Mary Chance VanScyoc,
First Female ATC
|
|
|
1970s Largest Black-Owned FBO in the U.S. located in Wichita KS
Former Kansas State Senator (1992-2003) Rip Gooch was trained in Alabama during WWII as a Tuskeegee Airman,
and upon returning to Kansas, continued a lifetime of committment to aviation. He had passed his \
first class medical when I spoke with him in 2003. His FBO (Fixed Base Operator) business
is a subject of comment on the web:
http://www.aviationexperts.org/files/Fond_of_Flying.pdf in an Acrobat® document,
Janet Bednarek's research, "Fond of Flying: General Aviation," presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Denver, Feb. 14, 2003.
Through the 1970s, however, FBOs owned and operated by African Americans remained very limited and mostly confined to smaller airports. Examples included Ulysses "Rip" Gooch, in Wichita, Kansas. Owner of the largest black-owned FBO in the country, he offered flight instruction, had a Mooney Aircraft dealership, rented and leased aircraft, and performed helicopter maintenance under contract with the U.S. Army.
U. L. "RIP" GOOCH received the Governor's Aviation Honor Award presented by the
Kansas Aviation Museum in 1993,
His biography, written in concert with local writer, Glen Sharp, was released in the summer of 2006,
"Black Horizons, One Aviator's Experience in the Post-Tuskegee Era" originally could only be purchased
through the author. (Yep, he autographed ours!)
See the Wichita Business Journal report online at
http://wichita.bizjournals.com/wichita/stories/2006/07/31/story10.html
When available, you will be able to purchase from our online shop.
|
photo taken in the KSU Globalflyer hangar
during panel
discussion at Salina Airport, Salina, Kansas
Courtesy Dan Linn ©2006
|
More on Gooch's aviation contributions at Wings Over Kansas website:
www.wingsoverkansas.com/profiles/article.asp?id=125.
|
L.W. Clapp
L.W. Clapp, former Wichita Mayor (1917-1919), namesake of the
Clapp Public Golf Course who
established the
Wichita's Park System in the 1920s, is also credited with the Art Deco design of the magnificent
former municipal airport building, and for the design of crowning bas-relief mural of Lindbergh's
Atlantic crossing.[Mr. Clapp's Queen Anne style home, built in 1887, is listed on the web by the City at
http://www.wichita.gov/Residents/History/Listing11-20.htm.
We could also note just how fitting it is that one Museum board member, John E. Kiser (Goodrich), tirelessly
generating enthusiasm for an annual golf game that proves a successful fundraiser!
Boeing, Rosie-the-Riveter, and Restoration
Contemporary 29-year Boeing veteran, Beulah is part of an honored tradition that began in
World War II with squadrons of female factory workers, celebrated in the popular song
"Rosie the Riveter," a mythical figure on posters selling war bonds and boosting morale.
in an
article by National Geographic.
Then wing-it on over to the
B-29 restoration website provided by Boeing (where the work is being done),
and archives of visiting former original
Rosie the Riveters as they visit the work site, and catch the ongoing effort of some
of todays hardworking volunteers.
Read all about it and catch delightful photos of reburbishment of B-29 nicknamed
"Doc", the last remaining of Snow Whites' naughty boys!
|
|
