Flying Heritage Collection SkyFair - July 30

Dundradal

Frog Blast the Vent Core!
Just doing some polite (shameless) promoting for a talk I am giving next month at the Flying Heritage Collection in Everett, Washington during their annual airshow.

During the airshow, I'll be talking for an hour about the evolution of American fast carrier doctrine. So if you're in the area, come on by!

First seen as something of a novelty, the aircraft carrier evolved into the premier capital ship for the world's navies. The evolution from experimental platform to premier fighting ship was neither an easy nor straight path. An impressive array of questions and problems had to be solved before the aircraft carrier could join the fleet. Despite the obstacles, the United States Navy was one of the leaders in the development of naval aviation. It was the first service to prove the ability of an aircraft to take off from and land on a naval vessel in the years before the First World War. Those small beginnings followed by more than a decade of experimentation eventually led to the United States becoming the preeminent aircraft carrier operator in the world by late-1943. Professor McHale will discuss the evolution of American aircraft carriers from their inception with the USS Langley (CV-1) through the Interwar Years and World War II, and ultimately the establishment of the Fast Carrier Task Force.

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What a great day!

I'd never seen a flying SBD Dauntless and it was pretty amazing to hear it fly by and do some mock dive bombing. They also had two F6F Hellcats, two Zeroes, an Oscar, P-40, FM2 Wildcat, B-25, and a few others.

The talk went really well outside of when I started the ground demonstration was still going on. Nothing quite like blank machine gun fire and the occasional main tank gun and 88 mm flak 37 going off to make a talk pop!
 
Glad it went well. I'd loved to have come, but on the condition that I was collected in person from my local airfield (Truro, England if you please) by one of the aforementioned B-25s and returned home in a Hellcat. The latter being one of my favourite American planes (in this part of the world, people struggle to see past the Spitfire and Hurricane from that era) but the F6F is a real thing of beauty. It just looks so damned tough.

Anyway, good job pilot!
 
Thanks!

They actually had two F6Fs flying. One was the FHC's and, I believe, the other was the Erickson Collection's.

FHC posted some pictures today. Lots of good ones in there...and one of me looking like I'm giving a student the death stare...no idea why though! I was having a blast doing it.
 
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