FLYING HISTORY INTO THE FUTURE

Science-fiction writer and aeronautical engineer Robert Heinlein famously said, “A generation which ignores history has no past—and no future.” Warbird aircraft have been a part of American life since airplanes were adapted for warfare during World War I. Almost immediately afterward, the newly-surplus “war birds” that a few years before had served as fighters, bombers and trainers were turned to other uses, from aerobatic barnstorming and air racing to crop-dusting. Following World War II, they also featured in airshows as animate reminders of American history and sacrifice. Over the course of almost eight decades since the war’s end, roughly three generations of warbird pilots, maintainers, restoration specialists and collectors have preserved the ex-military aircraft so often featured at airshows and in the pages of Flight Journal. Many of us take them for granted,…