Page 10 - DFCS News Magazine Summer 2012

It's almost August!
Time to get your registrations in for the 2012 convention/reunion of the DFC Society!
Registration deadline is July19!!
In addition to the optional events, note that the following are included in the registration fee:
VIP Tour of the Boeing Wide Body Plant at Paine Field, Everett, Washington, to include transportation to and from the Hotel,
Terry Sullivan, 2012 Reunion Chair A VIP tour of Paul Allen's (Microsoft fame) private collection at the Flying Heritage
Collection on Paine Field (these are flying aircraft, not museum pieces!), Monday night dinner poolside in Marriott Hotel Atrium,
Tuesday night seafood buffet dinner (with live/silent auction) with wine and dessert, and
Wednesday night commemorative dinner with all the trimmings (honoring our WW II DFC recipients) at the Museum of Flight, Boeing Field. Guest speaker for the evening will be Jonna Doolittle Hoppes, grand- daughter of General Jimmy Doolittle! In attendance at the dinner along with all of our World War II honorees will be LtCol Ed Saylor, USAF Retired, Copilot on the #15 Doolittle Raider!
Please note that all World War II, Distinguished Flying Cross Society members receive $100 discount on the registration fee!
Get your registrations in as soon as possible (helps with our planning efforts) by mailing them to the Reunion BRAT, 16817 Mountain Side Drive East, Greenwater, WA 98022.
For more information call 360-663-2521
See you in Seattle, August 19 - 23
This is Todd Frommelt, current President of the A4 Skyhawk Association. I was invited by Chuck Sweeney to make a short recruitment pitch for your distinguished magazine to alert you to our organi- zation and its mission. Formed around a table at Tailhook ‘93 with some 130 names on a clipboard, the Asso- ciation has grown now to close to 1000 members, mostly Navy and Marine pilots of the Skyhawk, but also international folks (A-4’s still fly in 5 other countries), mechs, modelers and just regular aficionados. We are a fraternal-social affiliation and are dedicated to the preservation of the legend, history, traditions, and “light attack” community camaraderie with which many of you are well familiar.
In this the second centennial year of Naval and Marine Aviation, I thought I’d mention that that camaraderie is probably the most important asset of the Association. It is a bond that I believe is unique amongst our many brothers and sisters in aviation. Our primary objective is to facilitate the maintenance of those feelings and -- with that in mind -- we are forever going to be encouraging community communications, promoting
and organizing reunions large and small, acting as a conduit for finding lost buddies (be they relatives, specific unit comrades or just friends and old acquaintances), being a go-to source for researching any and all Skyhawk information and consistently reaching out to those of the Skyhawker community who have fallen out of touch.
We try to do all this with our amazing web site, newly updated and expanded, at www.A4Skyhawk.org , our at least three times a year Journal, three Newsletters, two open Board of Directors meetings and an Annual Membership meet-
ing each year (the next meetings will be at Reno, Hook ‘12), some snail mail, and lots of email com-
munications. We always man a booth at Tailhook and there are also about a dozen or so mini-
reunions hosted by members across the country. Our modelers’ side of the house posts regular up- dates on the web site and Journal and we present an A-4 award at the annual International Plastic Modeling Society convention. We also maintain close touch with a large variety of artists and arti- sans who depict the Skyhawk in their art with grace, accuracy and professional quality.
We’d love to have you in the membership ranks! We are all well aware that money and time can be tight...but also that our Skyhawk com- munity is getting older all the time. Did you know that close to 100 Skyhawks are still flying around the world? A fine tribute to Ed Heine- mann’s design. But the flyers are declining, I’m afraid...as both the airframes types and we daring young men of old start showing our age. Get back in touch while we’re still going balls to the wall! Drop me an email at toddfrommelt@roadrunner.com or you can also join up directly on the website. Trust me; you’ll be glad you did! Thanks for reading! Hun sends
Summer 2012 Issue Page 10