At the beginning of the film, a B-17 returning from a World War II mission makes a low pass over the Memphis Belle’s aircrew playing touch football at their base, signaling the return of the squadron. The beautiful shape and proportions of the B-17 and the unmistakable sound of those four Wright R-1820 engines thundering over me in the theater made the most indelible impression, and my love for aviation began at that very moment.

In spring 1991, David Tallichet, the pilot/owner of N3703G, one of the B-17s flown in the film—the other was Sally B—brought it to Concord Municipal Airport (KCON), and I waited in line one rainy afternoon to tour the interior with my mother and grandfather, all three of us climbing up the steep ladder into the hatch located below the cockpit on the pilot’s side. One of my favorite early memories was pausing with my grandfather behind the pilot’s seat as he patiently answered my questions about the dizzying array of instruments, levers, and switches in the cockpit. As a boy, it looked impossibly complicated, but I was intensely fascinated.

• READ MORE: Taking a Virtual Flight with the Yawman Arrow

After the tour, I purchased a poster at the souvenir stand that Tallichet politely signed for me. At nearly 70, he was gallant in both appearance and manner and spent some extra time with my grandfather and I, taking us around the exterior of his B-17 while he and my grandfather compared notes on their flying experiences. During WWII, Tallichet was a copilot of a B-17 in the 8th Air Force, completing 20 missions. After the war, he became a successful businessman and amassed an impressive personal collection of military aircraft.

Before we departed his company, Tallichet asked if I wanted to fly when I grew up, and I automatically answered yes. Standing between him and my grandfather, who wouldn’t aspire to what each had accomplished as pilots? That poster with his autograph hung in my childhood room until I went to college.

After that close encounter with the movie Memphis Belle on the ramp, I drove my friends and family crazy by asking to rent the film at least once per month, watching it until I could recite most of the dialogue with my sister. Without YouTube in the mid-’90s, there was no easily accessible footage of what it looked like to fly a B-17 from the pilot’s seat, so I repeatedly rewound the videocassette to watch the flying sequences to try and understand how it all worked. In 1993, a friend of mine in the neighborhood heard me talking about the movie and invited me over to his house after school. He owned an early PC with a color monitor and had a copy of the recently released combat flight simulation called B-17 Flying Fortress: World War II Bombers in Action by MicroProse. This was my first flight sim experience of any kind, and I had so much fun trying to fly the B-17 that I didn’t move from the cockpit to try the other crew positions. The cockpit and the gunner stations on the bomber were faithfully modeled as much as was possible at the time. For example, in the waist gun position, you could look toward the front of the B-17 and see the wings, round engine nacelles, and propellers spinning. Your role in one of the gunner positions was to defend the Flying Fortress from attacking enemy fighter aircraft. All of this sounds rudimentary today, but the missions, crew stations, and color animation were created in the early 1990s.

Experiencing the B-17 combat simulator came at a critical and impressionable time in my childhood, and I can still remember the thrill. In speaking with many pilots I have met over the years, a lot of us had a chance to try a home flight sim that served as a connection and an on-ramp to the larger world of aviation. For me, using a flight sim was a lot of fun, and it only made me more excited to try my first real-world flight lesson when I turned 14.

Back during the late ’90s, Chris Palmer—aka @AngleofAttack and a CFI who now runs a successful general aviation training business and popular aviation YouTube channel from his home airport in Homer, Alaska—started flying the European Air War WWII combat simulator. Palmer remembers learning the basic flight and power controls and the thrill of flying a fighter aircraft over the English Channel to challenge the Germans in air-to-air combat. As a teen, he purchased Microsoft Flight Simulator X (FSX) and dreamed of becoming an airline pilot. He would load an airliner into the simulator and enjoy departing from many of the major airports around the world contained in the title’s library.

That early exposure inspired him to pursue real-world flight training. By the time he turned 17, Palmer started ground school and had already learned radio communication basics from the hours he spent on VATSIM, the live air traffic control service staffed by trained volunteer controllers that can be layered into a home flight sim with a software plug-in. After learning how to edit highlight videos for his high school football team, he built a study-level training course on how to fly the Boeing 767 on FSX. These video lessons achieved scale and, 17 years later, the DVDs, which complement a professional ground school study program, are selling to aspiring pilots training for their next upgrade.

When I came back to the world of GA to finish attaining my private pilot certificate in 2010, there was nervousness about the coming pilot shortage. Articles on the topic abounded, and writers made educated guesses about from where the next wave of pilots would come.

The question poised at that time was could enough discovery or EAA Young Eagles flights be conducted to successfully introduce the next generation to general aviation in time to stave off the looming airline pilot retirements not too many years in the future.

In 2014, I changed jobs into a marketing position where I could combine my passion for GA with my skill set as a social media marketer tasked with representing a leading general and commercial aviation product. Around this time, YouTube’s user base was rapidly expanding in popularity, and aviation enthusiasts could follow pilots on journeys from their first training lessons all the way to the airlines. Some pilots such as @flightchops (Steve Thorne) and @steveo1kinevo, who had modest followings of around 30,000 subscribers at that time, would amass hundreds of thousands of them over the next few years as their content attracted aviation enthusiasts from all over the world.

Today there are popular pilot/content creators who have used their engaging videos to help bring pilots of all ages to the airport for their first flight lessons. YouTube and the other social media channels have connected a global audience made up of millions around the world to pilot content creators with the time, equipment, and capability to publish their flying stories and share the world of GA with new, ever-widening, and more diverse global audiences through the mysterious and perplexing magic of the algorithm.

Fast-forward to this summer, and Jorg Nuemann, head of Microsoft Flight Simulator, presented to a large, in-person audience in June at FlightSimExpo, where he shared that MSFS2020 had achieved more than 12 million individual users since the software launched in September 2020. With the recent launch of X-Plane 12 in 2022, and the continued growth in popularity of Digital Combat Simulator (known as “DCS” and featuring modern fighter and rotor wing aircraft), each software program continues to attract a specific segment of digital aviation enthusiasts. Acknowledging that there is some crossover of home flight simulation pilots between these popular software titles, each offers a digital aviation experience where the user can hop over the virtual airport fence and climb into the cockpit or flight deck of so many faithfully digitally created general, commercial, and military aircraft.

Taken together, these software titles have amassed a worldwide user base on a scale not seen before. The result is YouTube and flight simulation are introducing enthusiasts to the world of aviation by serving as the top of a giant funnel, bringing the user into digital aircraft that are visually accurate to their real-world counterpart complete with high fidelity systems modeling. I believe the next generation of pilots is already here. They are fluent users in the digital world, easily finding flight simulation and aviation video content online.

Although we may not see them at real-world GA airports yet, I am already flying with them in the flight sim club of which I am a member. Listening to their radio calls approaching the Boston Class Bravo airspace, these flight sim pilots, many years my junior, are flying digital airliners into KBOS executing complex IFR arrivals with crisp and professional radio communication. Any of these flight sim pilots could show up to their first real-world discovery flight and surprise their unsuspecting CFI by being able to file and read back an IFR clearance without a single hour in the real-world logbook. Although these students will be well prepared in some aspects of flight training, they will have areas where the flight sim experience can’t adequately do so. But I’m confident a capable CFI will be able to diagnose any weaknesses and bring the student up to the relevant test standards.

To check that assumption, I asked Palmer about his thoughts on home flight-sim use and how it could potentially complement real-world flight training. As an experienced CFI who has successfully trained many private pilots, I wondered if he had any concerns about flight students crossing over from the digital world of flying into the real world—specifically the cross-country stage of private pilot training.

“If flight sim is used in the correct way, it can help you advance your flight training,” Palmer said. “There are more advantages than disadvantages. For example, you can easily mix pilotage and dead reckoning to practice navigation skills. You can plan the flight, get the

exact winds, get the exact weather, and set the correct time of day. Putting that high-fidelity tool in the hands of a student will allow them to find the airport, and [so] on their first cross-country flight, it doesn’t have to be a surprise anymore.”

Within the MSFS2020 and X-Plane 12 software, the student can explore most local airports since they are nearly all modeled. If the student pilot already has ForeFlight, they can pair their tablet with the sim and use it to find the FBO and plan the radio frequencies and approach to the airfield. Even just being able to explore the basics of ForeFlight while on your home sim can be time well spent.

“If you approach the sim seriously, and fly it to a high fidelity, it will pay you dividends by helping you feel more prepared for your private pilot flight training,” Palmer said.

In terms of behaviors to watch, Palmer cautions the new student to be ready to practice converting some of the flight sim knowledge into the real world, including getting used to the traffic scan since that is a habit not readily practiced in the sim. Simply recognizing there will be areas to relearn in actual flight training is the first step.

Equipped with their many hours of flight simulation experience, the student may already have a strong understanding of airspace, communication, navigation, and checklist use but may require some fine-tuning by their CFI.

“There’s nothing like real flying, no matter how much flight sim time you have,” Palmer said. “Go try flying a real airplane. You’re one of us. You like flying things. I am passionate about it, and I want flight sim pilots to experience real-world flight. Take a few discovery flights and see where it leads. At the very least, a real instructor can provide feedback and lesson pointers that you can bring back into the flight sim world.”

The next generation of pilots will one day share their stories about how they found aviation. In our youth, both Palmer and I supplemented our interest in aviation with early flight simulation experiences.

With the growing popularity of the home flight simulation, coupled with aviation content on YouTube and other channels, we are in the middle of a rising tide of digital flying activity that will hopefully continue to widen the funnel, bringing new people into real-world aviation, making it more accessible, and strengthening it for the future.

This feature first appeared in the November 2023/Issue 943 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post Our Pilots of the Future May Share Sim Stories appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

Jackets on Display

Aviation museums have become repositories for flight jackets, including one of the most storied, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. According to Alex Spencer, curator of European, British, and Commonwealth military aviation, military flight clothing, and memorabilia, the museum boasts 25 flight jackets in its collection, most from World War II and a few from later conflicts and wars.

Three of Spencer’s favorites are the A-2s worn by Claire Chennault, Thomas Weems, and Kenneth Williams. Chennault was a U.S. major general who commanded the U.S. Army Air Forces in China during World War II and created the American Volunteer Group (AVG), best known as the “Flying Tigers.” Weems served as a navigator aboard Martin B-26 Marauder Winsockie in the 69th Bombardment Squadron at the Battle of Midway in 1942. Winsockie was one of five B-26s sent to attack the Japanese carrier fleet. Only two of the aircraft returned. Williams was a member of the crew of the B-17 Murder Inc.

“The B-17 was named after a mafia group in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s,” says Spencer. “The guys on the airplane thought it was a good idea. When the airplane was shot down by the Germans, the propaganda arm took the name of the aircraft to show they had ‘absolute proof’ [that] the Americans were terror fliers out to murder civilians. It became an international incident and, when it got back to General Hap Arnold, he ordered a review of all airplane names. Anything to do with murder or killing or such were ordered to be erased and renamed.”

Williams was captured and sent to a POW camp.

“He scratched the name of the airplane off the jacket. After the war he had the jacket repainted,” says Spencer, adding that it is not uncommon for the families of the veterans to visit the museum to see a flight jacket that belonged to a relative.

The WASP Jacket

The latest jacket to be placed in the care of the Smithsonian Institute is an A-2 that belonged to Janice Christensen, a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) class of 43-W-5.

According to Dorothy Cochrane, curator for general aviation and aerial photography at the museum, Christensen flew many aircraft, including the B-24, until the WASP program was disbanded in December 1944. After her WASP service, Christensen worked at the U.S.

Airway Traffic Control Center in Chicago and at various weather stations in Ohio, then transitioned to a career in medicine. She continued to fly as a member of the Civil Air Patrol, and in 1949 she joined the Air Force Reserve with the rank of first lieutenant. She received an honorable discharge with the rank of captain on November 7, 1963.

Christensen died in 1965, so she did not live to see the WASP granted veteran status. Her jacket, donated to the museum by her sister, Dagmar Joyce Noll, is scheduled to undergo preservation and restoration before being displayed.

Museum of Flight Jackets

One of the challenges of exhibiting flight jackets is deciding how much history to share, says Matthew Burchette, senior curator at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The MOF has several jackets on display in the Personal Courage wing that include details of what company made the jacket.

“Not many people realize that there were several manufacturers of A-2s during World War II, ” Burchette says.

Burchette’s favorite jacket on display comes from Richard Jacobson, who was the copilot of the B-17 5 Grand.

“The aircraft was the 5,000th B-17 built since the attack on Pearl Harbor, and nearly every Boeing employee signed it as it rolled off the line,” Burchette says. “Covered in signatures, it flew 78 missions over Germany. I love how the Boeing workers took such great pride in their work that they were willing to sign an object that might not come home. 5 Grand did come home but was scrapped after the war.”

Burchette believes it is important that people realize flight jackets are more than just clothing or protective gear for pilots and crewmembers.

“They are an extension of the planes they flew and took pride in,” he says. “The flight jacket is an item of uniquely American clothing, and the artwork painted on many is even more so. Looking at the jackets on display, it is clear that the owner was proud to wear them. Some show signs of much wear after the war, while others are nearly pristine, showing they were treated with respect and reverence.”

Post-WWII Jacket

Leather flight jackets were still worn up through the Vietnam War. Many military pilots kept their jackets when they separated from the service. Rusty Sachs, a flight instructor for airplanes and rotorcraft, and executive director of the National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI) from 2004 to 2007, is one of those. Sachs still has the leather jacket issued to him when he was a cadet in the U.S. Marine Corps. He enlisted in 1964 and became a helicopter pilot. According to Sachs, the jacket was handed to him in Pensacola, Florida, in February 1965 upon completion of preflight training.

Sachs, who served in Vietnam, tells the story of an enemy attack that had the soldiers running for cover in the bunker. Sachs left his jacket in the tent. A few weeks after the attack, he noted his jacket “had a few small holes in it made by shrapnel.” He had the jacket relined in 1969 when he entered the Marine Reserve, making the holes more difficult to find. After Sachs separated from the Marines in 1970, the jacket went into the closet but was recently sent out for restoration.

Family Heirlooms, Legacy

John Niehaus, a 5,500-hour airline transport pilot and the director of development for NAFI, wears a jacket that belonged to a Marine helicopter pilot in Vietnam who was a good friend of his uncle.

Niehaus decided on a career in aviation while in high school and received the jacket as a graduation gift.

“The note inside read, ‘I know I haven’t been the uncle you always wanted or needed, but this jacket was earned by my best friend who was a pilot in the military. It served him well, and he left it to me after he passed away. He would have wanted me to pass it on to you. I hope it serves you just as well. Good luck living your dream.’”

Unfortunately, the uncle died before he had the opportunity to share more about his friend. The name “Barthel” is stenciled inside the jacket.

Niehaus says he is very careful about where and how he wears the jacket because he doesn’t want people to assume he served in the military. “I never wanted to misrepresent myself to be something that I am not,” says Niehaus. “When I wear it, people ask questions to which I reply that it is continuing a family legacy of honoring a family friend. The person was special to my uncle as a friend, and…knowing that my uncle parted with something of such high sentimental value as a show of support to me was so incredibly special.”

Someday, the jacket will likely be handed down to Niehaus’ son, who, at age 4, already loves aviation and wears a jacket that looks very much like his father’s.

Receive and Bestow

I have been on both sides of the heirloom equation. In my collection, I have jackets given to me by gentlemen who will never be a size 40 again but who want theirs to be appreciated and occasionally worn on “military days of remembrance and obligation.” A recent acquisition is a pre-WWII A-2 that belonged to Captain Jack L. Martin, U.S. Army Air Forces pilot and father-in-law of Anne Palmer Martin, a college friend and my chosen family. Captain Martin went West in 1970 decades before his son Robert married Anne Palmer.

We’re still trying to determine what Captain Martin did in the war. We’ve been able to figure out that the patch on the jacket is the early version of the 760th Bombardment Squadron, but we don’t know if Martin went overseas. We do know after the war he flew for Flying Tiger airlines.

Recently, I gifted my first flight jacket, a 1980s era distressed leather A-2, to my niece Sophie Keene. My aviation and journalism careers began concurrently. My first “big paycheck” was used for flying lessons and the purchase of the jacket from the Smithsonian catalog. Top Gun had been released, and leather jackets were in style, worn by reporters in the Persian Gulf War. I was known in that small market as “the reporter who flies.” A few years later when I decided to make aviation a career, I upgraded to a new A-2, putting the distressed one into the closet. The day Sophie was born, I packed away the jacket for safekeeping. The jacket was gifted to her for her 18th birthday.

Since we are an aviation family, Sophie grew up hearing stories about my flying adventures and about grandma Kay (my Mom), who took flying lessons during WWII and loved the P-38 Lighting. I am hopeful Sophie values the jacket as more than a fashion statement.

Tribute Jackets

Most vintage jackets are too valuable and fragile to wear every day, but if you are set on sporting a piece of history, consider a replica often known as a “tribute jacket.” Kevin Wisniewski, a skilled artist from Milwaukee has been painting these jackets since 1987. According to Wisniewski, tribute jackets are often designs commissioned by someone to honor a person or commemorate an event.

For replica jackets, he often works off photographs because the original jacket has long since disappeared. Pinup girls are popular.

“They painted these on their jackets and aircraft as good luck, reminding them of what they were fighting for back home,” says Wisniewski. “We have to remember these were young boys in their late teens and early 20s who, if not for the war, would be courting these women and planning futures. Other paintings of aircraft or cartoon characters depicting giving the enemy what they had coming were also a morale booster.”

He has two favorite reproduced jackets.

“One…I painted a while back with the likeness of my wife, Beth, in a classic period ‘nose art’ pose as was on an original aircraft, Bottom’s Up! The other is a jacket that was given to me by a fellow reenactor and friend, George Bruckert’s estate. He had painted it himself quite well and very authentically. He passed from cancer way too young, and I think of him when I see it.”

Wisniewski uses only hand brushes and brush-texture techniques.

“This is how they were done during the war,” he says. “Airbrushing is a bad word in my dictionary. One modern improvement is that I use acrylic leather dyes that, unlike original acrylics, won’t crack over time or chip off.”

Another Kind of Tribute

The A-2 that I wear today falls under the heading of a “tribute jacket,” but instead of paint, it has patches to honor a person and commemorate an event. The first patch was Fifinella, the mascot of the WASPs, and a gift from Florence Shutsy Reynolds, WASP class of 44-W-5. The next patch is from the “Lost Squadron” P-38 Glacier Girl, gracing the jacket to honor Mom and cover a hole I acquired when I rescued a kitten from a tree. There also are multiple patches for my mentors. For Dean Boyd, the man who made an instructor out of me, I display the 8th Air Force. Boyd enlisted at the age of 17 and made a career of it.

There is also the Tico Tiger from the USS Ticonderoga in honor of aviation journalist and retired naval aviator Captain Thomas F. Norton, who flew off the carrier during Vietnam and taught nuggets to fly. There are patches from Lockheed to honor Dad, as well as ones for every B-17 I have been aboard: Memphis Belle, Texas Raiders, Yankee Lady, and Nine-O-Nine. And there are patches for Red Tails and Hemlock Films, which continues to share the stories of vintage aviation.

Aviation education is marked with a patch from the Society of Aviation Flight Educators, as I am a founding member of the group, and it was from it that I earned the master CFI designation several times over. On one pocket there is a vintage Moffett Field (KNUQ) patch to commemorate attending Zeppelin NT school in California in 2009. We are also an airship family, and putting that patch on was a must. I have found the jacket to be an excellent conversation starter. It encourages people to share their aviation stories with me. And I gladly listen.

Protecting Your Jacket

No matter how old the jacket is, if it means something to you, it’s valuable.

Protect it by nourishing it with professional leather care products. You can get these from shoe repair stores. If it is an heirloom, consider storing the jacket flat in a box or footlocker. It will last you a lifetime or more.

If you intend to sell it, have the jacket appraised by a reputable dealer. Authentic World War II jackets in good condition can fetch $1,500 or more.

If you want to buy one, modern flight jackets are not cheap. Expect to pay close to $300 or more for a basic A-2 and as high as $2,000 for an RAF bomber jacket. Beware of scammers who claim to have new authentic A-2 and shearling-lined RAF jackets for ridiculously low prices (less than $200). They may have the design of the jacket, but the materials are subpar. Instead of leather with a sheepskin lining, it looks more like someone tore up a faux leather couch and skinned a muppet.

Save your money and go for the real deal.

Where to find vintage? Prowl swap meets and even garage and estate sales near military bases.

This feature first appeared in the November 2023/Issue 943 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post All Flight Jackets Tell a Story appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, Dayton, Ohio

“Many have asked about the National Museum of the United States Air Force curators’ favorite artifacts,” a museum spokesperson tells FLYING. But with more than four dozen curators, the list is not a short one.

“Members of museum’s curatorial team, consisting of more than four dozen professionals in the Research, Collection Management, Exhibits, and Restoration Divisions, are consistently drawn to artifacts that embody the people, events, organizations, places, and technologies that have shaped the history and heritage of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force,” the spokesperson said.

“Choosing a favorite aircraft is a tough one. Each curator typically provides a different response—some have more than one, and their favorite aircraft could be located in preservation storage, on display at the museum, or on loan and display to another organization or institution,” they added. “Regardless of the choice, our curators hope guests will pay special attention to some of these aircraft listed below when visiting the museum onsite or online.”

Among the aircraft that curators considered to be favorites:

B-17F Memphis Belle

X-15-A2

F-104C Starfighter

SPAD XIII

P-26 Peashooter

P-51D Mustang

Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero

Fokker DVII

F-86 Sabre

F-100D Super Sabre

A-1E Skyraider

MH-53M Pave Low IV

VC-137 (SAM 26000)

Visitor Favorites

“The National Museum of the United States Air Force has 19 acres of indoor exhibits and features more than 350 aerospace vehicles and missiles,” the spokesperson said. “Among the most popular exhibits and aircraft that visitors flock to include:

• Early Years Gallery: The Wright 1909 Military Flyer, the first military heavier-than-air flying machine.
• World War II Gallery: The B-17F Memphis Belle, which is part of the “Crippling the Nazi War Machine: USAAF Strategic Bombing in Europe exhibit. The famed B-17F Memphis Belle became the first heavy bomber to return to the U.S. after flying 25 missions over Europe. The Belle’s 26th mission was a widely-publicized war bond and morale-boosting tour with more than 30 stops across the U.S.
• Korea and Southeast Asia War Galleries: The “MiG Alley” exhibit tells the story of early jet combat between F-86 Sabres and MiG-15s over Korea. The B-52D looms over the Southeast Asia War Gallery and was part of key air campaigns such as Operation Rolling Thunder and Operation Linebacker I and II.
• Cold War Gallery: YF-117 stealth fighter, B-36 Peacemaker bomber, SR-71, and B-2. The size, shape and speed of these four aircraft pushed the boundaries of aerospace engineering through the Cold War. The museum’s B-2 is the only B-2 on display in any museum.
• Space Gallery: The Space Shuttle Exhibit features NASA’s first Crew Compartment Trainer (CCT-1). As a major exhibit component in that gallery, visitors can walk onto a full-size representation of a NASA space shuttle payload bay and look inside the CCT-1 cockpit and mid-deck areas. 
• Presidential Gallery: The VC-137C, also known as SAM (Special Air Mission) 26000, was used by eight presidents—Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton. The Presidential Gallery gives visitors the opportunity to view an historic collection of presidential aircraft, and walk through four of them.
• Global Reach Gallery: C-130E Hercules (Spare 617), anchors the “A Force For Good: Department of the Air Force Humanitarian Missions” exhibit. Demonstrating the history and role the Air Force plays in humanitarian operations to assist people domestically and around the world, the exhibit includes: aerial deliveries, goodwill missions, relief and rescue, firefighting, and critical care responses. Artifacts on display include diving equipment used during the Thai Cave Rescue, and firefighting tools used to combat wildfires in Alaska. You can also see a fully assembled Transport Isolation System.
• Research and Development Gallery: XB-70 Valkyrie bomber. The futuristic XB-70A was originally conceived in the 1950s as a high-altitude, nuclear strike bomber that could fly at Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound). Any potential enemy would have been unable to defend themselves against such a bomber. It is the only Valkyrie still in existence.
• Throughout the museum: the “Women in the Air Force” exhibit. The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force honors women with an exhibit highlighting their achievements in civilian and military aviation with emphasis on the U.S. Air Force and its predecessors. The exhibit covers historical issues, changes in laws and attitudes, and women’s contributions. Specific women and groups from all eras and various career fields are noted to emphasize the impact women have played in establishing current positions in the Air Force.

The post Museum Spotlight: National Museum of the U.S. Air Force appeared first on FLYING Magazine.