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Editorial

A s we head into another new year, it’s natural to take a look back at what we accomplished last year

and to look forward to see what’s coming up in the future. The year 2004 gave the staff and volunteers at War Eagles Air Museum a lot to be proud of. Thanks to a dedicated and hard-working team, we finished refurbishing our MiG-21PFM Soviet-era jet fighter. The aircraft is now one of the world’s finest examples. El Paso’s ABC station KVIA-TV 7 put to-gether a very nice piece on the MiG and the people who worked on it in a “South-west Treasures” segment. Last year we also participated in the Amigo Airsho for the first time in many years, held our sec-ond annual Chili Cookoff and acquired two new aircraft for our collection.

2005 is already shaping up to be a busy year. The U.S. Post Office wants to hold a ceremony at the Museum this summer to unveil a series of postage stamps com-memorating Advances in American Avi-ation. In October, we will host the Fifth Annual Land of Enchantment RV Fly-In, which should attract about 300 of the small, high-performance kitplanes and up to 1,200 people. The ramp will be full for sure during that event! We expect to at-tend the Amigo Airsho again this year, and we’ll also have our third annual Chili Cookoff—we’re on the Chili Apprecia-tion Society calendar permanently for the last weekend of every October. We also hope to consummate deals to acquire at least two more aircraft, if not more, for display. It should be a good year, and we all look forward to accomplishing more great things. Hope you’ll help out!

Contents Editorial......................................1 Featured Aircraft ........................1 From the Director.......................2 Tailspins with Parker..................4 Rent the Museum ......................4 Historical Perspectives ..............5 Warbird Formation Flight ...........6 Volunteer Profile ........................6 Membership Application ............7 Corporate Youth Sponsors ........7 Contributor Authors Novel .........8

Featured Aircraft

A t 10:00AM on December 7, 2004, War Eagles Air Museum staffers and volunteers gathered out on

the ramp. The radio call announcing the arrival of a very special aircraft had come in moments earlier on UNICOM frequen-cy 122.8 MHz. All eyes searched the sky to the east over the approach end of Run-way 28. The rugged Franklin Mountains loomed in the distance, remarkably clear of haze on this perfect flying day.

A tiny dot appeared. As it slowly grew larger, it resolved into a bright crimson

Featured Aircraft (Continued on Page 2)

The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum

First Quarter (Jan - Mar) 2005

Volume 18, Number 1

The beautiful 1937 WACO EGC-8 cabin biplane arrives at Santa Teresa after a short hop from El Paso International Airport.


From the Director

A fter years of trying to gain recog-nition as one of the premier at-tractions in far west Texas and

southern New Mexico, War Eagles Air Museum is becoming more widely known. The First January 2005 issue of Trade-A-Plane has our PT-17 Stearman, piloted by Bill Whitney and Jack Bell, on the cover. This photo brings us national exposure. Our Curtiss P-40E Warhawk appeared in a full-page photo on the front page of a special section of the El Paso Times on December 31 about the Sun Bowl football game. In the photo, rival quarterbacks Sam Keller of Arizona State University and Kyle Orton of Purdue posed in a World War II flight jacket. During the photo shoot, 20-year-old Kel-ler learned that the jacket belonged to 86-year-old Guy Dority, a long-time Muse-um volunteer who was the radio operator aboard the first B-17 Flying Fortress to arrive in England in 1942. He asked to meet Guy, and their meeting and discus-sion turned into a very nice feature article in the January 9 El Paso Times.

Such publicity can only be good for the Museum. Even better, we’ve seen some signs that the good word finally may be getting out. For example, we appear to be on the “contact list” of the local press and broadcast media for aviation-related mat-ters. We have gained recognition from aviation organizations such as the Inter-national Bird Dog Association. We host more parties, anniversaries and special events each year. Please help us spread the word about War Eagles Air Museum!

Skip Trammell

one and only flight attempt. Weaver and Meyers had plans ready when they pro-posed to Bruckner and Junkin that they join forces to build a single-seat mono-plane called the Cootie. Rolled out in 1920, the plywood Cootie crash-landed on its first flight, severely injuring pilot Weaver—hardly an auspicious start for the new aircraft manufacturer.

Undeterred, the men modified the Cootie into a biplane and called it the WACO 2. It crashed in April 1923. Then the part-ners built a practical-but-snug three-seat biplane called the WACO 4. Using many Curtiss JN-4D Jenny parts, the 4 was the first airplane WACO offered for public sale, the last to be of all-wood construc-tion and the real beginning of the WACO aircraft family. For the next 26 years, the name WACO was associated with versa-tile open-cockpit and cabin biplanes that offered exceptional performance, reliabil-ity and luxury.

In 1923, Weaver left his namesake com-pany for greener pastures elsewhere. The other partners moved the factory to Troy, Ohio, near Dayton. The company became a leading pioneer in the development of small, reasonably priced, easy-to-fly air-craft. The WACO 6, the first Troy-built model in the long line of WACO aircraft, was soon developed. The company’s next two aircraft, the WACO 7 and the WA-CO 8, were produced by 1924, but sales

were very slow. Things improved some the next year, however, with the introduction of the s t a t e -o f - the -a r t three-place WACO 9 biplane. The 9 gained much fa-vorable publicity from putting on a good showing in the 1925 Ford Air Tour, which trans-lated into increased sales. The com-pany sold 276 Model 9s between 1925 and 1927.

Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum First Quarter 2005

Plane Talk Published by War Eagles Air Museum 8012 Airport Road Santa Teresa, New Mexico 88008 (505) 589-2000

Newsletter Editor: Terry Sunday Contributing Author: Jim C. Parker

E-mail address: [email protected]

aircraft on a two-mile final. Closer it came, descending right on the glide path as its pilot corrected for the slight cross-wind. Touchdown, right on the numbers! After a short landing rollout, the stunning red biplane back-taxied to cross-taxiway A2 (airport construction had closed taxi-ways A3 through A5) and headed for the Museum hangar.

The latest aircraft to join the War Eagles Air Museum’s collection had arrived.

“It’s A WACO!”

In 1920, in Lorain, Ohio, four men who would play key roles in American avia-tion during the “Golden Age of Flight” got together and formed a new company. The men were: George “Buck” Weaver, a flight instructor and barnstorming pilot; Elwood “Sam” Junkin, a former Curtiss draftsman; Clayton “Clayt” Bruckner, an aircraft assembly foreman; and Charles “Charlie” Meyers, another barnstormer. Their new startup was called the Weaver Aircraft Company, but it soon became known as WACO (rhymes with “taco”).

Bruckner and Junkin had designed a sin-gle-engine “baby flying boat” in 1919. Sometimes called the WACO 1, although the company did not exist at the time, it was extremely underpowered and did not get airborne from Lake Erie during its

Featured Aircraft (Continued from page 1)

War Eagles Air Museum volunteers and staffers admire the WACO at its new home in the hangar. Featured Aircraft

(Continued on Page 3)


1927 Transcontin-ental Air Derby, and a Wright J-5-powered version won the 1928 Na-tional Air Tour.

With the onset of the Great Depres-sion in 1929, air-craft sales plum-meted overnight, and many compa-nies went out of business. Thanks to the popularity of its designs, and its ability to adapt to its customers’ changing needs, WACO was able to survive, albeit

with a greatly reduced production rate. By the early 1930s, the company had be-gun to concentrate on producing a series of stable and forgiving cabin biplanes for the business aircraft market, a move that put it in competition with established manufacturers like Bellanca and Stinson. WACO kept the quality of its aircraft high and their prices stable by refining its designs (leading to a complicated and confusing model numbering system), but leaving the basic configuration—wooden wings, steel-tube fuselage and fabric cov-ering—unchanged. Renowned aviator

Jacqueline Coch-ran and industri-alist Henry DuPont were two 1930s lu-minaries who fa-vored WACO cab-in biplanes.

When the U.S. en-tered World War II, WACO stopped building civil air-craft and used its facilities to manu-facture the CG-4A troop-carrying gli-ders that played a key role in the Al-lied D-Day inva-sion at Normandy.

Replacing the 9 in 1927, the WACO 10 was a big improvement in nearly every respect and soon became the most popu-lar small aircraft in the United States. That year more than 40 percent of the small aircraft sold in the country were WACOs—a market share that almost any company would envy today. It stickered out at $2,460 with a 90-horsepower Cur-tiss OX-5 engine. It soon earned an ex-cellent reputation as an air racer. A stand-ard model won the Class B trophy in the

Featured Aircraft (Continued from page 2)

First Quarter 2005 Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum

War Eagles Air Museum

On The Web

C heck War Eagles’ website for more information on the Mu-seum’s aircraft and automo-

bile collections, special event sched-ules, “fun and games” and more. We thank Bruce Quackenbush and Joe Jones of Artwork Studios in Denver for designing and maintaining our highly acclaimed website.

But the company did not survive the post-War general-aviation bust, and ceased building aircraft entirely in 1946. Today, almost 60 years after the last WACO rolled out of the factory, the brand still enjoys enormous popularity.

The aircraft donated to War Eagles Air Museum is a 1937 WACO EGC-8 cabin biplane. Donor Dr. Joseph Nelson found it in pieces in a barn in Belvidere, Illi-nois, in late 1990. He bought it and ship-ped it to El Paso in April 1991. It spent the next seven years being lovingly re-stored by dedicated enthusiasts Martin Engler (Chief Engineer), Dean Moon (Chief Metal and Woodworker), Bill Zal-esak (Master Mechanic), Alfredo Olivas (Master Painter) and Dr. Nelson himself, who deprecatingly said he was the “Gen-eral Flunky.” After restoration, the air-craft won the Grand Champion award at the 42nd Annual Arizona Mid-Winter Cactus Fly-In in 2000. Thanks to Dr. Nelson’s generosity, Museum visitors can now see for themselves an excep-tional example of a magnificent aircraft from aviation’s “Golden Age.”

The WACO’s magnificent wood-and-leather interior is reminiscent of a classic luxury automobile.

Donor Dr. Joe Nelson (l.) and Museum Director Skip Trammell con-summate the donation of the beautiful WACO EGC-8.

WACO EGC-8 Characteristics

Powerplant 400-hp Pratt & Whitney R-985-33 Wasp Junior

Cruising Speed 195 mph Service Ceiling 23,200 feet Weight (max.) 4,000 pounds Length 27' 9.75" Wingspan 34' 9"



on their foreheads. They must’ve thought Billy was going to introduce them to Je-sus right then and there.

“Anyway, the flight ended fine. Soon af-terwards, Billy went up to Americal Div-ision for the rest of his tour.”

Geronimo finished his tale. “I saw him when he came back through TSN. We talked for a while and he told me he was gettin’ out of the Army and goin’ back to West Virginia to be a preacher. He’d really found his callin’. He said, ‘I can’t wait to get back and start saving souls.’

“God bless you, Billy, wherever you are,” Geronimo ended.

I told Geronimo I understood what he meant and added, “Amen.”

T he other day, I was talking to my old friend Geronimo about relig-ion. “Sometimes religions can

make people nervous,” he said, “scarin’ ’em instead of providin’ comfort. I’ve observed that to be the case mostly when different faiths collide. People tend to go all skittish and jump around like wild-eyed colts with their ears laid back.”

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of ask-ing him what he meant.

“Well,” he said, “let me tell you about Billy. ‘Course, that’s not his real name, but I’m protectin’ his privacy.

“I first met Billy in flight school. He was a real party animal. He hailed from the coalfields of West Virginia, and nobody could out-drink, out-fight or out-anythin’ ol’ Billy. He never missed a chance to get in trouble. One night at the Officer’s Club someone dared him to jump from the second floor balcony onto the dance floor. Bein’ more than a little drunk, ol’ Billy did it. He didn’t break anythin’, not even his legs. He was just as enthusiastic about his flyin’ too. He loved it.

“Years went by and I’d long since lost track of Billy. One day in 1967, at Ton Son Nhut airbase in Saigon, I was drivin’ to my office at the helipad. Just before I got there, I saw a familiar-lookin’ figure walkin’ on the shoulder of the road. Sure enough, it was ol’ Billy. With his light blue eyes and red hair, graying now at the temples, he looked almost the same as he did in flight school. He wore the gold leaf rank of a Major on his collar. I stopped and offered him a ride.

“I asked him what he was doin’. He told me he’d been flyin’ with ‘Capital Flight,’ the unit that flew American and Vietnam-

ese VIPs around the country. But he’d just been reassigned to the Americal Di-vision up near the DMZ.

“That was all we had time to talk about before I dropped him off at his gate. As we parted, he looked at me and said, ‘God bless you,’ before turnin’ away.

“Later, in a little bar in downtown Sai-gon, I talked with the pilot who had flown with Billy and he told me why Bil-ly was sent up to Americal Division.

“It seems Billy had become a born-again Christian just before he went to Vietnam. Now, everybody is welcome to his or her own religious beliefs in the American military, so no one thought much about it. At least not until Billy got assigned to fly Nguyen Van Thieu, the President of South Vietnam, somewhere in one of Capital Flight’s big twin-turbine Beech-rafts. After they got to altitude, Billy left his pilot’s seat, ducked through the hatch into the passenger cabin and looked at the President and his party. They all paid close attention to him ‘cause they fig-gered he was gonna make some sort of an in-flight announcement. He eyeballed them all very seriously. Then he took a little bible out of his pocket. Starin’ the President straight in the eyes, Billy asked him, ‘Have you been saved? Have you found your Jesus?’

“The pilot in the bar told me that Thieu didn’t even blink, although his eyebrows rose up a bit. The President had been born a Buddhist, but he’d converted to Cath-olicism when he’d got married. But some of his staff were Buddhists. Man, were they startled. They took furtive glances out the windows to see how high up they were, their eyes squintin’ and drops of sweat beadin’

Tailspins with

Parker

Rent the Museum for Special Occasions

R emember, War Eagles Air Museum is available to rent for business meetings, anni-

versaries, parties or other occasions. The “Party Zone” can hold up to 700 people. Call (505) 589-2000 for rates or to make a reservation.

A recent inspection of the 1943 Stearman revealed a cracked spar and some bad ribs in the upper wing. Fortunately, master craftsman Bill Whitney is a Stearman expert. Here he works on the upper wing center section in the Museum restoration shop.


W ar Eagles Air Museum is for-tunate to have a fine example of America’s first jet trainer.

The Lockheed T-33 is a two-seat variant of the XP-80 Shooting Star, the first U.S. jet fighter that flew on June 10, 1944 (Bell’s twin-jet XP-59 actually flew ear-lier but did not become operational). Al-though the P-80 (later F-80) first flew nearly a year before World War II ended, it was not ready in time to see com-bat. Instead, it got its baptism of fire in Korea. This article examines the uses of F-80s in Korea and draws some compar-isons with circumstances facing the U.S. military in Iraq today.

Shooting Stars saw combat in Korea on the second day of the war. On November 8, 1950, an F-80 made history by shoot-ing down a Communist MiG-15 in the world’s first jet-vs.-jet aerial combat en-gagement. However, despite this initial victory, the F-80, designed near the end of WWII, was clearly outdated as a dog-fighter barely five years later. But until North American F-86 Sabres began to ar-rive in the combat zone, the F-80s would have to do. F-80s shot down six MiGs during the war at a cost of 15 of their own number—a highly unfavorable loss ratio. When the Sabres became available, the Air Force used the F-80s for ground-attack missions, at which they excelled.

Some Shooting Stars had their armament removed and were fitted to carry cam-eras. Designated RF-80s, these aircraft provided much valuable intelligence dur-ing the war. Penetrating beyond the Yalu River to overfly North Korean airfields, they shot only film while running the gauntlet of anti-aircraft fire and aggres-sive Communist pilots who wanted noth-ing more than to shoot them down. In spite of the extreme dangers facing these

unarmed solo flights into the maelstrom of “MiG Alley,” only one RF-80 failed to return from its recon-naissance mission—by any standard, an enviable combat rec-ord.

Although the T-33 stayed in service with the Air Force until the 1970s, its career as a front-line fighter ended almost as soon as it began. Their rapid technical obsolescence in the air combat role, how-ever, did not prevent Shooting Stars from performing superbly at other missions, thanks in large part to the quality, experi-ence and dedication of the personnel who flew and main-tained them. U.S. troops in Korea often had to do impossible things with WWII sur-plus weapons and equipment. Fortu-nately, many of them were veter-ans who had used the same weapons and equipment in WWII. The speed and ferocity of the Communist invas-ion led to callups of many reserve units. Thus quite a few WWII warri-ors were suddenly back in combat after a five-year hiatus. They had had just long enough to estab-lish solid civilian identities and to start or expand families that would, once again, have to “keep the home fires burning.”

The nation faces a similar situation to-day. The war in Iraq is forcing the mili-tary to send what it can to the theatre of operations for an undetermined length of time. As in 1950, the military must sta-tion units in locations around the world while trying to maintain adequate forces in hot spots. The response, again, is a massive call-up of reserve forces and an involuntary extension of the reservists’


deployment time commitments. As in Korea (amazingly still a hot spot today), the negative effect on military morale has been severe. Even the most dedicated soldiers can lose patience when their ord-ers to rotate home are countermanded. Recent controversies have arisen over the quality of the equipment our soldiers are provided with in Iraq. The effectiveness of our armored vehicles has been especi-ally subject to debate. It is right to raise such issues. However, as this column has illustrated, such controversies are nothing new.

War Eagles’ T-33, built under license by Canadair, represents a triumph of opera-tional necessity and ingenuity in the con-text of the Cold War “arms race.” The

Shooting Star excelled at missions for which it was never designed while falling short in those it was intended to perform. There are surely valuable lessons in the history of this venerable aircraft.

I conclude this article on a personal note. As some of you may know, for the last year I have been writing these columns from my temporary home in southeast Texas, about 800 miles from the Muse-um. I am happy to report that my transfer to El Paso has been approved, and I will return on February 15. I look forward to the opportunity to again work personally with everyone at the Museum.

Historical Perspectives by Robert Haynes

War Eagles Air Museum’s Canadian-built T-33 jet trainer thunders over the West Texas desert, piloted by Museum founder the late John MacGuire with Skip Trammell, Museum Director, in the back seat.



Formation Flight of Historic Warbirds

F our War Eagles Air Museum vol-unteers got the rides of their lives last October in conjunction with

the Amigo Airsho in El Paso. The Muse-um sent to the show the PT-17 Stearman and the North American AT-6 Texan, pil-oted respectively by Bill Whitney and Jack Bell. Volunteers Ray Davis, Manny Papadakis, Roy Sinclair and Ed Murray were offered chances to ride along in the extra seats to and from the Airsho. Need-less to say, they all enthusiastically ac-cepted the opportunity.

Volunteer Profile

J oseph Russo was born in Oakland, California, on June 15, 1922. He graduated from Oakland Technical

High School in 1939 and joined the U.S. Army in 1940. When America entered World War II in 1941, Private Russo, at the time on guard duty at Fort Winfield Scott’s 25th Avenue gate, applied for ad-mission to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was number 29 on the en-trance exam. He was admitted in 1942 along with the other top 50 applicants.

His first assignment was in Coast Artil-lery and anti-aircraft weapons. But he

really wanted to fly, so he signed up for pilot train-ing. He took his primary training at Grieder Field, Ar-kansas, in a PT-17 Stearman and fin-ished up at Stew-art Field, New York, in the Vul-tee BT-13 Valiant and North Ameri-can AT-6 Texan. By then, with the war almost over, the Army didn’t need any more pi-lots, so Joe did not get his wings de-spite having qual-ified for them.

As a second lieutenant in 1945, Joe was sent to San Marcilino airfield in the Phil-ippines. “The Japanese used San Marci-lino as a fighter base during the war,” he related. “We would often find Japanese soldiers in the Battery mess line, they were so hungry.” Joe flew as often as he could in L-19s and L-10s “on milk runs over Bataan Pass and Manila Bay.”

In 1947, LT Russo got his first assign-ment to Fort Bliss, Texas. The next year the Army sent him to the University of Virginia to earn his Masters Degree in Nuclear Physics. Returning to Fort Bliss

after graduating, he taught classes for maintenance technicians on the SCR-784 counter-mortar radar system.

“This system tracked incoming enemy mortar fire to its source and gave our troops precise enemy locations for coun-ter-mortar fire,” Joe recalled. “The techs we trained kept these systems operation-al. Unfortunately, while the SCR-784s were hardened, the operators and techs were not. The North Koreans knew how capable our units were. They zeroed in on them with mortars and artillery. The techs were getting killed faster than we could train them.” Joe volunteered to go to Korea, but the Army needed stateside instructors more urgently than troops in the field, so he stayed at Fort Bliss.

Among the many highlights of his mili-tary career, LTC Russo took the first Ar-my HAWK (Homing All-the-Way Killer) Battalion to Vietnam in 1966. “I’d al-ready been commanding the unit for three years,” Joe said. “I was pulled out of my Battalion and assigned as the Artil-lery Officer at MACV (Military Assis-

Volunteer Profile (Continued on page 8)

The Commemorative Air Force’s Sentimental Journey, a Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, flies in close formation with War Eagles Air Museum’s North American AT-6 Texan en route from El Paso back to its base at Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona. Photo by Roy Sinclair.

On the return flight to Santa Teresa, Jack and Roy in the AT-6 were able to fly in formation for a short time with Sentimen-tal Journey, the Commemorative Air Force’s Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress. Although the weather was overcast and drizzling rain, the brief formation flight of these two classic warbirds from Biggs Field through Anthony Gap to the west side of the Franklin Mountains, where Sentimental Journey banked to the north to avoid looming storms in the west, was a truly thrilling experience. We hope to forge a better relationship with the CAF and undertake more joint flights or aerial displays in the future.

This 1944 photo of Cadet Joseph Russo at the age of 22 was taken while he was in pri-mary flight training at Grieder Field in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.



W ar Eagles Air Museum sin-cerely thanks the follow-ing organizations for their

2004 support of the Corporate Youth Sponsors Program. Because of their support, student groups in the El Paso/Juarez area can learn about the contri-butions of military aviation to Ameri-ca’s history. For many students, visits to the Museum made possible by do-nations from these sponsors kindle in-terest in aviation and related fields as possible career choices.

Membership Application War Eagles Air Museum

The War Eagles Air Museum collects, restores and displays historic aircraft, mainly from the World War II and Korean War time periods, to encourage awareness and appreciation of military aviation history through exhibits, educational programs and special events. The Museum is a nonprofit organization as defined by the United States Internal Revenue Code. Operated by staff and volunteers, the Museum is supported by funds obtained from admissions, memberships and contributions. All dues and contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.

War Eagles Air Museum memberships are available in six categories. All memberships include the following privileges:

Free admission to the Museum and all exhibits. Free admission to all special events. 10% general admission discounts for all guests of a current Member. 10% discount on all Member purchases in the Gift Shop.

In addition, a Family Membership includes free admission for spouses and all children under 18 living at home. To become a Member of the War Eagles Air Museum, please fill in the information requested below and note the category of mem-bership you desire. Mail this form, along with a check payable to “War Eagles Air Museum” for the annual fee shown, to:

War Eagles Air Museum 8012 Airport Road Santa Teresa, NM 88008

NAME (Please print)___________________________________________________ STREET ____________________________________________________________ CITY ______________________________ STATE _____ ZIP _________—______ TELEPHONE (Optional) _____—_____—____________ E-MAIL ADDRESS (Optional) ___________________________________________ Will be kept private and used only for War Eagles Air Museum mailings.

Membership Categories

Individual $15

Family $25

Participating $50

Supporting $100

Benefactor $1,000

Life $5,000

War Eagles Air Museum Corporate Youth Sponsors

Bronze Silver Gold Platinum

Alamo Industries, Inc. Baker Glass Jon T. Hansen Jobe Concrete Products

C. F. Jordan, L.P. Robert F. Foster, Inc. William Gardner

El Paso Southwest Aircraft Sales El Paso Electric Co.

Frank and Susan Borman


War Eagles Air Museum

Santa Teresa Airport 8012 Airport Road Santa Teresa, New Mexico 88008 (505) 589-2000

tance Command—Vietnam) Headquar-ters, J32 Section, Special Operations.”

In 1971 Joe was the Chief of Complaints in the Office of the Inspector General in Vietnam for six months. He then became the Deputy Inspector General under Gen-eral Creighton Abrams. Returning to Fort Bliss as a full Colonel, he was President of the Air Defense Board, Director of Missile Control and Electronics, and Di-rector of Combat Development. He re-tired from the Army in 1975 and then taught Computer Science at the Univer-sity of Texas in El Paso for seven years.

Joe first volunteered at War Eagles Air Museum in 1996. He recalled the good old days: “I started volunteering at about the same time they stopped flying the warbirds regularly. I worked on aircraft with Dan Taylor, doing whatever he needed. Bill Swartout and I helped as-semble the MiG-21PFM. We installed

Volunteer Profile (Continued from page 6)

For more information, visit: www.war-eagles-air-museum.com

Museum Volunteer is Published Novelist

N ext time you’re in the mood to read a good book, check out The Guevara Legacy, an exciting, ac-

tion-packed thriller authored by Museum volunteer and newsletter contributor Jim Parker. A review in the Austin American Statesman said Jim’s novel about nuclear terrorism “take[s] the reader for a wild and fearful ride through the jungles of South America and Vietnam... [it’s] a good read on a provocative topic.”

You can get the book at amazon.com or at www.theguevaralegacy.com, or you can order it at your local Barnes & Noble or Borders bookstore. Rumor has it that Jim is thinking about writing a sequel. Way to go, Jim!

the wings and rocket pods. I touched up the insignia by hand.” (NOTE: This same aircraft recently got a full restoration—see the last Plane Talk). “I also helped take care of the cars until 2003, when I had my heart attack,” Joe said.

Joe married his first wife, Margaret San-ford Russo, in 1949. She passed away in 1987. They had three children. Son Jos-eph works for Mustang Caterpillar and David is a GS-15 in the Department of the Army. Daughter Mary is in Welling-ton, New Zealand, working to open a Montessori School. Joe remarried in 1989 to Angeline Dorsey Russo.

Joe recalled with great pride driving the Museum’s ¾-ton Dodge truck in the Las Cruces Fourth of July parade last year. “Carl Wright sat right along side of me,” he said, “just in case anything happened.”

Colonel Joe Russo, for all your enthusi-astic volunteer work at the War Eagles Air Museum and for your many years of outstanding service to the country, we salute and thank you.

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