Aviation

Two Clark County businesses located at the Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport received a boost from the recent Barnstorming Carnival, an air show that was held on the site last weekend. Both companies hope the event generated more support for the airport.

Aviation enthusiasts in the Clark County area will get to have an air show of their own this weekend. The Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport and Airpark will be the site for the first-ever Barnstorming Carnival in the area.

Pilots from all over the country will fly their vintage planes mostly from the 1920s and 1930s to Springfield. Dewey Davenport organized the event. He says Barnstorming refers to that era when pilots would go from town to town, usually landing on a farm and then offer rides to people for money.

Ever since the Wright brothers began selling airplanes, there’s always been a mystique about the airplane owner. Not everyone can or will buy one. Seventy years ago, one man tried to make buying an airplane as easy as buying a shirt.

An effort to preserve the original Wright Brothers airplane factory got a boost Wednesday when Governor John Kasich signed the state’s 2014 capital budget. The historic site could become part of Dayton’s national aviation park system. 

Demolition has already started at the former Delphi plant on Home Avenue where the Wright Factory is located. The National Aviation Heritage Alliance hopes to purchase the historic buildings and 20 surrounding acres. A private developer owns the land now. 

Seventy years ago, the country was deep into World War Two, and the US was on the offensive in the air.  Commentator Dan Patterson says that the big US four engine bombers were being shot down in shocking numbers.

Think about this: on one mission, we lost sixty bombers.  That's six hundred men.  It was just too much.

The US needed a fighter plane with long pegs, one that could go all way deep into Germany and protect the bombers, essentially win the air war and provide the long sought after supremacy of the air.