Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome
in his time now for our community connection right here on K one, the
one you trust. It is eight thirty three in our program. Today is
being brought to you by Arnold Moore and Kneecamp Funeral Home. Also Tall Grass
Motors and got Real Ministries. We've got a big two coming up this weekend,
folks. It's back to Bartlesville Regional Flying In here and I have Kevin
Connor, who's the fly In Committee chair. First of all, welcome,
welcome back to martles Well, how are you doing here, young man.
I'm doing good. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Now you're
a pilot, so you have a little bit of fun with this too,
and this is one of your many passions. And tell us a little bit
a little history and then we can get into what's going to happen this weekend.
All right here in Bartlesville. In the years past, this is the
this was home of the National Biplane Association, was established here years ago by
a fellow named Charlie Harris, and he organized a National Biplane Expo that happened
here in Bartlesville. The last flying happened in two thousand and nine, and
it was the largest biplane gathering in the world that happened right here in Bartlesville.
That happened early in the summer, and then later in the year in
the fall, the Bartlesville was hosted also the Tulsena Regional Flying Those were very
very big venues, big events, and known all around the area and they
were attracted a lot of people and a lot of airplanes, and and I
was able to attend those and see those and so we talked with the organized
a group of folks and the Flying Committee and talked about bringing a flying back
to Bartlesville. And so that's our plan and it's scheduled for this weekend.
This is really pretty cool. What sparked your interest in these older planes.
Well, I've always been interested in aviation since I was a child, and
then pursued flying as a career, which I'm a corporate pilot now, But
I've always been fascinated by early vintage airplanes and uh, and then I had
an opportunity to join the World War Two Airborne Demonstration Team and become a pilot
with them, flying the C forty nine and C forty seven, which are
military DC three airplanes which are used in some parachute World War Two parachute training
operations that happened down in southern Oklahoma. Are we bringing that here? Yeah,
Douglas C forty nine Wildcat. Yes, is actually hangered here in it's
it's permanent home. Now. Our team has two airplanes. One is still
based in Frederick, but we have a group of guys that are organized that
are from the Tulsa area and we come here usually a couple of days a
week and do maintenance on Wildcat and and so the airplane, it's a beautiful
airplane and we want to expose it as much as we can to folks here
in Bartlesfield. And you'll be able to see it fly this weekend. Are
you gonna have folks jumping out? Yeah? Oh my goodness sakes. Yeah.
So the Airborne Demonstration Team they exist or remember, honor and serve World
War Two veterans. And so we conduct parachute school in southern Oklahoma three times
a year, and people come from all over the country and out of the
country. They come and can train and experience original World War Two parachute training
is exactly as they jumped on D Day, and so we have some of
our members that are coming a part of our parachute team that will be here
and we're going to do a honor World War Two veterans and also the Women's
Air Service pilots. We have a nice exhibit for those that folks will be
able to see here at the fly in and the parachute operation will happen on
Saturday the twenty third around the noon to one o'clock hour. And we also
have a youth honor team that we've organized, and the Youth honor team they
are going to be present and organized and they will read a short biography about
a World War Two veteran from Bartlesville, Okay and uh. And then once
that uh they read that, then we'll assemble those the youth together and we
have a small cloth American flag that they're going to present two each of our
jumpers on our job team in honor of those veterans. Uh. And then
we will our team will board the airplane, will fire up Wildcat, go
flying, and then do a demonstration jump right there on the field for the
public. Wow, this is gonna be cool. Yeah, this is gonna
be cool. You know, we were talking about how we do have still
a few World War Two veterans around, and day by day were losing them.
But you know, it's it's great to have these folks still around,
still a big part of our history, and they deserve all the honored tribute
that they absolutely. Yeah, they are, and people will be able to,
like you mentioned earlier, to witness living history. I've become acquainted with
a local history in that. You've met Joe Todd. Yeah, he's been
a guest on our show several times. Great guy, he's pretty amazing.
Uh. And I spoke with Joe yesterday. He called me and let me
know that we have a World War Two veteran, James Todd, no relation
to Joe, but James Todd, as ninety seven year old World War Two
veteran, will be at the event. And we also have a Harold Turner.
I believe Harold lives here in Ballsville and he's one hundred and three years
of age and he'll be at the flying as well. So it'll be great
to have those gentlemen. And we're going to honor those, uh, those
World War Two veterans and uh and uh, the goal is is to bring
this younger generation and uh and educate them about World War two history and be
able to actually meet these gentlemen and witness how parachute operations happened in World War
Two. Wow, this is this is going to be exciting. I understand.
We're also going to have a nice little honor for the Girl Scouts and
Trial Life well Trail Life Group, and also the local Girl Scout group.
They're the ones that are going to make up the the youth honor team.
Oh, okay, they are exactly. So We've I've spoken with the leaders
of both of those groups and we'll assemble those and they are going to be
the ones that will honor the veterans uh and do the flag presentation to our
jumpers and UH and then go execute the jump. This just keeps getting better
yea. And we also have we also have a group of eight six Texans
that are coming from the Tulsa area and that will be doing some formation flying.
There's also a group of the Advance RFI aircraft that will be on display
and also doing some formation demonstration. But the flying is open to the public
driving in to come into the fly in. Also, there will be a
lot of general aviation airplanes that will be flying into the event, so they
wouldn't mention it. Yeah, and so all of these aircraft and all of
these displays are available to the public, and that's why we're doing it.
We want to expose it and make all this available here in Bartlesville. Now,
if I heard right from our friend mister Richardson down at the city,
he said that it's like ten bucks of carloads will come on out, and
come on out and just fill up the parking lot and just have yourself a
ball, have yourself a day. It's really going to be not only entertaining,
but highly educational. That's true. We will have the Douglas C forty
nine Wildcat will be on display and open for tours. It'll be open all
day. Anybody can come on board the airplane, and the airplane's configured in
the original parachute configuration with troop seats, so you can see how the jump
operation works and how it's conducted. You can also tour the cockpit and see
what it looks like. And we'll also have a T six Texans on display,
some Steerman biplanes PT nineteen PT Twenty six airplanes that were all used as
trainers in World War Two that will be on display, and the folks will
be able You'll be able to come right up to the airplanes and talk to
the philots and learn about the history of the airplanes. This is going to
be really pretty cool now for the youngsters. Now, these are what your
great great grandfathers flew in. Absolutely, this isn't star trek, that's correct.
This is this is let's go get or done and come back home,
UH style of military aircraft here, and you're gonna see what what they what
they used, and how it was used and how effective it was. Yeah,
and the uh the parachute operations in the US Army Air Corps were basically
invented in UH back in World War two. And so our jumpers will be
wearing and configured with original style uniforms, helmets, the parachutes that they jump
or the old round parachute round canopies, just as they jumped in World War
two. Man. So if you've watched the History Channel or Discovery and watched
all those documentaries and you saw those nice, tightly spun round parachutes popping out
of the planes and black and white, you're going to see them in color
this time. That's right. Get with real people. Well they were real
people hanging on and those two. But you know, folks that you'd be
able to talk to afterwards. This is really going to be a really a
good thing for everyone. Yeah, and we're glad to do it. We
we looked at several locations to to UH hanger our airplane, and by far
Bartlesville was our our choice. And there was an opportunity to bring the airplane
to Bartlesville. And so we want to make it available to everybody. Everybody
know that it's here, uh and be able to see the airplane and what
we what the airplane is used for and uh. But we want to honor
our veterans, and the purpose of the UH the Youth Honor Group is we
want to we want to display how in Bartlesville, how are we want to
include our youth, educate our youth, and how to honor these veterans.
I think it's gonna work. I think so we have a lot of good
kids and a lot of good parents around here, and I think this is
something that's been a little overdue and I can't wait to see it myself.
I'm kind of itchy to get out there as well. Yeah. Absolutely,
and we're also going to feature back in World War Two the Women's Air Service
pilots, they were referred to as WASP pilots. We're going to have a
very nice WASP display and talk about that will expose history of WASP and their
home base and training base was in Sweetwater, Texas, and they were the
first ever women that trained to fly, were trained to fly military airplanes,
and they ferried airplanes, they towed targets. They flew airplanes to test run
engines and run them in then to be shipped overseas. And there's a lady
named Mary Jones, since has passed a few years ago. Mary was a
WASP pilot in War two and she was one of the original founders of the
National Biplane Association here in Bartlesville. So we'll talk a little bit about history
about Mary Jones and her experience as a WASP pilot. And so there we
have some things on the loans, such as an original uniform that was used
by WASP pilots that will be on display and a lot of history about WASP
and what they did. And that's the one of the things we want to
expose our youth on our team. They'll learn about that as well. Worth
your flying. And a lot of people don't know about the Women's Air Service
pilots at flew in World War which is pretty important. But yeah, so
we'll we'll have a nice exhibit displaying WASP history as well. Kevin Connor,
thanks for being our guest today and I can't wait to see out there Saturday,
and we'll have fun out there. Gates open at eight am and the
flying happens all day and the parachute operation happens on Saturday to twenty third around
the noon to one o'clock hour. Sounds great. Thank you.