Flight Spirit Magazine - of - the Air is primarily dedicated to what we call "Heritage Aviation", that is: the people and groups who maintain and fly historic aircraft for exhibition and education in the U.S. This includes actual historic aircraft pre-1960, and also flying reproductions of antique Types. These people do much to keep alive the spirit and wonder of flight and the art and science of aviation as it evolved. Our stories will bring you some of these Types and their operators and news of their appearances.
Part of the theme of Heritage Aviation is the principle of "Can-do"; of pushing the envelope, of challenging adverse conditions and getting there. This issue of FlightSpirit Magazine begins with 3 stories from aviation that reflect this theme in times of emergency.
The first of these is the ANNALS OF THE AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND recounting just some of the exploits of that WWII air logistics lifeline. 1 July 2012 was the advent of the 70th anniversary of the Air Transport Command and FlightSpirit seeks to stimulate a commemoration of their critical but unsung contribution to the Cause of Liberty, and there are Reader Participation opportunities in the Crew Roster and Model Squadron sections and in the Campaign to revive the Clipper Flying Cloud.
In the Afterword to Air Transport Command you will find reference to the several ways that the "Can-do" esprit of the Air Transport Command has been carried on in Civil Aviation, including Search & Rescue, Disaster Relief, and also Fire Aviation. STILL BLAZIN' began as a profile of the P2V Neptune as a flagship example of Heritage Aviation still in service for the public and a look at that service. But the story grew to focus on the incredible daring of these pilots and the risks they take to save lives and property from wildfire as starkly signified by the tragic crash of P2V Neptune Tanker 11 on 3 June 2012 and so the article has become En Memoriam to those pilots with a call for a Public Commendation.
The Afterword also mentions the Albatross Mission to Haiti which we had occasion to follow as it was happening as another example of ATC esprit expressed by Heritage Aviation in responding for disaster relief and that story is provided to you by way of links. As this goes to press we learn of the the death of Mr. Chuck Kimes, who was a principal organizer and flight logistics coordinator for that Relief Mission and so this too has become an En Memorium.
One of the ongoing topics at FlightSpiritMagazine is Scale Modeling because this is a fun and educational way for modelers young and old to capture and pass on the Spirit of Heritage Aviation and we will bring you stories about some of these and also encourage readers to send in photographs of their scale models for posting here on our Heritage Model Fleet pages. Readers are also encouraged to contribute additional information on any of our topics by way of the Heritage Forum pages or by email to