Model Airplanes

Enjoy the glamorous flying days of yore without leaving the ground. (Photo: Air Hollywood)

For Anthony Toth, the obsession started at age 5 when he walked down the ramp of New York’s JFK Airport. He was flying to Zurich with his parents when he first stepped onto a Pan Am airplane. And in that moment, his life changed. 

“The Pan Am brand just resonated with me, and I instantly became obsessed with aviation,” Toth says.

More than 40 years later, Toth re-created that moment for generations who weren’t around for Pan Am’s boom period — and for those nostalgic souls who were. At the Pan Am Experience at Air Hollywood in Los Angeles, guests can step back in time aboard a replica of the interior of a Pan Am Boeing 747 and experience a first-class dining experience from the glamorous, high-flying glory days of air travel.

Related: Travel Rant: It’s Time to Start Dressing Up For Flights Again

The Pan Am Experience gives you a chance to show kids a time when flying was actually a little glamorous (Photo: Air Hollywood)

“Younger generations have no recollection of what it was like to fly during the ’70s,” Toth says. He calls the Pan Am Experience “a way for you to get a feel for what it was like to fly back in that era.”

A lifelong love of air travel

The era of Pan American World Airways, or Pan Am,

Article source: https://www.yahoo.com/travel/the-pan-am-experience-reliving-the-glory-days-of-98169012557.html

TIRANA (AP):Pope Francis called yesterday for Muslims and all religious leaders to condemn Islamic extremists who “pervert” religion to justify violence, as he visited Albania and held up the Balkan nation as a model for interfaith harmony for the rest of the world.

“To kill in the name of God is a grave sacrilege. To discri-minate in the name of God is inhuman,” Francis told representatives of Albania’s Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic communities during a half-day visit to Tirana in which he recalled the brutal persecution people of all faiths suffered under communism.

Francis wept when he heard the testimony of one priest, the Reverend Ernest Troshani, 84, who for 28 years was imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to forced labour for refusing to speak out against the Catholic Church as his captors wanted.

“Today I touched the martyrs,” Francis said after embracing the man.

Security was unusually tight for the Pope’s first trip to a majority Muslim country since the Islamic State group began its crackdown on Christians in Iraq and announced its aim to extend its self-styled caliphate to Rome.

The trip was preceded by reports that militants who trained in Iraq and Syria had returned and might pose a threat.

The Vatican insisted it had no reports of specific threats against the Pope and that no special security measures were taken. But Francis’ interactions with the crowds were much reduced compared to his pre-vious foreign trips. His open-top vehicle sped down Tirana’s main boulevard, not stopping once for Francis to greet the faithful as

Article source: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20140922/int/int1.html

A Grumman F6F Hellcat, its dark- blue wings glistening in the sun, banks sharply to evade a pursuing Japanese Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero. The planes pull out of their steep descent and accelerate, the roar of their engines rattling the heavens.

Battles like this played out numerous times in the skies above the central Pacific in late November 1943 as the U.S. Navy launched its carrier-borne Hellcats into action against the Japanese. Only this particular dogfight happened not in 1943 but in June 2013 over Paine Field, a former U.S. Air Force base outside Seattle.

That’s where Paul Allen, the Microsoft multibillionaire, keeps his Flying Heritage Collection — more than 20 vintage World War II fighter planes, all in working condition — of which both the Hellcat and the Zero are a part.

Meanwhile, on the underside of the globe, visitors to Hood Aerodrome, near Masterton, New Zealand, could be forgiven for thinking they’ve been transported to northern France, circa 1918. There, the skies fill with British Sopwith Camels and brightly colored German Fokker Dr.I Dreideckers, for which enthralled spectators can thank another wealthy aviation enthusiast and amateur pilot: Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. The filmmaker, who has amassed more than 40 flyable World War I warbirds — the planet’s largest collection — is now neck and neck with Allen when it comes to claiming the Top Gun trophy for world’s foremost fighter collector.

The vintage-aircraft market was once divided between individual pilots, who might own the odd North American P-51 Mustang or

Article source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-dogfight22-20140922-story.html

A Grumman F6F Hellcat, its dark-blue wings glistening in the sun, banks sharply to evade a pursuing Japanese Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero. The planes pull out of their steep descent and accelerate, the roar of their engines rattling the heavens.

Battles like this played out numerous times in the skies above the central Pacific in late November 1943 as the US Navy launched its carrier-borne Hellcats into action against the Japanese. Only this particular dogfight happened not in 1943 but in June 2013 over Paine Field, a former US Air Force base outside Seattle.

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That’s where Paul Allen, the Microsoft multibillionaire, keeps his Flying Heritage Collection – more than 20 vintage World War II fighter planes, all in working condition – of which both the Hellcat and the Zero are a part.

Meanwhile, on the underside of the globe, visitors to Hood Aerodrome, near Masterton, New Zealand, could be forgiven for thinking they’ve been transported to northern France, circa 1918. There, the skies fill with British Sopwith Camels and brightly coloured German Fokker Dr.I Dreideckers, for which enthralled spectators can thank another wealthy aviation enthusiast and amateur pilot: Lord of the Rings director Sir

Article source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11329981