Museum visit caps Texas unit's Aerospace Education Excellence program

 

 

(1)
Senior members gaze at the only known unrestored example of a Japanese Type 95 artillery piece captured during World War II. While in recent years two other Type 95s have been recovered in terrible condition from jungles in the Philippines and sent back to Japan, the museum's staff has declined all requests from the Japanese government to return this gun. "Why should we?" museum manager Mike Delano said. "Our men captured it."
Photo by Maj. Richard Kolas

(2)
The Lubbock Composite Squadron's aerospace education officers, Maj. Lee Little Soldier and Capt. Terry Maroste, look at the museum’s "British Wall," which highlights the contributions of U.S. allies during World War II.
Photo by Maj. Richard Kolas

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Members wend their way through the museum's indoor display, which began with World War I aircraft and finished with Operation Paperclip, the post-World War II program to import German scientists.
Photo by 1st Lt. Kyle Vernon

(4)
Members finish inspecting flak damage on an F-105.
Photo by 1st Lt. Kyle Vernon

(5)
Members look over an F-101 at the museum that Lubbock Composite Squadron cadets are patching up to prepare for painting later this year.
Photo by Maj. Richard Kolas

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Found in the museum's collection: an original CAP membership card from 1944.
Photo by Maj. Richard Kolas


1st Lt. Kyle Vernon
Public Affairs Officer
Lubbock Composite Squadron
Texas Wing

TEXAS – A Civil Air Patrol Aerospace Education Excellence program that began in January with Lubbock Composite Squadron senior members’ reading a biography of astronaut Gordon Cooper culminated six months later on July 17 with a tour of rare aircraft at the Texas Air Museum in Slaton.

 In the intervening half-year, the senior members had scrambled to figure crosswind components for a flight, built model SR-7’s from Styrofoam plates and pipe insulation, learned to use sectional aeronautical charts and delved into a variety of other projects.

While completing the program was always fun, it wasn’t always easy. Getting all the ducks to line up sometimes presented problems of its own, and when a tour of Lubbock’s Silent Wings Museum drew only a few members, the squadron knew it had to try again.

Maj. Lee Little Soldier and Capt. Terry Maroste, the unit’s aerospace education officers, went the extra mile to line up another tour, this time selecting the Texas Air Museum to cap off the program. During the last few years the squadron has had a great working relationship with the museum, and officials there were able to put together a tour on very short order.

Participating members closed out the program’s requirements gazing at and learning about the museum’s varied aircraft collection that includes a flight-worthy Messerschmitt Bf-108, a Stinson AT-19 and the sixth F-18 ever to be released to a museum for display. The senior members also were able to inspect the F9F Panther that the squadron’s cadets had painted in 2009.

Charged up from the program, the squadron senior members plan to continue on just as if the program hadn’t ended.

After the museum tour, discussions around the lunch table included such activities as traveling to the New Mexico Museum of Space History in Alamogordo, as well as helping the unit’s cadets by building a payload for a rocket the younger members hope to create in coordination with the Panhandle of Texas Rocketry Society.