Personalities Archives - Page 3 of 5

Lee Lauderback Receives 2019 Bob Hoover Award

After a storied career preserving, flying, and caring for one of the world’s most iconic aircraft, the P-51 Mustang, Stallion 51, Boss Lee (Mr. Mustang) Lauderback has been selected as the 2019 recipient of the Bob Hoover Award of Aviation Excellence. The Award is intended to shine a spotlight on those who are doing outstanding […]

Wingman to the Aces

There are no great aces without great wingmen and young Lt. Floyd Fulkerson from Little Rock, Arkansas, was one of those wingmen. Although he had four confirmed victories, so he was nearly an ace himself, he sees his primary contribution to the war effort to have been the protection of his lead pilots, some of […]

Hawk 33 – A Day in the Life of a Vietnam Cobra Pilot

March 20, 1971, was not a good day for American and Vietnamese forces engaged in Operation Lam Son 719. Originally billed as the operation that would prove the success of “Vietnamization,” that the South Vietnamese Army and Marines were capable of taking on North Vietnamese main force units successfully, the incursion into Laos was becoming […]

Lee Lauderback Sets a Record

“I think the thing I like most about my time with the Mustang has been the people I’ve met through it.” The speaker is Lee Lauderback, founder/owner of Stallion 51, the longtime Mustang check-out haven in Kissimmee, Florida. He recently had a good week in which he logged his 10,000th hour in the P-51D and […]

D-Day Fighter Pilot Accounts: Little Friends over the Beach

They must have been a sight for sore eyes to the soldiers on the beach as wave after wave of fighters, bombers, and paratrooper-stuffed transports, some towing gliders, passed overhead, all of them adorned with black and white painted stripes. The invasion was on, and many of the fighter pilots expecting a Luftwaffe slugfest were […]

Dick Cole, Doolittle Raiders, dies at 103

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard E. Cole, the last surviving Doolittle Raider, tours a U.S. Navy B-25 Mitchell similar to the aircraft he co-piloted. Cole has died at age 103. (Staff Sgt. Vernon Young Jr./Air Force) A legend passes. Retired Lt. Col. Dick Cole, the last surviving member of the Doolittle Raiders who rallied […]

Confessions of an Av Hoarder

Ever wonder what an editor’s office looks like? Well, as a lifelong “accumulator” of neat stuff (as opposed to a “collector” in which a theme or direction is connoted), I wholeheartedly admit that my larger-than-normal office has the moldy ambience of a hoarder’s disheveled living room. Rather than piles of discarded clothing and grandma’s kitchen […]

Farewell George HW Bush, Naval Aviator & President

President George H.W. Bush died on Friday just a week before the country marks the 77th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor — an event that would change his life. A high school senior on Dec. 7, 1941, Bush wanted to enlist as soon as he heard the news that Pearl Harbor had […]

History: First President to Fly

Roosevelt Wasted No Time Being the First Prez to Fly The very name of Theodore Roosevelt brings up an image of a man of limitless energy, always seeking new adventures. In 1910, he added another one to his list when he flew in an airplane. Roosevelt started life as a sickly child, but he didn’t […]

Labor Day Tribute – Rosie the Riveter

I have read about and seen many images about “Rosie the Riveter,” but my story is unique. I was a model with a rivet gun who worked at a factory, and my husband really did fly the very planes that I was advertising to encourage women to build during WW II. In 1942, I was […]