OX-5 AVIATION PIONEERS
GENERAL MEETING,
SLIDE SHOW & LUNCH
MEET
Kansas Aviation History
FIRST-HAND,
ALIVE &
IN-PERSON !
It’s time for the Fall get-together of the Kansas Chapter of the OX-5 Aviation Pioneers — popularly known in aviation circles as the “OX-5 Club,” the nation’s leading association of old-time civilian aviators — and their fellows and their fans.
FREE EVENT, OPEN to the PUBLIC:
OX-5 CLUB LUNCH MEETING
Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012, 11:30 AM, in Wichita:
The Kansas Chapter of the OX-5 Aviation Pioneers holds their autumn meeting over lunch, in northwest Wichita, at DeFazzio’s restaurant, on Amidon, just north of 21st Street and the Twin Lakes Shopping Center, on Saturday, Oct.13, starting at 11:30AM.
The public is invited to attend, and the only cost is to pay for your own food. This is a great chance to visit with genuine Kansas aviation “old timers,” and hang out with them.
A short business meeting is planned, followed a slide show by Chapter member Mike Audo on the world’s biggest airshow — the legendary, popular, antique-rich EAA AirVenture Fly-In, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin — which he attended this summer. Also, Bobbie & Harold Walter report on the OX-5 National Reunion, near St. Louis, which they attended recently.
The show wraps up before 3pm. You’re invited! Come join the fun!
For DETAILS:
Contact the OX-5 club Kansas President at (316) 733-2377
AMELIA EARHART ADDED TO KANSAS CAPITOL WALK OF HONOR
The most famous of all pioneer women aviators, and the world’s most famous woman of her time — Kansas-bred Amelia Earhart (shown on this 1963 commemorative U.S. postage stamp) —
Previously, the walk had only honored one other Kansan before. In a ceremony attended by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and Kansas Historical Society leaders, a plaque honoring Earhart — and plaques honoring two other famous Kansans — were added to the new state honor memorial, which had previously only honored one Kansan — former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, and 1996 Republican Presidential Nominee, Bob Dole.
Honored with Earhart were fellow Kansans Charles Curtiss, a former U.S. Senator and United States Vice President (under Herbert Hoover), and Jack Kilby, Nobel Laureate in Physics, who co-invented the electronic “microchip” — the beginning of today’s high-tech electronics and computers.
Earhart — raised mostly in Atchison, Kansas — rose to fame in the mid-1920s, when she became a pioneering woman pilot, known for her historic long-distance flights and daring ocean crossings.
The first woman — and only the second person (after Charles Lindbergh) — to fly solo across the Atlantic (in her “Little Red Bus” Lockheed Vega, at right) — Earhart, like Lindbergh, was revered throughout the world, as an icon of courage and a hero of high adventure.
Further, Earhart became the world’s most famous symbol of women’s potential — and a beacon of inspiration to an entire generation of women — proving women’s capabilities far beyond the domestic roles to which they were traditionally restricted in most of the world.
MORE… (with pictures, from Topeka Capital-Journal)
Amelia Earhart’s Story…
(Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum,
Atchinson, Ks.)
KANSAS AVIATION CENTENNIAL WEBSITE WILL CONTINUE
WICHITA, Sept, 2012- With the end of the Kansas Aviation Centennial year, there was some consideration as to what should become of the Kansas Aviation Centennial website.
The KAC Committee Chair / Webmaster had attempted to pattern the KAC website on the famous website of the U.S. Centennial of Flight (2002-2003). That national, federally-subsidized aviation history website ( http://centennialofflight.gov ) grew into a huge, detailed, popular reference work on U.S. aviation history. In the interest of preserving that historic national aviation history website for public education, it is now being preserved online — long after the end of that 2003 Centennial and its organization — by NASA.
(The official “home” page is suspended, but nearly all other pages can still be located through search engines like Google and Yahoo).
The KAC website (which you are now viewing) lacked the million-dollar budget of the U.S. Centennial site, but with much volunteer effort over several months, has grown to dozens of pages on Kansas aviation history and related events and news — including a fairly substantial collection of references on Kansas aviation history, branching out from the website’s RESOURCES page.
Throughout the Kansas Aviation Centennial Year (Sept.2011 to Sept.2012), Kansas Hosting, LLC — a major local web-hosting service in Wichita — had provided hosting of the KAC web site, free of charge, to the KAC Committee.
However, with the end of the Centennial Year, it was assumed that Kansas Hosting would no longer be interested in hosting the site, and the Chair and Webmaster did not wish to unduly burden their generous host further.
Other suitable parties — various aviation educational & history organizations, and museums, were approached by the Chair, in hopes of finding an appropriate new home for the KAC website and its trove of Kansas aviation history information.
Good news came just in time. The nation’s foremost association of aviation historians — the American Aviation Historical Society — offered, generously, to host the KAC pages on their website. AAHS webmaster and newsletter editor C. Hayden Hamilton explained they “don’t want to see the information lost.”
However, before the AAHS offer was known, KAC Chair Richard Harris met with the Kansas Commission on Aerospace Education (KCAE) at their annual meeting in Benton, near Wichita — to seek their involvement in preserving the KAC website.
During the KCAE discussion, a KCAE board member requested data that required a KAC’s Harris to promptly phone the current web host, Kansas Hosting, LLC.
In the ensuing phone discussion, Kansas Hosting’s president, Jeremiah Connelly, dropped a surprise offer — to continue hosting the site indefinitely, at no charge, without any changes in service. The offer was too good to pass
KCAE and AAHS were thanked for their interest, and have been invited to work with the KAC Chair/Webmaster on sharing of the Kansas aviation history story, and each have been encouraged to add links to the KAC website from their own websites, to spread the word, and carry forward the history and celebration of Kansas’s rich aviation heritage.