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Western PA Aviation History

by Judith McGrath
Across
This airline has a Certificate Management Office (CMO) in Moon Township.
This controversial aviation pioneer claimed to a half mile motorized flight in his steam powered airship in Shenley Park in 1899 and another flight in Fairfield CT in 1901 – before the famed Wright Brothers flight in 1903!
QAI Aerospace in White Oak is an aviation MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul) company that conducts business in over THESE MANY countries.
Corkey Romeo, an SIU alum, was instrumental in starting the CBCC/SIU partnership and served as Dean of Aviation at CCBC. He was also the founder of this organization that flies in support of our wounded warriors.
The current aircraft at the Air National Guard unit (171 Air Refueling Wing) at PIT.
Piper aircraft were manufactured in this eastern PA town. It is also home to the Piper Aviation Museum.
Bob Rupert of Clinton served as a crew chief, and sometimes copilot, in Vietnam on this de Havilland all-purpose, slow-flying, prop-driven, single-engine utility aircraft.
This Cambria County airport is named after the longest serving member of the US House of Representatives from the Commonwealth of PA (1974-2010).
This Pittsburgh founded company was working secretly for the war effort during WW2 to produce glider wings which were then shipped to other locations for assembly with other glider parts. This operation helped us “catch-up” in the war effort.
A B-25 bomber crashed into this Pittsburgh river in 1956. The plane has yet to be found!
This Waco-9 biplane that hangs above the security checkpoint at PIT is known for making the first airmail flight from Pittsburgh to Cleveland in 1927.
This Oil City native is best known for his credited destruction of 34½ aircraft in aerial combat and being one of only seven U.S. combat pilots to become an ace in two wars, (WW2 and Korea).
Aviation History mo.
The type of FAA office located at AGC.
This McKean County airport originated as a WW2 emergency landing field.
This Pittsburgh native completed the first transcontinental flight in 1911 in a Wright biplane. He is interred in the Allegheny Cemetery on the North Side.
Name of the B-17 Flying Fortress that overran the runway at the Beaver County Airshow in 1989 and subsequently crashed during a “living history” flight in CT in 2019.
National Hall of Fame Inductee Charles Anderson, born in Bryn Mawr PA, became the first African American to receive an air transport license. In 1940 Anderson was recruited by the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. As the Chief Civilian Flight Instructor for its new program to train black pilots he subsequently earned this native American nickname.
In response to the conflicts between the airline and the victims’ families after the 1994 crash of USAir Flight 427 in Hopewell, Congress passed the Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act of 1996. Under the ADFAA, THIS FEDERAL AGENCY serves as the coordinator for the integration of federal government resources and the resources of other organizations to support efforts of local and state governments and the air carrier to meet the needs of aviation disaster victims and their families.
Rosa Mae Willis Alford worked her way through college as the sole female mechanic maintaining the aircraft flown by the Tuskegee Airmen. She settled in New Brighton and eventually was hired as the first African American guidance counselor at this local high school.
More than 90% of all alloys currently used in the aerospace industry were developed by this Pittsburgh founded company’s research. (Originally known as The Aluminum Company of America.)
Nearly 100 elite WW2 "Red Tail" airmen are honored with monuments in the Sewickley Cemetery.
The 258th military squadron, located at JST was the first squadron of this type in the Air National Guard.
Down
NFF Technologies in Aliquippa offers this “perk” making appliance for Airbus, Boeing, Embraer, and Bombardier airplanes.
Though many SIU graduates may work for NASA, this alum is the only astronaut.
This museum at BVI is dedicated to local aviation history and the restoration and preservation of aircraft and artifacts.
On May 10, 1967 Capt. Roger Netherland, a Beaver County native, was piloting a Douglas Attack Aircraft Skyhawk (A-4C) when he was shot down in THIS COUNTRY. His remains were recovered on September 12, 1989 and identified on June 1, 2000. His name is on the Memorial wall in Washington DC.
The replica Curtiss P-40 Warhawk at the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport honors this area native who was the Army Air Corps’ first flying ace of World War II.
This government agency operates a Certificate Management Office (CMO) in Moon Township.
The current aircraft at the Air Force Reserve unit (911th Airlift Wing) at PIT.
This McKeesport native was the first woman commercial airline pilot and flew for Central Airlines, calling AGC home base.
Pittsburgh native and USAF pilot who was the 8th man to walk on the moon in 1971.
What is now a renowned aircraft mechanic trade school, this AGC based institution was founded in 1927 with the help of Clifford Ball.
In 1947 an Air National Guard unit was formed at Pittsburgh Airport with the 146th and 147th Fighter Squadrons flying this airplane.
Before the merger with American Airlines in 2013, this carrier’s Pittsburgh roots traced back to the company that started as All American Aviation 1939.
During WW2 the Curtiss Wright plant, now the Eaton plant, located in Vanport manufactured these propulsion system components.
In 1928 this renowned aviator crash landed on a 45-acre grass runway field where Fox Chapel High School is today. The Avian II plane went up on its nose, breaking the propeller and leading edge of its left lower wing. It was a bad crash but fortunately no one was seriously injured.
Flight 427, the 737 that crashed in Hopewell in 1994, belonged to this airline.
In 1929 Charles Lindbergh landed his “Spirit of St. Louis” at this airfield that preceded AGC.
The number of SIU students in the first Aviation Management class (2016) held in partnership with CCBC.
This county airport is named after an Academy Award winning actor and National Aviation Hall of Fame inductee who flew 20 combat missions in WW2. He remained in the Air Force Reserve after the war and retired in 1968 as a brigadier general.
PIT land use before it was an airport.
This Pittsburgh native was a driving force behind the first airfield and airport in the area. He lobbied Congress to have the Airmail Act of 1925 passed, then operated the first airmail route from Pittsburgh to Cleveland in the late 1920s. He was the first superintendent of Greater Pittsburgh International Airport and in 1955 became the director of Allegheny County Airport. In 1990 he was inducted into the PA Air National Guard Hall of Fame. In 1996, while wandering around the PIT terminal, band members of Phish read a plaque dedicated to Ball. This prompted them to name their three-day festival in Plattsburgh NY after him.
County airport where Amelia Earhart received instrument training and had long range fuel tanks installed on her Lockheed 5B Vega.
When dedicated on September 11 1931, this was the third-largest airport in the U.S., the nation’s only hard-surface airport and the first with a fully lighted airfield.