from [...]

Centennial of Naval Aviation - Heritage Paint Schemes from FenceCheck Forums

Video: Freedom Flight 2011 for Able Flight from AOPA Live: Latest videos from AOPA Live
Freedom Flight 2011 for Able Flight thumbnail Disabled pilots Sean O'Donnell and Heather Schultz let nothing deter them.

Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the DC-3 - TVR Photography | For many of us, the DC-3 is seen as a tired workhorse of the skies, a third world answer for passenger and cargo transport. A fuselage full of chickens and wooden boxes might be high on the list of stereotypical thoughts. The gathering of DC-3’s and C-47’s in Rock Falls, Illinois quickly grounded that mindset and illustrated to everyone that the DC-3 is strong, active and still filling a void within the aviation community.  Scott Glover's immaculately restored C-47 Dakota named 'Sky King', taxiis back to the ramp under the full moon after a nostalgic flight hosting local War Veterans.  On the weekend of July 23-25, a record number of airworthy DC-3’s and military C-47 variants came together at Whiteside Airport in Rock Falls, Illinois for what would be called ‘The Last Time’. Although the ...

27 balloons to participate in Philippine Int'l Hot Air balloon fiesta in Clark - Philippine Information Agency | Tour schedules are 7:30 am, 8:30 am, 9:30 am, 3:30 pm, and 4:30 pm There will also be sky diving and paragliding exhibitions as well as rocketry and ...

P-40 WarHawk Markings - Warbird Central

Forgotten Heroes – Jesse LeRoy Brown 1st US NAVY African-American Aviator - Resurrection of the Stratford Corsair  | Today I learned about a true American Hero that has all but been forgotten. What defines a hero? The “progression” is a classic  story. Born Poor, Faced Adversity, Choose the Hard Road, Excel Beyond the Wildest Dreams of Your Naysayers, Loved by Compatriots, The First, Sacrificial or Tragic Death.  All the makings for a great movie. Jesse LeRoy Brown (13 October 1926 – 4 December 1950) was the first African-American naval aviator in the United States Navy. ...

Good Flying: Interview with a Blackhawk pilot in Iraq  - YouTube
Captain Andrea Ourada, a Minnesota National Guard Blackhawk helicopter pilot, tells the story of her first combat action in Iraq.

Celebrating Women from Flight To Success | Father's Day, Mother's Day, Valentines' Day--- When I was a little girl, I told my dad, "We need a kids day!" and he'd said, "Everyday is kids day."  Yeah, right. I was soon to realize, some thirty years later, that we do have control our our days. We can make them anything we want. ... Women of Aviation Worldwide Week. March 7-13 ...

Women in Air Traffic Control from Roger-Wilco | My original article about the difficult road women wanting to become air traffic controllers (and commercial pilots…) faced in the early days seems to have struck a chord in several parts of the world. First there was Aminda’s lovely contribution from the Philippines then Evon Russel contacted me on Facebook with a link to an article at the Wings Over Kansas site which talks about whet they claimed was the first American female controller, Mary Van Scyoc.  ...

Episode 133 – Traveling Smart with Kelli from Airplane Geeks Podcast | Kelli Jones is this week’s guest. She’s an aviation consultant, cabin safety expert, mediator, traveler, philanthropist, and a blogger at Traveling Smart. Previously, Kelli worked for a major US airline where she was a cabin equipment engineer and accident investigator, and she now works as a consultant for the FAA, the NTSB, airlines, and ...

Flying Boxcar Snares Capsule In Flight (1960) from AIRBOYD.TV by Airboyd

Remnants of a bomber crash - Maple Ridge News | After starting out on the two-engine B-25 Mitchell bomber at Boundary Bay, crews graduated to the four-engine B-24 Liberator at Abbotsford. ...

Mikoyan–Guryevich MiG-21 - War and game | “It was superb to fly, tough, simple and easy to build in large numbers…” IVAN RENDALL commenting on the MIG-21 in ROLLING THUNDER. Fast and agile. Despite having only one engine, the MiG-21 is still an exceptionally agile aircraft that is not easily matched in dogfights. However, it is sometimes susceptible to snaking, which causes stalls and surges in the turbojet engine. ....

Aging fighter jet gets new lease on life - LA Time | The F/A-18, a fixture on U.S. carriers for decades, benefits from delays on its replacement, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Pentagon keeps ordering more F/A-18s, which is good news to workers at Northrop and hundreds of other California firms.

Eglin's 53rd celebrates 70 years of history, cuts its cake with a sword (VIDEO ... - The Northwest Florida Daily News | The video below consists of historical footage of the American Volunteer Group the Flying Tigers who fought the Japanese in China at the outset of World War ...

"Hearts Of All Ages" - 9NEWS.com
The event, which will be at the Wings Over The Rockies Air & Space Museum, boasts kid friendly food, live music, face painters, caricature artists and more. ...

Lindbergh Foundation to Lead Aviation Green Alliance - AMTOnline.com | During its presentation at the Wichita Aero Club luncheon, the Lindbergh Foundation today announced the Aviation GreenTM Alliance ...

Boulder’s eSpace Center Wants To Make Aerospace A Startup-Friendly Industry from TechCrunch | Private sector space tech companies — from Virgin Galactic to Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) — have been doing what only government agencies were empowered to do in earlier generations, launch vehicles into space, improve the fuel efficiency of aircraft, and more. A Boulder-based incubator called The eSpace Center for Space Entrepreneurship still thinks the industry could be friendlier to startups and innovators, though.  ...

The Soviet space shuttle's final ride [Spacelopnik] from Jalopnik by Justin Hyde | For nearly two decades, the Soviet Union attempted to beat the United States in the space race with its own fleet of space shuttles. Here's the story of the final Soviet shuttle's last ride.

Russia Building Its Own Super-Mysterious Robotic Space Plane [Space] from Gizmodo by Sam Biddle | Remember the US military's shadowy, unmanned X-37B? Well Russia won't just sit there and let us be the only ones flying shadowy robot planes into space—they're building their own, and it's even more shadowy.  Just how mysterious is this mystery-spacecraft? So mysterious that there isn't a single image of it, and it has no name. But it's intended to mimic the functionality of the X-37B—small, light, easy to put into orbit, and able to carry a truck's worth of gear (whether it be peaceful gear or otherwise). Russia's military space chief, Oleg Ostapenko, has said only  ...

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Final Flight: C-119 Flying Boxcar

C-119 Flying Boxcar En Route Home on Final Flight, Hagerstown Aviation Museum Pilots Making Historic Flight of Antique Fairchild Cargo Plane

(Hagerstown, MD and Greybull, Wy) -- After exhausting weeks of repairs and inspections, the Hagerstown Aviation Museum’s Fairchild C-119 "Flying Boxcar" took off from the South Big Horn County Airport in Greybull, Wyoming at approximately 10:20am Mountain Time Wednesday, November 12th. The C-119 crew made several passes over the airport, and then piloted the 56-year old rare aircraft south to fly around the 13,000-foot Big Horn Mountains.

The first leg of the historic journey is scheduled to include a stop at Grand Isle, Nebraska. The crew plans to fly to Ottumwa, Iowa on Thursday, and then they hope to continue onward to Warrenton, Virginia. According to Hagerstown Aviation Museum President Kurtis Meyers, "With a small window of favorable weather, we hope to have the aircraft's arrival in Hagerstown on Sunday the 16th between 12:00 noon and 2:00pm." Everyone is invited to this free event to witness the last flight of a C-119 over Hagerstown.

Interested aviation enthusiasts should call the museum hotline at 301-733-8717 or go to www.HagerstownAviationMuseum.org for updates, photos and videos of the C-119 in Greybull, WY. The C-119 Homecoming event will held be at Hagerstown Aircraft Services.

The C-119 is one of the last remaining Flying Boxcars in the world in flyable condition. "After being moth-balled for a very long time, this aircraft has undergone more than two months of preparations for its ferry flight back to Hagerstown," said Meyers. "We know that when it arrives home safely that someday it will become one of the main attractions of the Hagerstown Aviation Museum." Brought back to life after six years of sitting dormant, the Boxcar ’s awakening occurred only through the efforts of many museum volunteers, and the contributions to date of over $70,000. More than 450 generous donors throughout the Hagerstown community and beyond stepped forward to save this important piece of aviation history."

According to the museum organizers, Pilot Frank Lamm, Co-Pilot T.R. Proven and Flight Engineer Galen Seal are all museum volunteers who are making the rare aircraft's flight home possible. Both Pilot Lamm and Co-Pilot Proven are veterans of the last flying Fairchild C-82's return flight in 2006. Brig. General Galen Seal is a welcome addition to the museum’s flight crew. Frank Lamm and Galen Seal both flew C-119s in the 817th Troop Carrier Squadron during the 1950s and are old friends. T.R. Proven is currently an accident investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration, and a great friend of the museum. The crew has combined flight time of more than 40,000 hours.

Manufactured by Fairchild Aircraft in Hagerstown, the museum's 1953 C-119 was originally built for the Royal Canadian Air Force. In the 1980s it was sold to Hawkins & Powers, an aerial fire fighting company in Greybull, Wyoming. The aircraft was used by Hawkins & Powers to carry fire retardant that would be dropped on forest fires. This particular C-119 was made famous in the 1989 Spielberg movie, "Always" with Richard Dreyfuss and John Goodman.

Built in Hagerstown, over 1000 C-119's were produced, by the more than 10,000 Fairchild workers. The aircraft served as the primary cargo hauler for the United States military throughout the 1950's and early 1960's. The first C-119 was delivered in 1949, and was the main cargo and troop aircraft for the US Military. The most numerous of the models built by Fairchild was the C-119G. This type saw lengthy and important service principally with the United States Air Force Troop Carrier Command wings, Military Air Transport Service, and the Air Force Reserve. It participated extensively in the Korean War, flying from Japan, and gave sterling service for many years thereafter.

In August of 2006, Robert Stanford of Zenith Aviation purchased the retired aircraft, and decided to donate it to the Hagerstown Aviation Museum. In slightly less then two years, the museum raised the necessary funding to begin inspection, repair and maintenance of the aircraft. Fundraising efforts will continue since the entire repair project has cost in excess of $100,000 including approximately $12,000 in fuel for the return trip. Donations can be mailed to Hagerstown Aviation Museum, 14235 Oak Springs Rd, Hagerstown, MD 21742 or made online at www.HagerstownAviationMuseum.org.

Tom Riford, president of the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that the donation of the C-119, and other recent museum acquisitions, gives the Hagerstown Aviation Museum the largest collection of museum-owned aircraft of any Maryland aviation museum. The museum has aircraft in storage in private hangars throughout the Hagerstown Regional Airport and at Hagerstown Aircraft Services, until the organization can build a permanent home. "Half of Washington County will turn out to see this plane come home," said Riford. "When the last flying C-82 came home in 2006, the airport was mobbed. This is an exciting thing for Hagerstown and Washington County."

Bringing the C-119 home to Hagerstown, for permanent display has been a huge undertaking for a handful of volunteers. "The story of Hagerstown's aviation heritage is not complete without this aircraft. The Flying Boxcar made Hagerstown famous around the world. The C-119 will be a permanent monument to the thousands of men and women who designed, built, flew and maintained it throughout its life," said Meyers.

CVB President Tom Riford said that when a permanent home for the aircraft is completed, that visitors would flock to Hagerstown. "This town made the best airplanes in the world. We have an aviation history of over 75 years. To have this many aircraft, most of which were made right here in Hagerstown, makes the Hagerstown Aviation Museum a singularly extraordinary collection." Thousands of former Fairchild employees are located in the area around Hagerstown, where the aircraft company operated for decades. The first airplane manufactured in Maryland was made in Hagerstown.

The Hagerstown Aviation Museum is a member of the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau. For more information about Washington County, see: www.marylandmemories.com. Also, the Hagerstown Aviation Museum has an exhibit and display at the Discovery Station Museum in Downtown Hagerstown, located at 101 West Washington Street. For more information see: www.discoverystation.org. At the Discovery Station exhibit, visitors can explore a collection of artifacts, memorabilia, exhibits and displays depicting the aviation heritage of the Hagerstown area, which for more than 70 years was the nation's leading center of aircraft manufacturing. Pioneers in the design, testing and manufacturing of well known aircraft plied their trade in Hagerstown, and the first aircraft manufactured in Maryland, was made in Hagerstown.

Contact: Kurtis Meyers, Hagerstown Aviation Museum; 717-377-3030