On This Day in Aviation History: First Airmail by Jet Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Today in aviation history, Wikimedia Commons, Bolaffi Happy December aviation history afficionados! Well, here we are the weekend after Thanksgiving and full-on into “Christmas card” season. Do you still send cards? It’s a great tradition of reaching out, occasionally to…
The Avians of Alcatraz, and of Thanksgiving Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Getty Images, Thriftbooks.com, San Franciso Examiner According to Google Search, “the word ‘avion’ is French (and Spanish) for ‘airplane’ but its meaning ultimately comes from the Latin word ‘avis,’ meaning ‘bird’. This connection to ‘bird’ is reflected in the English adjective ‘avian,’…
The First Living Thing to Orbit The Earth–The “Heinz-57″Mixed-Breed Russian Mutt Laika Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Getty Images and Vox.com Best wishes for a happy and grateful Thanksgiving Day holiday to all of you. On dogs: We all love our dogs and this is a story of a dog who gave her life for…
Today in Aviation History-The Rooskies win the battle for the biggest and fastest…for a while Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: MSN, thisdayinaviation.com Today In Aviation History: First Flight of the Tupolev Tu-114 Rossiya Story by Austin Hancock Downloaded today from: https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/today-in-aviation-history-first-flight-of-the-tupolev-tu-114-rossiya/ar-AA1QvH9A Space was a race between the Soviets and Americans midway in the 20th Century, but…
Happy Aviation History Month! Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Goodfellow Foundation, Wikipedia, This Day in Aviation.com; Lockheed Martin Below information, unless noted otherwise, is courtesy of the Goodfellow Historical Foundation. Nationally, in the United States, November is Aviation History Month. So, let’s review a few early November aviation history tidbits to celebrate Aviation History Month.…
The Daniel Guggenheim Medal and my son-in-law’s grandfather, Eugene Covert Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Charleslindbergh.com, news.mit.edu We typically focus on the famous, the in-the-news, constantly reported-on, “People Magazine-type” people when we think about or write about people. The “in the background”, back stage, supporting-cast kind of people often go unrecognized. I have written a…
James Dean and Historic Route 66 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Members.tripod.com, Encyclopedia Britannica, Copilot AI Those of us younger than 70 might not know much of actor James Dean, nor much about the “Mother Road”, Route 66. And, I doubt they will remember watching the iconic TV show, “Route 66” that helped make the…
This Day in Aviation History: National Parks Airways Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: atlasobscura.com Happy October and federal government shutdown! Let’s hope the political bickering ends soon. Our National Parks are shuttered, for now, given the federal government shutdown. In honor of that vast National Park system (as well as our National Monuments and other…