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March 2008
Aviation Film Festival to include Veteran’s appearance
Reel Stuff Film Festival adds real-life subject of Battle Hymn as screening co-presenter Retired USAF Col. Dean Hess served as technical advisor for 1956 Korean War classic; his role was played by Rock Hudson
(Dayton, OH - March 13, 2008) The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) announced today the addition of a very special co-presenter for its April 26 screening of the movie Battle Hymn, retired Air Force Col. Dean Hess. The film’s screening is one of eight as part of the NAHF First Annual Reel Stuff Film Festival of Aviation on April 24-26, 2008 in Dayton, Ohio.
Hess, who is also an ordained minister, flew over 300 combat missions in WWII and the Korean War and is the subject of this 1956 big screen classic, inspired by his post-war book of the same name. Actor Rock Hudson portrayed the role of Hess, who served as technical advisor to the production.
Battle Hymn dramatizes the true-life struggle of Hess as he trained South Korean pilots for war under combat conditions, while also tending to the care and safety of increasing numbers of orphaned children scavenging around his airfield. Hess led an effort to feed and house the children by establishing an orphanage in Seoul, Korea. With invading Chinese armies from the north about to engulf the defenseless orphans, Hess shepherded them to a local airport and rallied the Fifth Air Force to the rescue. “Operation Kiddy Car” saw the evacuation on C-54’s of nearly a thousand children to safety on Cheju Island, off the southern coast of Korea. There, Hess established a permanent institution for Korean War orphans, later donating all royalties from both his book and the movie to support this effort.
“Colonel Hess exemplifies the very best of patriotism, courage and compassion,” said NAHF Executive Director, Ron Kaplan, who also serves as the festival’s Founding Director. “It will be the very special privilege of our Reel Stuff audience to meet and hear Colonel Hess personally share his inspirational story.”
Co-presenting Battle Hymn with Hess will be James H. Farmer, a noted aviation and cinema historian from Glendora, California. Farmer is an author and illustrator whose credits include the acclaimed 1984 book, Celluloid Wings: The Impact of Movies on Aviation. Farmer has written hundreds of feature articles and film reviews for such publications as Air Classics Magazine, the Journal of the America Aviation Historical Society, and Flight Journal Magazine, where he serves as a contributing editor.
Projects to be screened are at the First Annual Reel Stuff Film Festival include documentary, classic and contemporary theatrical releases in which aviation history or the passion for flight is the subject or instrumental to the storyline. Each movie will be introduced by an actor, producer, aerial coordinator or cinematographer associated with its production, and an audience question-and-answer session will follow each screening. This event is open to the public, with all Reel Stuff ticket and merchandise proceeds benefiting the Dayton-based NAHF, a Congressionally chartered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to honoring America’s outstanding air and space pioneers.
Among the eight presenters and eight films to be screened over the three-day Reel Stuff Film Festival of Aviation are Cliff Robertson/633 Squadron, Clay Lacy/Top Gun and the IMAX Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag, Brian J. Terwilliger/One Six Right, and Wilson “Connie” Edwards/Battle of Britain.
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F-117A Stealth Fighters Retired
It”s difficult to believe, but the U.S. Air Force is retiring the F-117A Nighthawk. The odd looking fighter was formulated in the early 80’s at the Lockheed Skunk Works after significant brain and computing power devised the faceted shapes that could reflect radar, making the jet almost invisible to radar.
Operating in secret from the Tonopah Test Range in Nevada starting in 1983, the Stealth Fighter was not acknowledged publicly until 1988. The jet made it’s local public debut at the 1990 Dayton Air Show where it was surrounded by an awestruck public throughout the show.
In 1993 Dayton Daily News reporter Tim Gaffney and I traveled to the Link simulator plant in Binghamton, New York, to be the first journalists to see the cockpit of the Nighthawk. With it’s standard fighter jet layout: center stick and left-hand throttle, the most interesting part of the control panel was the green-colored infrared targeting and acquisition screen, seen at the center of the panel in this photo. Just like the grainy videos of bombs striking their targets we had seen from the first Gulf War, symbols on the green screen could be locked onto targets in the simulator, but we didn’t get to drop any laser-guided bombs. The simulator was fixed to the floor, so I didn’t get the “wobbly goblin” sensation that many early Stealth Fighter pilots described about the jets handling characteristics. I did try my hand at flying the instrument landing system and landing. Let’s just say I’m glad it was a simulator.
The Stealth Fighter will be officially retired during a private ceremony at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 after 27 years of service.
One Nighthawk from the 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force Base will be on display and one will fly over Wright-Patterson at approximately 10:30 a.m. as a salute to the workers in the program office at the base.
Ten of the Stealth Fighters were retired last year and 27 so far in 2008. The remainder will be placed in storage next month according to Diana Filliman, director of the 650th Aeronautical Systems Squadron at Wright-Patt.
