Model Airplanes

Twenty-five years ago, while working as a pastor in California, Todd Hammond decided to make a model of the center of Pearl Harbor.

He was a history buff, especially when it came to maritime and naval history, and Pearl Harbor was particularly fascinating to him.

The model wasn’t very big, about the size of a card table, with tiny ships that were meticulously constructed to be accurate to the actual ships you would find at the naval base.

When you start a hobby like that and stick with it, though, things grow.

Little by little, Hammond added to the model. Instead of having a model that showed only Ford Island and Battleship Row, he added the dry docks to the east, residential developments to the northwest, officers’ housing to the north, military and civilian housing to the northeast, barracks, and oil tank farms.

Eventually, all the pieces came together in the basement of Hammond’s home in Dayton. That’s when Hammond invited a well-known Pearl Harbor survivor, Frank Ruby, to see his creation. Once he saw it, a regular flow of veterans would come to Hammond’s house to view it.

Then Hammond, now pastor at Agape Church of the Brethren on Lima Road, came to Fort Wayne. He had to disassemble the model and store it in his basement here.

But Ruby didn’t forget it. He recognized that the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor was approaching and came up with the idea of putting the model on display at the National Museum of the U.S.

Article source: http://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/frank-gray/Model-builder-makes-military-history-16137461

AVONDALE, LA (WVUE) –

On weekends, their aircraft are soaring above a private airstrip on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish. They push their flying machines through stunts and races, in a hobby that many of the pilots have had since they were kids. 

Kelly Field is a miniature airport that is tucked away at the end of a long gravel road, on the edge of a swamp behind the Town of Avondale. It’s a place where weekend pilots can launch their pint-sized aircraft, and remotely pilot them high above the landscape, or tryout stunts you would never do in a real aircraft, especially a helicopter.

“The helicopter can do anything an airplane can do, anything an airplane can do, upside down and backwards,” said RC pilot Wayne Armstrong.

The idea is to push the limits of a miniature flight, without crashing. That can drive up the cost of this hobby. The New Orleans Model Aviation Club has been flying in Avondale for the past 40 years. The club’s 65 members are able to keep all of this going with membership dues and donations. 

“We don’t want to fly near any houses, we want to watch our altitude, we want to ensure that the people that are flying with us are capable,” said David Bertrand of NOMAC. 

For some pilots, like Scott Heath, part of the thrill is shooting aerial video. A camera on his plane gives him a birds-eye view of the

Article source: http://www.ksla.com/story/33653338/heart-of-louisiana-new-orleans-model-aviation-club

BILLINGS –

A former NASA astronaut was recently in Montana to chat with  science students who are building a glider.

Col. Frank Borman — who flew on Apollo and Gemini missions in the 1960’s — gave a little wisdom about flying and life — and also talked about the mission of NASA.

“The Apollo program was really a battle of the Cold War,” Borman said. “And the objective was to beat the Russians to the moon. The fallout was scientific knowledge but that wasn’t the driving force.  It was a wonderful experience to be part of that team because everybody from the janitors to the heads were so dedicated to winning that war.”

Borman met with a group of science students working with Will James Middle School teacher Patrick Kenny.

“It’s important for young people to at least have some idea of successful people of my generation,” Borman said. “It was integrity, knowledge, mission, ability to delegate and moral courage.  The people that ran NASA exhibited those in spades.”

Borman was aboard Gemini 7 in a space orbital rendezvous with Gemini 6 that happened in 1965.

“It was two weeks with two people, Jim Lovell and me, in a volume smaller than the front seat of a Volkswagen bug,” Borman said about Gemini 7.  That was a demanding mission.”

Borman also flew the first manned lunar orbital mission, Apollo 8, in 1968.

He said NASA told the crew that on Christmas Eve, it would have the largest

Article source: http://www.kpax.com/story/33647382/former-nasa-astronaut-inspires-montana-science-students

On July 14, 1952, anti-aircraft fire shot down the F-84 Thunderbird being flown by Richard Voss, an Air Force pilot during the Korean conflict.

The canopy of his plane flew off and his helmet blew away. His seat came loose and shot forward, breaking his leg. He unbuckled himself, ejected and parachuted down away from the burning plane.

At that point, he later recalled, he must have blacked out. Three days later, he was taken prisoner by the Chinese. He was forced to walk on his broken leg to a place dubbed by prisoners as “Pak’s Palace,” which was actually a simple dugout with a thatched roof. He did not know exactly where he was.

Fellow pilots reported seeing Voss’s plane burst into flames; no one saw the pilot eject. The Air Force therefore concluded that he had been killed. His family mourned his death; an obituary appeared in the newspaper in Osborne, Kansas, where Voss lived. His family was presented with a posthumous Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.

Voss was kept in solitary confinement for seven months. He was interrogated daily and, though not directly tortured, was not treated for his injuries (including burns from the fire) except for maggots, which crawled all over his body, and was fed a very meager diet of cabbage, rice and an occasional fish head, along with a daily bowl of water. He was moved, once to a merchant’s home,

Article source: http://www.coloradoan.com/story/life/2016/11/07/fleming-pilots-story-survival/93267104/