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2012 Convention

Report from 9th Annual AEHS Convention

Pensacola, Florida (May 9 - 12, 2012)

by Tom Fey, 18 May 2012


2012 Convention Attendees at the National Naval Aviation Museum Photo Courtesy of Bill Brogdon (click for a larger image)	2012 Convention Attendees Panorama Courtesy of Bill Brogdon (click to animate, requires QuickTime If you do not have QuickTime, here is a larger panorama )

Traveling to Pensacola from Chicago by way of Atlanta took around four hours and was without hassle. The hotel shuttle got me to the hotel in time for the Wednesday night kick-off hors d’oeuvres and a chance to say hello to my fellow engine heads. Energy and smiles filled the ballroom, with Dave Birch and Fred van der Horst coming across the pond, and John Brand down from Toronto, to join the proceedings. Some members spent the early part of the week visiting Mobile, Alabama to see the battleship USS Alabama and Continental Motors, Inc. Pensacola is a clean town with water everywhere you look, and the Gulf Coast is mild, beautiful, and quiet in the calendar sweet spot between Spring Break and the Summer Occupation. The Crowne Plaza Pensacola hotel itself, the food, and the staff were outstanding, although the 5:40 am, (or was it 2:20 am?) freight train thundering by had some folks thinking Blitz! I never heard a thing. And they found and returned my coveted Miss Ashley II t-shirt to me long after I departed. So I’ll be back to this area for sure.

The talks this year were diverse and authoritatively presented: aircraft diesels, Sir Harry Ricardo, speed-density fuel controls, Merlin engine installation testing at Rolls-Royce, contra-rotating propeller aircraft, and the interesting geopolitical, national/commercial, and technical history of the ATAR series of turbojet engines. I’m not sure you could find such a line up anywhere else, and we are indebted to the presenters for their investment and excellence in their topics.

Breaks were filled with animated discussion and looking over two tables of items for silent auction. Movie night on Thursday was a smorgasbord of topics from aircraft and engine videos of every sort to paralyzingly funny English audio rendition of The Bricklayer. Outside the entertaining company of my fellow members and The Bricklayer, the true gem of the evening for me was a color film of the ground and flight testing of the XP-47H with the Chrysler XI-2220 engine in Evansville, Indiana. Let history note the darker quarter panels on the painted spinner are bright red.

The National Naval Aviation Museum (http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org) is a spectacular facility, with engines, aircraft, displays, mountable cockpit sections, and an IMAX theater that filled a half day but left much more to be explored. I never got to the outside aircraft park. Regrettably, the Maintenance Facility Hangar was not available to us, and that alone could have consumed a day. The fenced storage area held a treasure trove of dozens of intact aircraft (A-4s, Fat Albert, S2Fs, Neptune) as well as the Curtiss Helldiver that recently emerged from a California reservoir (http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/aug/20/world-war-ii-helldiver-bottom-lower-otay-lake). The SB2C-4 sat front and center right on trestles inside the gate, flanked by its demated engine and wing. The Museum resides on an active naval base, so wandering and poking around was not an option.

The Friday banquet was a wonderful affair where members got to meet the many spouses that accompanied the Society members. The food, like the facilities, set a new standard for our group, and the bartender kindly schooled the inept Midwesterners to master shucking and devouring the tasty red crawfish. I can eat kabobs in Chicago; to me and John Fowler, the crawfish were a menu expansion. Historian George Cully gave full diligence to another diverse topic, the aircraft range extension problem: 1939-1959, in the after dinner talk.

I wasn’t due to fly out until later Saturday, so I tagged along with Sam Ferguson who drove the 45 minutes east to the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin AFB (http://www.afarmamentmuseum.com). The outside display aircraft were in excellent condition, and included the only long-tail SR-71, Spectre AC-130 gunship, CH-53 Super Jolly Green Giant, B-52, B-47, B-25, Mace and Hound Dog missiles on their unique transporters, and a pristine Mother of All Bombs (Actually MOAB – Massive Ordinance Air Blast). Inside, a two-seat Cavalier P-51 chase plane, P-47 Thunderbolt, F-80, and single seat F-105 occupied the floor space alongside every description of munition and air launched missile. The upper mezzanine around the main floor held even more displays and case, filled with weapons, cannons, mines, bombs, bomblets, etc. Although somewhat dark and hard to get good photographs, the diversity of items and the excellent data panels made for a very satisfying visit. Since reading a Viet Nam era book 25 years ago that mentioned “frozen” gravel mines that were used to cordon-off enemy access to downed airmen, I have wondered how they work and what they look like. Now I know.

Among the many pay-offs from attending all nine AEHS Convention, I now have a set of friends, no longer acquaintances, that share my interests, help me find information that I seek, share their knowledge, their pictures, and their friendship with me. And make no mistake; they are a lot of fun to be around.

So I thank the Society, its members, and especially Kim McCutcheon, for building a community of historic significance that adds greatly to my pursuit of happiness.

2012 Convention Sights


Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Discussion	Pratt & Whitney J52	Pratt & Whitney J52	Pratt & Whitney J52

Pratt & Whitney J52	Pratt & Whitney J52	Pratt & Whitney J52	GE J79 Discussion

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