On This Day in Aviation History-Explorer 6 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Alchetron.com In 1959, some of us were but a glimmer in our old man’s eye. Others were still far from even that glimmer and far from making their arrival known to us. Some of us (like me) were six-year-old kids playing in…
The FAA is fired on this day in aviation history Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: Business Insider Most of us fly. Well, at least most of us fly for business or pleasure on commercial airliners. But few of us have been inside an Air Traffic Control (ATC) airport control tower or in an enroute ATC…
On This Day in Aviation History: Shared Grief Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com We forget (at our peril) to what lengths and what risks and what sadness and what grief we had to go to stop tyranny. Today we can launch missiles from unmanned vehicles with little sadness in the ensuing death and destruction…
Aviation History: On This Day and Tomorrow Too Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Lonestar Flight Museum, Wikipedia.com, Marine Corps University For we aviation heritage aficionados, July is a big month for aviation history. But it doesn’t take much digging at all to find aviation history everywhere we look, January through December. Still, July is…
Airmail Took Some Time Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: National Postal Museum, History.com, pbs.org While few of us send letters anymore, we may still hear complaints about the cost of first-class postage going up. In fact, some of you may be unaware that the price for a first-class stamp just over a week ago on…
On this day in aviation history: the Moon! Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com We cannot and should not allow today’s major aviation history event to go by unnoticed. With less computer power than a modern, mid-sized car, today in 1969, like all of you alive at the time were too, I was glued (as…
A July 17th “Fourfer” Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com July 17th was an epic day in aviation history that includes at least two massive aviation tragedies and two positive aviation events. I like to focus on the positive (my call sign when I was on active duty was “Sunny” because of my alleged “sunny”…
How far we’ve come: Mariner 4 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com What were you doing and where were you in 1965? Some of us were kids (I was 12). Some of us weren’t even a glimmer in our old man’s eye. Some of us were adults, already making a difference in our world. In…