Model Airplanes

Seventy years ago this week, Maine Township High School students gathered at a site that later became O’Hare International Airport to dedicate a warplane named in their honor.

After all, it seemed right that the C-54 Skymaster assembled at the Douglas Aircraft Co. factory be named “Maine Flyer” for the 1,600 students who sold $551,000 worth of war bonds in only two weeks.

That’s more than $7 million in today’s dollars.

“How did they sell that many war bonds at that time? You’ve got to realize, you couldn’t buy cars, you couldn’t buy refrigerators, you couldn’t spend your money. So they sold war bonds,” said Ralph Bishop, a 1945 graduate who participated in the drive.

The fundraising campaign was spurred by Maine Township’s first superintendent of schools, Frank Holmes, who challenged students to go door to door on behalf of the war effort.

Now, current Superintendent Ken Wallace is challenging students to come together in a similar way to recognize one of the signature events in the history of District 207, at the same time the Park Ridge and Des Plaines communities plan their own commemorations of the Maine Flyer.

“It’s a model of what’s possible when students work together,” Wallace said.

Students at Maine East — the name the original Maine Township High School goes by today — and Maine South have been working on a documentary about the Maine Flyer expected to be complete by next month. School district officials already have

Article source: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20150217/news/150219005/

First posted in PositivelyFilipino.com

World War II was quickly coming to an end. Manila was a jungle of wreckage. Office buildings, churches, homes, hotels, factories and docks lay in ruin. In other parts of the country, people poked through similar scenes of destruction, looking for food or belongings or the remains of family members killed by either the retreating Japanese or the bombardment of the advancing Americans.

“Our family survived by gathering wild cassavas, bananas, guavas, pineapple and jackfruit,” recalled Flory Bautista, then a teenager in war-torn Leyte. “There was never enough food, but we hardly thought about it because we were afraid. We just wanted to survive.”

A few months later, Bautista would leave behind that tragic chapter of Philippine history and sail for America as the “war bride” of a Filipino serviceman in Uncle Sam’s army. Her journey was part of a larger phenomenon—the beginning of the Second Wave of Filipino immigration to the United States.

The Second Wave of Filipino immigration was short in duration but profound in its impact on the size and composition of the Filipino community in America. The bulk of the wave came into the United States directly after the war, between 1946 and 1953, as Filipinos who served in the armed services were granted U.S. citizenship for their contribution to the war effort. Many of these servicemen had been living in the United States before the war as younger members of the First Wave of immigration.

Returning with their

Article source: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/118732/americas-filipina-war-brides/

Feb. 11–The general aviation industry, including Wichita’s Bombardier Learjet and Textron Aviation, delivered more business jets in 2014, according to a General Aviation Manufacturers Association’s report released Wednesday.

GAMA’s General Aviation Shipment Report said worldwide business jet deliveries increased 6.5 percent. For Wichita’s business jet makers, year-over-year deliveries rose by double-digit percentages.

Learjet delivered 34 jets in 2014, a 17 percent increase from 29 deliveries in 2013, the report said.

In the same period, Textron Aviation’s Cessna Aircraft Co. delivered 159 business jets, compared with 139 the year before, a 14 percent increase.

The gain in business jets largely comes from the light and midsize parts of the market, which is finally showing signs of recovery, GAMA president Pete Bunce said in an interview with The Eagle.

“That is a good bellwether for growth in that segment,” he said.

Piston-engine aircraft deliveries also were higher in 2014, increasing 9.6 percent worldwide.

Cessna delivered 155 piston aircraft last year, compared with 122 in 2013.

Textron Aviation’s other subsidiary, Beechcraft, delivered 72 piston airplanes, compared with 70 a year earlier.

The only category of fixed-wing aircraft deliveries that fell year-over-year was turboprops, which the GAMA report said was down 6.5 percent to 603 deliveries.

Cessna delivered 94 turboprops in 2014, compared with 105 in 2013. Beechcraft delivered 127 turboprops in 2014, compared with 135 the year before.

Bunce said the decline in turboprop deliveries was due in part to “some cooling off in the ag business” and an overseas turboprop airplane manufacturer that moved its operations last year, which temporarily affected its

Article source: http://www.aviationpros.com/news/11841327/report-business-jet-deliveries-see-65-percent-gain-in-2014