September 1, 1983 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and Wikipedia I opined several issues ago that perhaps the worst kind of mishap is one in which a nation’s military makes a series of mistakes and downs a civilian passenger aircraft. America, unfortunately, is not blameless in these kinds of tragic mistakes. On this day in…
The Moore County Airport Authority has named Rick Cloutier from Idaho Falls, Idaho, as its new airport director effective Oct. 1. The announcement was made by Mike Jones, chairman for the Moore County Airport Authority. Cloutier will replace current director Ron Maness, who is retiring in October. Cloutier has had a career in airport management…
Balloons! Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: The New York Times Archives Balloons! Discounting the recent Chinese Spy balloon debacle, balloons (perhaps the simplest of aerial phenomena), are fun! But we’re not talking party balloons, get-well balloons, or chintzy (but certainly daring…or was it intoxicated?) lawn chair balloon flights, one of the first one of these “intoxicating”…
JAL Flight 123 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, Wikipedia Suffering a mishap that takes control away from pilots is perhaps the most frightening of mishaps. No one of us humans like to lose control of anything (although the old adage that “Man plans and God laughs” applies here), but when a pilot and copilot can…
Nagasaki, August 9, 1945 Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com, New Yorker Magazine, This Day in Aviation, National Archives The recently released movie Oppenheimer highlights the history of the development of the atom bomb and the drive to beat the Germans at developing a nuclear bomb, the moral dilemmas and political affiliations that tore at some…
The Atomic Age Begins Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com View of “The Bomb” over Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 Debate rages even 78-years later and will continue to rage for decades, even centuries, (if we don’t first blow ourselves back to the Stone Age) about whether Americans should have used its terrible weapon against Japan during…
Operation Tidal Wave Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and NBC Universal, Inc. While I’m quite certain there were many individual cases of what we once called “shell shock” (now PTSD) amongst the aircrewmen (with 10 in each aircraft’s crew, a total of some-1770 men in the aircraft and countless numbers of men in the support…
End of July Twofer Contributor: Barry Fetzer Sources: History.com and Wikipedia As we transition to the month of August from July, what is it about July? Perhaps we should be glad today is the last day of the month given the tragic aviation history of this month. Today we have a Sunday evening “twofer” for…