A great deal has occurred at the Foundation since last season. First and Foremost, we have added two new outstanding people to our team!

As we briefly mentioned in the last newsletter, Steve Kirik has joined WHF as a demonstration pilot and our safety officer. Steve is currently a pilot for a major airline and was an F-15C Eagle pilot in Operation Desert Storm with over 49 combat missions to his credit. Steve also is a check pilot and instructor for the L-39 Albatros and T-38 Talon among other aircraft. Steve will be flying our F-86 Sabre and T-2 Buckeye in airshows around the midwest and will lead our effort to fly all of our aircraft in a safe manner.

Also joining our team as a full time aircraft mechanic is Sean Roarty. Sean is a graduate of Southern Illinois University's Aviation School, and is a certified airframe and powerplant mechanic with inspection authority. He is also a very accomplished competition aerobatic pilot. Sean will work full time for the Foundation, keeping all of our aircraft in top flying condition. To view our "Staff" page where you can learn more about Steve and Sean, click here. Please join us in welcoming both of these individuals to our team.

In other exciting news, the Foundation recently purchased a very rare Douglas A-4B Skyhawk from the EAA in Oshkosh. The aircraft is currently being restored to flying condition and we hope to be able to demonstrate this very unique and historic aircraft before the end of this airshow season. David Staffeldt, Sean Roarty, Vince Hammons (from Oshkosh), and Tom Patt are working hard on the project and are making great progress. If you would like to follow the project to completion, click here to go to the Warbird Information Exchange website. Under "General Discussion", in the "Maintenance Hangar" forum, follow the "A-4B inspection to Airworthy" thread. David Staffeldt will post pictures and commentary as we move along. David will also be posting pictures and updates on our own website under "Aircraft Showcase". As you can imagine, we are very excited about this recent acquisition. When we have completed the restoration, we believe that ours will be the only flying example of a single seat A-4 in the entire United States.

We have recently made two important updates to our website. Our summer airshow schedule has been posted on the "Events" page, and we have added YouTube videos of several of our aircraft in the "Aircraft Showcase" section. Please take some time to re-discover our website and tell all of your friends who may be interested in warbirds about us. Also, if you haven't already done so, be sure to sign our guestbook.

Remember that you can also download our outstanding and FREE Screensaver. It contains great high resolution photos of all of the Foundation's aircraft. Watch for an updated version with some new pictures coming soon.

As you can see, we've been quite busy, but having lots of fun! We'll keep all of you informed about future exciting news through additional issues of "The WHF Hangar".

So, for now, regards from the staff of the Warbird Heritage Foundation.