Come on by the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Houston Hobby Airport on Saturday, May 18 and join us for another Wings and Wheels! It’s Learn to Fly Day!

The EAA announced International Learn to Fly Day in 2009 with the aim of growing the pilot population and educating the public about the importance and value of the airports in their communities. Many people don’t know what it takes to earn their wings. For many, flying is only something one daydreams about, and it is up to pilots to invite others ‘across the fence’ and show them what it is all about. Airports as well are great unknowns, but they serve us and our communities – they are ours to visit too!

I too had not understood how someone becomes a pilot till one of my pilot friends took me for my first ride and started explaining how an airplane works. Now the airport is my favorite hangout and every plane that flies above makes me want to head there.

For Learn to Fly Day, we’re inviting area flight schools and flying clubs to visit the original terminal building at Hobby Airport and help us remove the mystery about becoming a pilot.

We’ve invited the AOPA Central Southwest Regional Manager Yasmina Platt to join us.

We have also invited our friends from The Bay Area Aero Club, a non-profit flying club based at Pearland Airport. Since their founding in 1979, they have grown to 165 members and at least seven aircraft. BAAC is a non-profit flying club that provides a LOT for their members, and we’re inviting them for Learn to Fly day because they help make it easy for their members to learn to fly. They’re a great example of a thriving and busy flying club, and we welcome them to our Museum!

Also visiting us, weather and schedule permitting, is Flight Instructor Mark Congco-Antoine, CFI, CFII, ATP, and owner of Crazy Eight Aviation, LLC. He’s one of the valuable pilots over at Texas Children’s Hospital, and teaches at David Wayne Hooks Airport out in Spring, Texas (up in what we call northwest Houston).

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The largest expense for flight training is airplane time. What if you won a plane? Our Raffle Plane, a beautifully maintained 1969 Piper Cherokee 140, is a fine plane to learn in. Some lucky ticketholder will win it in July, maybe sooner if all 2500 tickets sell out! One previous raffle winner DID get his license in the plane he won. A $50 raffle ticket could become your ticket to the joy of aviation!

Find out more about N95244!

You can buy your raffle ticket, or make a donation to the Museum, online via our website!

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Wings and Wheels is from 11 am to 3 pm the third Saturday of each month and has a different theme each month.

Admission is $7 for adults and $3 for children, and includes access to the Museum, static aircraft and vehicle displays, and supervised access to the ramp. Admission is waived for visitors who fly in, or who drive in with a classic car. Lunch is available from a local mobile food vendor.

Flaming Patties will be onsite with their delicious gourmet burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches! Find out more at their Facebook page or follow them (around town!) on Twitter.

Check out the photos from this month’s Wings & Wheels Piper day!

http://www.1940airterminal.org/WingsAndWheels/2013/04/

See you next month!

We are saddened to tell you that one of our very own, a WWII hero and commercial aviation pioneer, Captain AJ High, has gone west.

Following is a brief bio from the webpage about his book, “Meant To Fly.”

AJ High became a pilot for the Army when he was just 18 years old and flew B-17, B-25 and B-29 aircraft. He served in a combat unit in the Aleutians during the war and later served as an instructor pilot. His story of rolling a B-29 is the stuff legends are made of. He became a commercial airline pilot for Trans-Texas Airways in 1947 at the age of 24, flying as a First Officer until he could legally be designated as a Captain on his 25th birthday.

In 1947 he was one of the first sixteen pilots hired by Trans-Texas Airways, and became the last living TTA pilot. His career spanned the evolution of commercial airline passenger service in Texas from its beginnings to the modern era, and he flew every aircraft from converted Army C-47 prop planes to jet engined DC-9s.

Captain High recalls…..

“I was one of the luckiest men to have been put on the earth at a time when flying was still a great adventure. I am one of the last of the “treetoppers,” or pilots of the early commercial aviation era. When we started Trans-Texas Airways in 1947, there were just sixteen pilots. In our way, we were pioneers. We had to teach ourselves how to fly new aircraft. There were no classes. We learned how to fly by flying. I lived to be the last of the original sixteen Trans Texas Airlines pilots. I feel I have a legacy to leave, because I am the only one left who knows the stories.

I loved my airplanes. They each had a different feel and a distinct personality. Most pilots of my era wouldn’t have flown if they didn’t truly love it. I’m thankful. I’ve been given the gift of doing the only thing I ever wanted to do since I was eight years old – fly! I hope this book will inspire each of you to reach for your own dream, and know that everything is possible if you just give it your best effort. I honestly believe I was meant to fly.”

 

Come on by the 1940 Air Terminal Museum at Houston Hobby Airport on Saturday, April 20 and join us for another Wings and Wheels! This month we are calling all Pipers for Piper Day!

We’re expecting several planes to visit from members of Cherokee Chat, where owners share tips and advice on maintenance and upgrades. A bunch of Cherokee Chat members will head to Oshkosh in July – if you’d like to join them, visit the Cherokees to Oshkosh site.

Also joining us may be some members of the Piper Owner Society, another great resource for owners of all types of aircraft proudly bearing the Piper badge.

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Piper Aircraft started out in 1927 as the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Manufacturing Company, the same Taylor that would give its name to the Taylorcraft, or T-Craft. These were pioneering days for aviation and for businessmen, and when the company, now called Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation, filed for bankruptcy in 1930, key investor William T. Piper bought it. A Harvard graduate, veteran of the Spanish-American War, veteran of WWI, and oil industry engineer, he would become known as the “Henry Ford of Aviation”. His first role at the new Taylor Aircraft Company was secretary-treasurer, and Piper kept Clarence Gilbert Taylor in the role of President. The two shared a dream to open up aviation to the average American. In 1930 they produced an aircraft intended to encourage the growth of private aviation: the E-2 Cub.

You read that correctly. It wasn’t until after Piper and Taylor parted ways in 1935, after a spat over modifications that produced a J-2 model, that the venerable J-3 Cub was produced. Taylorcraft Aircraft Company formed that year as well and would produce an aircraft that served with the J-3s in WWII, and under various reorganizations, continue to produce affordable small aircraft into the 2000s in exotic places such as LaGrange and Brownsville, TX. The J-3 however was a landmark aircraft that has been so loved that new variants are continuing to be produced as LSAs with modern touches.

Piper’s company was not without its own reorganizations, with its founder replaced in 1946 with Chrysler ex-exec William Shriver. William Piper would regain control of his namesake company in 1950 and re-energize it, helped by a new contract for Cubs for the Korean War.

By this time Piper Aircraft had acquired Stinson Aircraft and developed one of their designs as the PA-23 Apache. The Apache would start a trend that Piper is known for, honoring the great native peoples of the Americas by giving their names to craft that would cross the sky: Apache. Pawnee. Commanche. Cherokee. Aztec. Navajo. Cheyenne. Seneca. Seminole.

The Piper Tomahawk was a popular alternative to the Cessna 152 in the flight training market. Today’s Archer and Arrow derived from the Cherokee, which also produced two twin-engine lines: the Seminole and the six-place Seneca.

The Cub line continued as the Super Cub, with aircraft such as the Caribbean, Colt, Pacer and Tri-Pacer deriving from it.

For a very short time Piper entered the LSA market by partnering with Czech Aircraft Works to import the PiperSport LSA (still available from CZAW as the SportCruiser). Piper continued to generate excitement in general aviation by developing the technically successful but cancelled PA-47 PiperJet (Altaire) project.

However, Piper’s own designs have continued to prove their longevity, and remain among the manufacturer’s current offerings: the Seneca V, Seminole, Arrow, Archer, and the Malibu aircraft line, including the Matrix, Meridian, and Mirage.

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Our own Raffle Plane, the Museum’s sixth giveaway of a wonderful vintage airplane, is a beautifully maintained 1969 Piper Cherokee 140. N95244 may be our first to sell out tickets, thanks to the hard efforts of our volunteers to promote the aircraft, the excellent quality of the plane inside and out, and healthy online sales that were not possible until this year.

Find out more about N95244!

You can buy your raffle ticket, or make a donation to the Museum, online via our website!

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Wings and Wheels is from 11 am to 3 pm the third Saturday of each month and has a different theme each month.

Admission is $7 for adults and $3 for children, and includes access to the Museum, static aircraft and vehicle displays, and supervised access to the ramp. Admission is waived for visitors who fly in, or who drive in with a classic car. Lunch is available from a local mobile food vendor.

Flaming Patties will be onsite with their delicious gourmet burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches! Find out more at their Facebook page or follow them (around town!) on Twitter.

In observance of Easter Sunday, the museum will be closed on March 31, 2013.  We will reopen at our normal time on Tuesday at 10am.

We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday.