American Aviation Historical Society

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The AAHS has a collection of vintage, large-scale, aircraft models available for sale. The collection includes over 80 models, several pedal cars and an assortment of modeling supplies.

Interested parties, please inquire for more information.

A digital catalog is available.

Tyson Smith, President
Email: membership@aahs-online.org
Phone: 951-777-1332
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Models for Sale

The Albree Pigeon Fraser: The First American Pursuit

Most people who know about American aviation during the WWI are aware that the U.S. Army Air Service had to rely on its foreign allies for combat aircraft to fight the Germans Jagdgstaffels over the Western Front. This did not stop American manufacturers from attempting to fulfill the U.S. military’s need for combat-capable aircraft. Yet the first monoplane design to win a U.S. military contract for a fighter was fated to become an oddity barely remembered by a few aviation historians. This is the story of the Albree Pigeon-Fraser.

The man who would design the first American pursuit plane was George Norman Albree. Born in Boston on February 3, 1888, Albree would graduate from Dartmouth College in 1912 after attending courses at Amherst College the year prior. Even during his student days, however, Albree was fascinated with the new innovation of airplanes, and he began to build his own designs. The young engineer would soon find a like-minded partner in schoolmate Roscoe Peregrine Timson and draftsman Robert Mansfield. Together they would design and build a few interesting one-off designs after testing their theories on scale gliders. Albree’s designs were more advanced than contemporary aircraft in that they used ailerons instead of wing warping. The signature feature of his designs was gull-winged airplane having a tail section with fixed vertical and horizontal stabilizers that were hinged to the rear fuselage that could be adjusted up and down by the pilot to maintain stability. This could be considered a precursor to the design concept of the "flying tail," a forerunner to the modern-day stabilator.

The first of these was the Albree-Timson Model U "Harrowplane", a single-engine floatplane designed by Albree and Timson during the winter of 1913-14. It was built in a rented workshop on 53 Puritan Road in Swampscott, Mass., and shipped to nearby Marblehead Harbor for flight testing. Marblehead was also where naval architect William Starling Burgess was also developing a series of airplanes. With a 45-foot wingspan and powered by a Curtiss OX-5 90-hp V-8 engine, two attempts were made to take off from the harbor’s waters by Albree himself and Clifford L. Webster, a test pilot from William Burgess’ aircraft company. The aircraft failed to leave the water’s surface. On June 11, 1914, with Albree again at the controls, another attempt to takeoff for a test flight was made. Although the craft hopped into the air, it made a hard landing in the water, forcing it to be towed back to shore. It was scrapped in favor of a new design.

The new design came in the form of the Model G Scout, which was first flown by Webster on July 15, 1915, at Nahant Beach, just south of the Swampscott garage. Later Albree and Timson would take the Model G for subsequent flights up to September 1915, but the aircraft’s powerplant, a Hendee 7-cylinder rotary engine built in Springfield, Mass., was underperforming. The engine that was rated for an output of 50 hp was in fact only producing 35 hp, making the aircraft severely underpowered. In October of that year, the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps expressed interest in having the Model G evaluated at Mineola, New York. Though Albree and Timson were eager to receive a contract, the Model G was irreparably damaged while in transit during a railway accident. Only a few parts could be salvaged for further use. At this point, Timson had decided to pursue aviation on his own, and sold the patent rights he had to Albree, who would come into the fold of the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company of East Boston.

Originally founded in 1830, the Pigeon Hollow Spar Company had extensive experience in woodworking, from masts and beams for ships, theatrical stage sets, powerboat hulls, auto bodies, wing spars for airplanes. It would later build gondolas and rudders for the U.S. Navy’s line of B-class blimps used for maritime patrol missions in WWI, and would even build tail struts for the Curtiss NC flying boats. With the company managed by Fred and Roy Pigeon, Albree now had a dedicated factory workshop in which to realize his plans for his new airplanes. Albree drew up plans for three tractor-configuration observation monoplanes (the Model N-9, the . . .

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Albree Pigeon Fraser

TThe Strange Case of the Burning Junkers

It has always been a mystery why one of the great aircraft of history, the Junkers F13, turned out to be an utter disaster in the United States – and only here. So much so that it is hardly remembered at all – even though, for exactly two years, it was a major embarrassment for many prominent people.

The true story of the debacle is shocking, almost unbelievable, and uncovering it has required a lot of digging. Important parts of the evidence come from Germany and Denmark, and the grand finale played out in the courts of the state of New York. In this limited space, however, your author must restrain himself to the story of how 23 German – technically, enemy – aircraft arrived in America in 1920 and promised to revolutionize aviation here, only to cause tragedy and end in a notorious crime.

Let us first introduce the F13, celebrated in Europe as “the first modern airplane,” but for at least a century “damnatio memoriae” in the United States.

Herr Junkers defies Convention

During and after the Great War, Professor, Dr. Hugo Junkers had a big factory in Dessau, about 50 miles southwest of Berlin. Dessau was then the small but glorious capital of the Freistaat Anhalt and is now in Sachsen-Anhalt. Both the town and the sprawling Junkerswerke west of it were bombed flat during the war. There is a new museum there now, replacing the famous Junkers exhibit Colonel Lindbergh visited in 1938. Lindbergh, now with the U.S. Army, returned to the rubble in June 1945, just ahead of the Soviets, and seized the priceless technical library Hugo Junkers had spent a lifetime assembling. It has never been found again.[1]

Born a Rhinelander in 1859, Professor Junkers was a visionary genius whose academic specialty was thermodynamics, but he was also a practical man. He made his name inventing and producing heating equipment - primarily, badeofens, or water heaters. His interest in aviation came late in life, after the first flights in Europe. He shared it with his colleague Professor Hans Reissner, and their first flyable metal plane was the Reissner Ente, a canard, in 1912. Both focused on building airframes of thin, corrugated iron, called wellblech in German. After all, Junkers’s heater factory was familiar with it.

When the Great War erupted, his efforts were funded by the Reich government. The theoretician Reissner left, and with the help of young chief engineer Otto Reuter, Junkers continued his research despite pervasive skepticism among aeronautical experts. The antipathy concerned Junkers’s singular devotion to two then disreputable ideas: the internally braced "fat wing" monoplane, and all-metal construction.

The experts weren’t wrong. Junkers’s first iron airplane (J1) could fly, but not very well. It was not light enough for adequate performance with the heavy, low-powered engines available. On the other hand, Hugo’s persistence and resourcefulness were equal to the challenge. He heard of a new lightweight alloy, called duralumin, invented by Alfred Wilms in 1906. This was strong enough to keep its shape under stress, and, with corrugation it was quite resistant to lengthwise bending loads. "Dural" is about 4% copper and 0.5% manganese. While the formula got tinkered with later, it would eventually take over aircraft construction almost completely. The Type J4 aluminum sesquiplane (227 built) was successful, and the Allies examined it with immense curiosity when they managed to capture a crash-landed example.

At that time, "normal" sticks-wires-and-linen aircraft had a lifespan of about two years - if hangared. Metal planes could resist the weather. To be sure, dural corrodes easily, and Junkers countered this with paint and varnish; later, a thin layer of “alclad” (pure aluminum) sufficed. From the start, Junkers also pointed out that metal planes were "unverbrennbar," e.g. unburnable – a claim that would cause much future derision. Fire was the greatest terror of all pilots, especially before parachutes were common.

With the two-seat all-metal monoplane J10, Junkers hit his stride. But by then the German war effort was collapsing, and Hugo, of basically pacifist temperament, quickly converted . . .

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Junkers Larsen JL-6

Coast-to-Coast and Back Again in a JL-6

A remarkable event in the history of aviation took place in the summer of 1920. One expedition notched two records: the first coast-to-coast U.S. airmail delivery and the first round-trip transcontinental passenger flight. To do this, three airplanes left New York City, following a great circle path to San Francisco.

The U.S. Post Office wanted to establish coast-to-coast airmail delivery, and in the course of planning, they needed to fly the route end-to-end with an eye to making sure that it was ready to handle the kind of traffic that regular airmail would bring. As long as they were flying a Post Office engineer from New York to San Francisco, they would include a bag of mail. The engineer’s name was Maj. Leon B. Lent.

The Post Office route selected followed the Woodrow Wilson Airway. For the airplanes of the time, this was a very difficult route, and it was selected specifically because it would be difficult. The selection of the route was done in cooperation with the Army Air Service.

In the aftermath of WWI, the Army was making plans for how to defend the United States if the country were invaded. There were many practical problems to be solved if the military were going to use airplanes, but it was immediately realized that the Army’s problems were the same as the problems the Post Office would be facing as it extended airmail service across the nation. The Post Office could solve those problems during peace time, so that the Army did not have to face them while fighting a war.

The airplane the Post Office selected for this flight was arguably the most technologically advanced of its time. It was a monoplane made entirely of metal, and it had already set many records in Europe. The Army purchased a few and was eager to try them out. Therefore, the Army decided to join the Post Office expedition.

The third airplane joining the expedition would carry the U.S. distributor for the aircraft, as well as a couple of other passengers. The distributor’s name was John M. Larsen. The passengers were E.E. Allyne, owner of one of the leading aluminum suppliers in the U.S., and America’s top WWI ace, Eddie Rickenbacker.

The plane used by the Post Office was actually Larsen’s property, so after dropping off the mail, it would be flown, along with the plane carrying the passengers, to Los Angeles. It would be dropped off with Cecil B. DeMille, who wanted to use it to establish a commercial air service. The other would be flown back to Long Island, New York.

The Army plane would be dropped off in San Francisco for use by the Forest Service. The pilot of this plane was Capt. Harold Evans Hartney. During WWI, Hartney commanded the U.S. 1st Pursuit Group, so had been Rickenbacker’s commanding officer. Like Rickenbacker, Hartney was an American ace. Rickenbacker described Hartney as the "best pilot" flying in this expedition to the coast.[1]

At the time of this event, Captain Hartney was Chief of the Air Service School of the U.S. Army. Also a trained attorney, after leaving the Army in 1921, Hartney worked as a technical advisor and consulting aeronautical counsel to numerous aviation companies.

Both Lent and Allyne kept diaries during the expedition. Allyne self-published his in 1921 while Lent’s report disappeared in the Federal archives. I have prepared an annotated reprint of Allyne’s publication, and included Lent’s record. The article that follows is based on commentary related to those sources.[2]

There is a lot of misinformation about this event, but nothing about it is more controversial than the selection of the airplanes flown.

In the course of establishing coast-to-coast airmail, one of the decisions the Post Office had to make was what airplanes they would use. By late summer 1920, the airplane of choice was a state-of-the-art machine made entirely of aluminum. It was manufactured in Germany by Junkers and imported by an American industrialist named John M. Larsen.

It was what was labeled the "JL-6" in the United States but was actually a slightly modified Junkers F-13. Modifications included such things as improved safety glass, and better shock absorbers. There were also some modifications to the fuel system . . .

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Loading the mail for 1st Coast-to-Coast flight

Roosevelt Field: Once the World’s Premier Airport

Mention the name "Roosevelt Field" to a Long Islander and he will most likely conjure up images of sales in Macys department store, the set of golf clubs he has been eying in Dick s Sporting Goods, and lunch in the food court. But a plaque entitled "Historic New York Roosevelt Field" indicates that there was once another "Roosevelt Field" here, stating, in part, that "the level, treeless Hempstead Plains - a unique Long Island attraction since colonial days - was ideally suited for flying fields. Glenn Curtiss made the first flight here in 1909 in his ’Gold Bug,’ which resembled an enlarged box kite."

It begs the question, amid the scramble of shoppers oblivious to this historical fact: Where did this first "field" go? But more importantly, perhaps, is how did it even get started?

Airfield Origins

Like trees that ultimately spring from flat fields, the airport itself rose from one that was originally called the "Hampstead Plains." "The central area of Nassau County, known as the Hempstead Plains, (was) the only natural prairie east of the Allegheny Mountains," according to Joshua Stoff in Historic Aircraft and Spacecraft of the Cradle of Aviation Museum (Dover Publications, 2001, p. viii). "Treeless and flat, with only the tall grasses and scattered farmhouse, this area proved to be an ideal flying field and was the scene of intense aviation activity for over 50 years."

Like a blank canvas - to use another analogy - whose ultimate depiction begins in the artist’s mind, the expanse’s first brush stroke was applied by "artist" Glenn Curtiss. While the Wright Brothers may have gotten it right, Curtiss made it better, as would soon be proven by a group of young aviation enthusiasts who organized the New York Aeronautical Society and often witnessed the failed aeronautical attempts of other early inventors.

Spurred, ironically, by these failures, they sought success by turning to Curtiss, whose own initial designs had already proven themselves and requested that he build an airplane for their use in 1909, paying for it with pooled funds. The transaction constituted the first such commercial aircraft sale in the U.S.

Named "Gold Bug," it was delivered to the society’s Morris Park airfield in the Bronx, which was little more than a deserted racetrack, prompting Curtiss to assume the secondary, but unofficial role as aeronautical advisor. His advice? Scout Long Island, with its wide-open expanses, for a more suitable location for aeronautical activities - catalyst, perhaps to his first "brush stroke."

Elmo Pickerill, one of the society’s members, recalls this scouting process.

"I was quite familiar with the terrain here on Long Island," he said as documented by Barbara Joyce Stubbe in The Story of Roosevelt Field: Forty Years of Flight, 1911-1951 (The Nassau County Historical Society Journal, pp 1-2). "This knowledge resulted in Mr. Curtiss asking me to accompany him to Long Island in search of a more suitable flying field. We drove from New York to Mineola in his Winton car. Upon arrival at Old Country Road and Washington Avenue, I pointed out the wide-open field known as Hempstead Plains. Mr. Curtiss stood up in the car for a few minutes, looking the field over. Finally, he said, ’This is it!’"

The first brush stroke was thus applied.

Although this rudimentary method hardly equaled today’s sophisticated airport site selection and analysis criteria, it led to the birth of the Mineola Flying Field. Unofficially so designated because of the Long Island Railroad’s access to it through the station of the same name, it sprouted its initial wings when Dr. Henry Walden, a society member, took off in the first American monoplane, the Walden IX, from it on August 3, 1910.

"Dawn tinged the sky over the Hempstead Plains as dentist Henry Walden, cigar clamped between his teeth, climbed into his homemade airplane and opened the throttle," according to Laura Muha in her article, "Fliers Take Wing." "The engine . . .

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Roosevelt Field during WWII

The Thomas Brothers;
Pioneer Aeronautical Engineers and Plane Builders

The Thomas brothers pioneer aviation biographies should be recorded jointly because their early aviation engineering and plane building accomplishments were made as a team.

After receiving elementary schooling in Argentina, William Thomas attended Dulwich Preparatory School at Dulwich College in Great Britain from 1900 to 1904, then the Central Technical College, London, where he graduated in Civil and Mechanical engineering in 1908. During this period, he also served an apprenticeship with the British Westinghouse Company at Trafford, England.

While in college and serving his apprenticeship William became very interested in aeronautics, endeavoring to learn all he could about the new science, and was one of the founder members of the Aero Club of Great Britain and Ireland early in 1908. In June of that year he came to the United States to work for the Herring­Curtiss Company, Hammondsport, New York, where he did drafting and designing of motorcycle and aircraft engines for Glenn Curtiss and Capt. Thomas Baldwin through 1909. There he also witnessed the aircraft program of the Aerial Experiment Association.

Oliver Thomas, also a British engineering graduate, had come to the United States before William, as an engineer in the test laboratory of General Electric at Schenectady, New York. In late 1909 William "got the bug" to build an aeroplane at Hammondsport. Working in a barn he started the construction of a biplane of his own design, embodying many new and unique ideas. With the help of two local mechanics, Bert Chambers and Gene Bell, and a few hand tools, this was a slow labor of several months. This first machine had a wing span of 27 feet, with front elevator and a rear stabilizer and rudder. A unique aileron arrangement was mounted between the front and rear outer struts, with a wide landing gear with long skids and four wheels mounted on leaf springs. The propeller was driven by a 22-hp Kirkham automobile engine through chain and sprockets having a 1.5 to 1 ratio. The total weight was 600 pounds.

After the plane was completed William moved his operations to Hornell, New York, in the spring of 1910 and started ground tests and flying experiments on the Page Farm near North Hornell. Following the usual taxiing practice, he made his first brief straightaway solo hop on June 28, 1910. During this period he found that the engine did not have enough power for extended sustained flight until changes were made to increase the output. In August a former friend and Curtiss employee, Walter E. Johnson, joined William and began assisting in this work. Johnson was eager to learn to fly and also began taxiing practice. With gradual engine changes to increase power his first solo flight was made at Hornell on September 7, 1910, and included a circle. Evidently after this William turned the major part of the flying over to Johnson, however he continued to fly when he personally wanted to conduct certain tests himself.

In October an invitation was accepted to make exhibition flights during a fair at Stow Park, Binghamton, New York. This was the first public exhibition of their machine and Johnson made brief flights on October 10 and 11, which were terminated when he struck the top of one of the tents on takeoff, but he was not injured.

Shortly after this engagement all operations were moved from Hornell to Bath, New York, where their Kirkham engine was made. Johnson then made exhibition flights at the Broome County Fair, Rochester, New York. Testing and development work continued at Bath through the late fall months of 1910 and the front elevator was removed. In December Johnson began flying from the ice on nearby Lake Salubria with runners on . . .

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Thomas-Morse Model S-4 "Tommy"

A History of Randolph Air Force Base

In April 1960, my father drove my mother, brother, grandparents, and me from North Texas to San Antonio for a visit. On the outskirts of San Antonio, which was farmland in 1960, we took a detour to Randolph AFB. I didn’t know what to expect, but as we crossed the railroad tracks and entered through the main gate, there in the distance was a building like I had never seen before on an Air Force base. The building, nicknamed "The Taj Majal," was tall, white, and served as the headquarters building for the base. Having grown up near air bases that were built virtually overnight during World War II, I had never been on a base with permanent buildings. I immediately fell in love with Randolph. Later, when in the Air Force, I was assigned there twice, 1970-1973 and 1977-1981. I retired in 1991 and returned to Universal City, which was right across the railroad tracks from Randolph. I continued my love affair with Randolph and this article is the culmination of this infatuation.

On a flat tract of former farmland about 17 miles northeast of downtown San Antonio, Tex., the Army Corps of Engineers, in its biggest project since the Panama Canal, built in fewer than three years a permanent airfield that resembled a Spanish village. That project was originally named Randolph Field, until 1948, when it became Randolph Air Force Base. By the mid-1930s, Randolph Field’s fame had spread and it was known as "The West Point of the Air" for the Army Air Corps. Today, because of its architectural beauty, Joint Base San Antonio - Randolph is “The Showplace of the Air Force.”

Genesis

Randolph’s roots were planted in controversy. After the loss of the Navy’s rigid dirigible USS Shenandoah in 1925, outspoken Air Service Colonel William "Billy" Mitchell accused Army and Navy leadership of "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." Mitchell was already a thorn in the side of President Calvin Coolidge, so he ordered the colonel to be court-martialed. Mitchell used the trial as a sounding board for championing military aviation and criticizing military leadership. He was convicted and sentenced to suspension for five years without pay, which Coolidge later adjusted to half-pay. Mitchell resigned instead.[1]

So much public criticism arose over the state of military aviation during this period that Coolidge appointed a board to look at the issue and make recommendations. Called the Morrow Board because of Dwight D. Morrow’s chairmanship, the panel made recommendations that led to the U.S. Army Air Corps Act of 1926. One of the results of that act was that the Air Service became the Army Air Corps on July 2, 1926. A major part of the act, however, was the authorization for the Air Corps to begin a five-year expansion program, commencing July 1, 1927. The goal was for the Air Corps to reach 1,800 airplanes, 1,650 officers, and 15,000 enlisted men by mid-1932.[2]

Simultaneously, the Army Housing Program, also enacted in 1926, funded permanent housing at Army posts, upgrading temporary, dilapidated buildings that were a national disgrace. Together with money appropriated for the Air Corps Act, permanent bases with permanent buildings and infrastructure were established across the country. In the five-year plan were the development of two new airfields, one to house a new attack wing (later Barksdale Field, Louisiana) and a new field for flying training (later Randolph Field, Texas).[3]

At the time of the Air Corps Act, most of the Army’s flying training was conducted at Brooks and Kelly Fields on the southeast and west sides, respectively, of San Antonio. Brooks conducted primary and basic flying training, and Kelly . . .

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Randolp Field HQ in 1930s

News & Comments

Spring 2025, Vol. 70, No. 1 - The PBY’s of the Kendall Family

[While we strive for accuracy in our publications, to a large degree we rely on the authors to have thoroughly research their topics. Even then, we all sometimes get it wrong. The AAHS has always published corrections and updates to articles when new information (or corrections) come to light. Therefore, we appreciate the time and effort taken when someone brings this information to our attention. The following is a response from David Legg, of the Catalina Society and editor of the "Catalina News". We are grateful that he has taken the time to point to errors and provide update information for this story.]

I have just had the opportunity of seeing Jerri Bergen’s article The PBY’s of the Kendall Family in the Spring 2025 edition of the AAHS Journal. There was some very good background information in the article that went beyond the "nuts and bolts" data. In particular, I appreciated the very interesting coverage of the background to the Kendall family and the use of PBY-5A N5590V in the Pacific during the 1960s.

I do have some observations but also, as I am named as a source, some corrections where I have been mis-quoted in several instances, in particular in the Kendall PBYs table.

• Page 3, left hand column - the author quotes Roscoe Creed as stating that the PBY-5A was produced in the largest numbers ("well over 1,000") and stating the source as Creed’s book on page 44. I cannot find that Creed says that - certainly not on that page. The total production of the PBY-5A was actually 803. If other amphibians are included - the PBY-6A and license production of Canso As and OA-10As - then the total does exceed 1,000
• Page 7, right hand column - Croyden should read Croydon
• Page 8 top left photo caption and page 12 right hand photo caption - registration suffix ’V’ missing
• Page 12, right hand column - the Line Islands Experiment section quotes The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). That may well be the case but the registered owner of N5590V at the time was the International Center for Environmental Research Inc (per FAA Registration file for N5590V). [Editor’s note: There is no mention of the registered owner at the time. Mearly that Bob Kendall’s research company, Landaire, Ltd, was approved and Kendall provided the PBY-5A]
• Page 15 right hand column - contemporary reports suggest the date that N5590V was towed through the streets to the San Diego museum was August 6, 1988, not September 3.
• Page 15 and 16 - notes 31 and 32 do not appear in the list of Endnotes on page 16. (Inadvertently clipped in layout)
• 31 – San Diego Air and Space Museum.
• 32 – Kendall family conversation notes 2024.

Then to the Kendall PBYs table on page 18 where I am quoted as a main source (my 2002 book "Consolidated PBY Catalina&quo - the peacetime record"). I am misquoted in a number of instances.

• Re N5586V - year of sale to Steward-Davis was 1964, not 1966 (my book said circa1966 but is now known to have been July 21, 1964 (Bill of Sale).
• Re N5587V - date of sale to Steward-Davis of 1955 is a mis-quote from my book which reads circa 1966. The exact date is now known to have been July 21, 1964.
• Re N5585V - the quoted BuNo of 98101 is a mis-quote and should read BuNo 08101. This Catalina did not crash in 1975 at Turin as stated (again a mis-quote) but at Wikieup, Ariz., on February 6, 1975 as stated in my book.
• Re N5590V - the recipient was the San Diego Aerospace Museum as correctly shown in my book, not the San Diego Air and Space Museum although it is now known by the latter name of course.
• Re N5591V - this was the Catalina destroyed at Turin on Ma 21, 1989 as per my book, not N5588V
• Re N5593V - the BuNo has been mis-quoted and should read BuNo 48397, not BuNo 48367

  Regarding N5592V and N5595V, the disposal date to Steward-Davis is now known to have been July 21, 1964

David Legg
Editor: The Catalina News, The Catalina Society

. . .

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Langley Aerodrome

CEO’s Message

It has been an eventful few months here – assisting Flabob Airport in the celebration of their 100th anniversary (see FL 25-2 for more details), book sales at local air shows, meeting new volunteers at the Riverside Aviation Expo, and more recently planning on some additional space at AAHS (see Spring Journal CEO message).

Some of you may already have noted in our masthead that we have enlisted the assistance of Steve Johnston and Adam Estes, (both published authors who have contributed to the Journal) to support Hayden Hamilton. Adam is currently working through a Masters Degree in History, at Cal State Fullerton, and has assisted in collecting and researching article topics for the Journal. Steve Johnston, long time member of AAHS, and recently retired as an Airport Manager for many years, is assisting Hayden in the organization and quality review of Journal material. We greatly appreciate both these individuals, and how their efforts can help us stay on print schedule, and, give Hayden some much needed help.

Volunteers will become ever more important to AAHS as we juggle competing priorities and new unexpected demands, such as the movement of materials as our building gets needed repairs, and the cataloging of unexpected collections. We’ve made arrangements with other tenants here at Flabob to temporarily run AAHS business from another building, as our HQ is emptied, the roof repaired, and the structure reinforced to reverse years of ’foundation sink’ as the building has settled into the sandy river-bottom soil of the area. Do please be patient with us if you find your phone message or email hasn’t been answered as promptly as you expect. We’ll be complete with this renovation later this year, and will have a much more organized facility with which to manage the Society’s resources and commitments.

One such project that we’re actually looking forward to plan and implement is AAHS’ 70th Anniversary celebration! [See poster Inside Back Cover] It is humbling to realize that this small, dedicated organization has made aviation history available to the world for nearly three quarters of a century!

A small committee has been formed to outline possible event spaces, unique aviation excursions and notable speakers. We are currently shooting for our 70th Anniversary Annual Meeting to be held in mid October, in Southern California, to give members a chance to see the tremendous progress our volunteers and staff have made to make AAHS’ HQ a real aviation research facility, as well as the several historic venues that exist right here at the Flabob campus.

Some excursions that are well within a day trip for our weekend event include the new (still under construction) Flying Leatherneck Museum, in Tustin, a bus tour of the reservations-required Edwards AFB Flight Test Museum, and a private tour of the prototype Space Shuttle, housed locally in LA. These and several other venues are up for consideration. If you have any suggestions, please let us know!

Jerri Bergen AAHS CEO

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