A January 28th “Three-fer” Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Boom Supersonic, Wikipedia, Associated Press I might be accused, yesterday, of “being asleep at the switch”. Guilty as charged. Three aviation history events happened yesterday in 1964, 1986, and in 2025. Instead of publishing a “three-fer” aviation history vignette yesterday, I flapped my trap and published…
Dreams of Flying Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Microsoft CoPilot, Getty Images, Livescience.com How many of us would love to just unfurl our own, human wings and launch ourselves into the air at will? I sure would. Any time I was asked as a kid to name three wishes I’d ask the genie for, “the…
This Day in Aviation History–The Miracle on The Hudson Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com Photo Credit: Chris McGrath/Getty Images If you’ve ever hit a bird (or another animal) while flying (or driving) raise your hand. No hands? I was in a drive-through lane of a fast-food restaurant one day in Jacksonville, NC and noted…
First Balloon to Cross the English Channel Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Historyhit,com, The Royal Aeronautical Society Aviation history is a wonderful world of exciting firsts peppered with a sad world of depressing bursts. Even today there are risks in aviation, even with all our rules; procedures; navigational aids; high tech weather forecasting (so…
First Flight December 17, 1903 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com While we might forget a birthday or some other historic date, we forget our wedding anniversaries at our great risk. And in addition to our wedding anniversary, we aviation enthusiasts should never forget at least one historical aviation date. We’re talking, of course, about…
On This Day in Aviation History: The H-21 Shawnee and the USNS Card Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, US Army, Military Sea Lift Command, The Flagship, Wikipedia If you were not informed, or if informed but didn’t look closely, you might mistake the Piasecki (and then the Vertol) H-21 Shawnee pictured below as the…
On This Day in Aviation History: Buried Near the Dock of the Bay Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Reddit, Wikimedia Commons. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame If there’s a more iconic beach music song than ‘Sittin On the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding, I don’t know what it is. That…
This Day in Aviation History: “For the sake of humanity” Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com. Ashai.com, The Mirror, USAF, USN, PBS Today. Eighty-three years ago in 1941. The day before “a date which will live in infamy”. We Americans like to think of ourselves as a people who don’t start wars, but we sure…