Aviation History

PSA Flight 182 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Wikipedia, History.com   When I was stationed overseas, about this same time thirty years ago, we were blessed to take a trip from Okinawa to China.  While in China, we flew on regional Chinese airlines to several different locations in China.  We were just a couple of the…

B-29 History Twofer Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Wikipedia, History.com, warfarehistorynetwork.com     With this edition of “This day in aviation history” we’re bookending today with a two-events “twofer”, one historical event that occurred yesterday and one history-making event that will occur this weekend.  Happy History! In a nod to the success and valiant achievements of…

Sharing the glory of winning the space race Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com   Life’s events often provide indelible memories.  The recent anniversary of 9-11 is one for those of us older than 6 or 7 in 2001. For me, a child of the early 50’s, President Kennedy’s election and assassination are others.  I remember…

Battle of Britai Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Getty Images, Wikipedia, Time&Life   Time has a way of erasing bad memories.  The old adage, “time cures all ills” tells that story.  Imagine yourself in England in September of 1940, 15 months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor thrusting America into WWII, Europe being crushed under the…

Space Twofer Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica   Now that we’re past Labor Day and the unofficial end of summer, we’re all looking forward to lower temperatures and being bombarded by pumpkin spice fragrances this, and pumpkin spice flavors that… …well, maybe not the pumpkin spice.  I personally have never had pumpkin spice…

MH Flight 370 – Will we ever locate it? Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Jess Thomson, Newsweek, iStock, Getty Images, AFP – This article is a re-print   Hello fellow Moore County airport enthusiasts.  Isn’t it amazing how technology can help us in so many ways, including a report from Newsweek’s Tech & Science as reported…

Viking 1 and 2 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com   1975. Can we really remember that far back? I was 22 years old. How about you? Well, we should try because on August 20, 1975, Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a mission to Mars. From History.com:…

Duane Hackney Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Wikipedia   There really are super heroes, it turns out, and not the Marvel or DC Comics or video game “fake news” versions of them.  They come in the form of skin and bones, flesh and blood human beings who accomplish extraordinary acts by mere force of human…

Aviation History: September 6, 1522 Contributor: Barry Fetzer   The ease at which we board a cruise ship or a jet airliner today and sail the “Seven seas” or circumnavigate the globe by air, well, they mask the great risk and difficulties of those early explorers who led us to these benefits…these gifts…these blessings…of the…

September 1, 1983 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and Wikipedia I opined several issues ago that perhaps the worst kind of mishap is one in which a nation’s military makes a series of mistakes and downs a civilian passenger aircraft.  America, unfortunately, is not blameless in these kinds of tragic mistakes. On this day in…

Balloons! Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: The New York Times Archives Balloons!  Discounting the recent Chinese Spy balloon debacle, balloons (perhaps the simplest of aerial phenomena),  are fun!  But we’re not talking party balloons, get-well balloons, or chintzy (but certainly daring…or was it intoxicated?)  lawn chair balloon flights, one of the first one of these “intoxicating”…

JAL Flight 123 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Wikipedia Suffering a mishap that takes control away from pilots is perhaps the most frightening of mishaps.  No one of us humans like to lose control of anything (although the old adage that “Man plans and God laughs” applies here), but when a pilot and copilot can…

Nagasaki, August 9, 1945 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, New Yorker Magazine, This Day in Aviation, National Archives The recently released movie Oppenheimer highlights the history of the development of the atom bomb and the drive to beat the Germans at developing a nuclear bomb, the moral dilemmas and political affiliations that tore at some…

The Atomic Age Begins Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com View of “The Bomb” over Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 Debate rages even 78-years later and will continue to rage for decades, even centuries, (if we don’t first blow ourselves back to the Stone Age) about whether Americans should have used its terrible weapon against Japan during…

Operation Tidal Wave Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and NBC Universal, Inc. While I’m quite certain there were many individual cases of what we once called “shell shock” (now PTSD) amongst the aircrewmen (with 10 in each aircraft’s crew, a total of some-1770 men in the aircraft and countless numbers of men in the support…

End of July Twofer Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and Wikipedia As we transition to the month of August from July, what is it about July?  Perhaps we should be glad today is the last day of the month given the tragic aviation history of this month. Today we have a Sunday evening “twofer” for…

Crossing the Pond Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Oleg Makarenko, Simplyflying.com, and History Press It’s hard to imagine a world without commercial jet aircraft. But, like everything, there was a first and, in this case, it was not in America, arguably the world’s most prolific aviation innovator. It was our friends in Great Britain who were…

Wiley Post Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and Wikipedia Hello again fellow lovers of aviation history. This historical vignette reminds me of the story of “Lucky”, the mangey, stray, three-legged, castrated, one-eyed, “Heinz-57” (mixed breed) dog that despite his adversities somehow was still making it in the canine world…somehow had found a way to survive…

Apollo and Viking Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and Wikipedia Good morning.  Today we have an outer space “twofer” to celebrate our aviation heritage:  Apollo and Viking.  “The most Greek of the gods”, according to Wikipedia, “Apollo was the god of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light,…

A Busy Aviation History Day Contributor: Barry Fetzer Source: History.com Happy mid-July.  The autumn solstice is only two months and six days away (September 23, 2023).  The eternal and unstoppable passage of the seasons…and time…continues to “fly” unabated.  Yes, it’s hot but we’ll be commenting on the cold weather before we know it. Today’s aviation…

Presidential Helicopter Squadron Author: Barry Fetzer Can you imagine the “dog fight” that would occur today if the military services were competing for the honor of being the “Presidential Helicopter Squadron”?  In many ways, life was simpler back in 1957 and in the early 1970’s, when the Marines, who had been pioneering use of helicopters…

Amelia Disappears Author: Barry Fetzer Like many girls of her “vintage” (she was born in July, 1928), my mom’s heroine when she was a young girl was Amelia Earhart.  Mom is dead, now, but scrap books of hers cobbled together as a kid and retained as an adult are replete with newspaper clippings of Earhart’s…

Atlantis and Mir Author: Barry Fetzer It’s probably just me (although I’d feel better if I knew others are as nuts as I am), but why is it I like round numbers so much?  It may be my “manageable OCD” (manageable, depending on the eye of the beholder I suppose), enhanced, a bit, by my…

The Berlin Airlift Author: Barry Fetzer Actions by the Soviet Union today in 1948 became the impetus for one of the largest, aviation-centric logistical efforts ever undertaken: the Berlin Airlift.  Only two days after the Soviets closed all surface access to west Berlin, in what turned out to be a vain attempt to gain concessions…

Firsts in Flight Author: Barry Fetzer It’s easy to forget how many “firsts” the Soviet Space Program had.  They “beat the pants” (and the skirts) off of us until all their firsts were pretty much forever buried by America’s first steps on the moon by Neil Armstrong, who coasted along to become the “toast of…

James Elms Swett Author: Barry Fetzer “Time,” it is said, “cures all ills.”  Time, also, unless we take care to ensure it doesn’t, erases history.  New history is created over time, burying the older history.  Generations come and go and the experiences—the history—that meant so much to past generations, means increasingly less to succeeding generations. …

Memphis Bell Author: Bryan R. Swopes Submitted by: Barry Fetzer Completing twenty-five combat missions. Most of us wouldn’t bet on those odds. But we might bet on the odds at the casinos. According to Casinofreak.com, “The average payout percentage for slot machines in Las Vegas is around 85 cents per dollar earned.” Flying B-17’s in…

5–6 June 1944 (D-Day -1) Author: Bryan R. Swopes Submitted by: Barry Fetzer Will we ever see it again, almost 1500 aircraft stretching for over 300 miles delivering troops to battle?  It must have been a sight to behold…or at least to hear since it occurred on the evening of D-Day minus 1.  Can you…

Southern Cross Author: Bryan R. Swopes Submitted by: Barry Fetzer Where has May gone? It has “flown away” with June dawning its first day. And then before we know it, June will be gone. Try to enjoy the moments, for they rapidly fly away. Can you imagine making a flight across the vastness of the…

Aviation History Author: Barry R. Fetzer Today’s historical aviation vignette comes from my memories of tracking an arc (verses a straight line) to a Non-Directional Beacon, one of the best methods (we found, at least, flying multi-mission CH-46 helicopters in the Marines) to get to where we were intending to go. Of course, this low-tech…