Gala in Florida

Search and rescue personnel were in the spotlight at the 22nd annual Air Force Gala, sponsored by the Central Florida Chapter, the Air Force Association, and the Aerospace Education Foundation in Orlando, Fla.

The February gala is the culminating event for the Air Warfare Symposium. A video on search and rescue efforts presented SAR history in World War II, including the Civil Air Patrol, and noting that Air Force helicopter crews, pararescue, and combat control teams rescued more than 4,000 people after Hurricane Katrina.

In his remarks paying tribute to search and rescue personnel, Central Florida Chapter President John Timothy Brock said, “They will risk their equipment and their very lives so that others may live.”

Brock then joined Gen. Ronald E. Keys, the symposium co-host, and Central Florida Chapter’s Tommy G.Harrison, the gala chairman, in naming several search and rescue personnel as AEF Jimmy Doolittle Fellows. Receiving the honor were CAP Maj. Gen. Antonio J. Pineda, national commander; Lt. Col. Benjamin Walsh, Air Force Rescue Coordination Center commander; the active duty 347th Rescue Wing from Moody AFB, Ga.; and Air Force Reserve Command’s 920th Rescue Wing from Patrick AFB, Fla.

Representing the 347th RQW were Capts. Brian Kelly, Kyle Kimberlin, and Eric Stover; MSgt. Scott Young; and TSgts. Jay Lane and Douglas Musser. Their unit has carried out combat SAR in Afghanistan and Iraq and has been deployed for three of the last four years.

Representatives from the 920th RQW were Lt. Col. Hugh Funk, Maj. John Lowe, 1st Lt. Harley Doubet, MSgt. Chad Evans, and TSgts. Robert Grande and Ryan Renuart. Their unit is credited with more than 1,000 saves, made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Among those on hand to honor search and rescue personnel were USAF Gens. Bruce Carlson, Paul V. Hester, William R. Looney III, and Duncan J. McNabb, as well as Belgian Brig. Gen. Daniel Van de Ven, who is the dean of the foreign air attache corps, and CMSAF Gerald R. Murray.

In other gala highlights, the Air Force Memorial Foundation received a $10,000 donation from the Central Florida Chapter, bringing the chapter’s total contribution to that fund to $190,000. Brock and Harrison presented $45,000 to AEF Chairman of the Board L. Boyd Anderson and AEF President Mary Anne Thompson. The chapter has donated nearly $600,000 to AEF in its 22 years of sponsoring the Air Force Gala.

A Chat With the Chief

When cadet Robert S. Clark got up that morning, he had no idea he’d be having lunch with the former Air Force Chief of Staff, retired Gen. John P. Jumper—much less discussing shortfield landings with him.

But that’s the kind of opportunity given to five AFROTC cadets from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University when they were presented with scholarships recently. Along with Clark, the other cadet honorees were Alex D. Ladysh, Veda A. Nayak, Noelle C. Niblack, and Matthew T. Schneider.

William W. Spruance, an AFA national director emeritus and member of the Brig. Gen. Bill Spruance Chapter (Del.), funded the $1,000 scholarships. They are given annually to selected cadets at Embry Riddle’s Daytona Beach, Fla., campus and are presented each year as part of the joint board meeting of AFA and AEF, held in conjunction with the Air Warfare Symposium.

This year, Spruance chose to donate the scholarships in the name of Jumper, now an AFA national director; Stephen P. “Pat” Condon, AFA Chairman of the Board; John J. Politi, the former AFA Board Chairman; David T. Buckwalter, an AFA national director; and Julie E. Petrina, an AEF trustee.

Before the scholarship presentations, these five AFA leaders attended a luncheon at the Buena Vista Palace Hotel, sitting with the cadets who would be receiving awards in their name. This is how Clark ended up trading stories with—and later being formally introduced to the audience by—the former Chief of Staff.

The Cyber-Defenders

In San Antonio, the Alamo Chapter’s aerospace education foundation joined the local University of Texas and AFJROTC units in sponsoring a cyberdefense competition for local high school students.

The purpose was to raise the level of awareness of computer and network security. It was not an easy contest. It began last October, when the chapter sent out flyers advertising the competition. Students were required to send in a letter by November declaring their intent to compete.Twenty-five high schoolers then wrote papers—due in December—on why securing one’s home personal computer is important to the nation’s critical infrastructures.

On Feb. 11, the contestants faced two more hurdles: They took a written exam, created by staff members at UT San Antonio’s Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security and judged by volunteers from the Information Systems Security Association. Then they took a “practical exam,” where they had to find and fix security problems in a computer system. The top $500 prize for the individual winner went to Kyle Broekers from Judson High School in Converse. He also won a $500 prize for submitting the best paper.

AFJROTC units competed as fourperson teams, with the task of securing four-system networks having different operating systems and applications. The AFJROTC cadets from Medina Valley High School in Castroville took home $500 each.

The Alamo Chapter put together more than $3,000 in prize money for winners of this rigorous competition: $2,000 came from the chapter’s educational foundation; $750 came from the chapter; and AEF provided a matching grant of $750. Alamo Chapter’s William D. Croom Jr., Kermit V. Bjorge, and Kaye H. Biggar, president of the chapter’s aerospace education foundation, presented the awards.

Return of the Warthog

It was a return engagement for former A-10 pilot Capt. Kim N. Campbell. In November, she spoke at the Iron Gate Chapter (N.Y.) meeting, held at the Cradle of Aviation Museum, in Garden City, N.Y.

Campbell had first visited with the chapter almost exactly two years ago, when she had earned nationwide media attention for flying her Warthog back to base in Iraq, despite severe damage from ground fire.

Chapter President Frank T. Hayes had kept in touch with Campbell, who is now a project officer with the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, Nellis AFB, Nev. This time, Hayes arranged first for Campbell and her mother, Paula Reed, to visit Northrop Grumman’s fatigue analysis lab where Campbell’s battle-damaged A-10 is now a test article.

The chapter’s reception took place the next day, arranged by Iron Gate Secretary Carol Nelson and enhanced by several organizations that volunteered to contribute to the event: The USO learned about this reception and sent a troupe of five entertainers. The FAA also asked Hayes if it could present its Wright Brothers Master Pilot awards during the meeting. This included a posthumous award honoring two-war ace Col. Francis S. Gabreski.

Hayes contacted the Gabreski family; they sent nine members to receive the award. Other VIP guests were New York State President Fred Di Fabio; Long Island Chapter President Alphonse Parise; and Col. Michael F. Canders, commander of the 106th Rescue Wing (ANG), Gabreski Arpt., N.Y. Canders brought five Iraq War veteran helicopter pilots to the meeting.

Hayes reported that during her presentation, Campbell—a 1997 Air Force Academy graduate who invited two of her classmates to the meeting—gave all credit to her crew chiefs, flight instructors, and unit leaders.

Emergency Lighting

The electricity went out just before the February meeting of the Columbus-Bakalar Chapter (Ind.). The audience was undeterred. By the dim illumination of emergency lights, they listened to Robert W. Palmer describe his World War II experiences in the South Pacific.

Chapter members even rounded up flashlights so they could look at some photos Palmer had brought in of his crew and their aircraft.

Former bomber pilot Palmer evoked the era for his audience by wearing a leather A-2 jacket, a tan 50-mission crush hat, and aviator sunglasses. Palmer said that he had set out to enlist the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed. After some delay, he got his wish in March 1942 and trained as an aviation cadet. He learned to fly the P-40 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang but was soon flying B-24s because of the need for bomber pilots in the Pacific Theater.

Palmer was stationed with the 400th Bomb Squadron, based in New Guinea, and completed 175 missions. He remained with the squadron, becoming an instrument instructor pilot, to the end of the war. By then, the unit had moved to several South Pacific islands, the Philippines, and to Ie Shima, where it had been preparing for the invasion of Japan. After the war, Palmer became a physician.

Among the guests enjoying Palmer’s wartime recollections were Great Lakes Region President William A. Howard Jr. and State President Thomas Eisenhuth— who drove 170 miles from Fort Wayne to Columbus to attend the meeting—and a fellow Liberator pilot, Robert E. Kirk.

Keeping Count

AEF recently awarded 140 Educator Grants to teachers from Maui to Maine. The awards encourage aerospace education in classrooms from kindergarten through 12th grade by funding activities that school districts cannot afford.

In Florida, Central Florida Chapter’s aerospace education VP Richard A. Ortega noted the numbers. More grant recipients—32 of 140—came from the Sunshine State than any other, he wrote. Ortega, who also serves as state aerospace education VP, said that he and his chapter president, John Timothy Brock, sent letters of appreciation to each Educator Grant teacher in their state.

Since the AEF program strives to build a relationship between a grant recipient and the local chapter, in February Ortega visited the classroom of local-area winner James Bowlin to offer congratulations. Bowlin is a retired naval aviator and teaches science at Oviedo High School. Ortega used the classroom visit to introduce Bowlin to AFA and AEF and to invite him to join the association.

Bowlin plans to use the Educator Grant to fund a class field trip to the Kennedy Space Center.

More AFA News

A former photojournalist who covered wars in Somalia, Haiti, Kosovo, and Iraq described his experiences to the Gen. Charles A. Horner Chapter in January in Des Moines, Iowa. John Gaps III spoke about his nine years as an Associated Press photographer—“global exploits following the American warrior,” as Chapter President Richard R. Schlegel II characterized it. Gaps was shot by a sniper in the Gaza Strip in 1994 and, during recovery, compiled a book of black and white photos and poetry chronicling his experiences. Schlegel said Gaps brought the book, God Left Us Alone Here: A Book of War, to the chapter meeting.

A retired Air Force F-4 pilot “dazzled” members of the Tarheel Chapter (N.C.) with a presentation on the Joint Strike Fighter, reported Troy D. Cash, chapter secretary. Clint Null, from the Lockheed Martin Center for Innovation in Suffolk, Va., gave a multimedia briefing on the F-35 to a February meeting. Null was able to explain clearly the complex technologies involved in the fifth generation fighter, Cash said. The 50,000-square-foot Center for Innovation opened last April and focuses on analysis, rapid prototyping, and collaborative experimentation. Last fall it added a net-enabled air combat simulation capability to help investigate the performance of the JSF and the F-22.

The Gen. Robert E. Huyser Chapter helped host a Colorado Department of Transportation aerospace education workshop for teachers. Chapter President Michael E. Peterson said more than 30 elementary and middle school teachers spent two days in Grand Junction, learning “the basics of flight” and “how to get the airplane story across to their students.” The workshop’s highlight was orientation flights, provided by volunteers from the Experimental Aircraft Association.

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