Members List:

Web Page Contact:
Darla Richter
President:
G.Wayne Hawk
Vice President:
Michael F. Belcher
Treasurer:
Lillian Los
Secretary:
Dennis Perry
Past President:
Stanley J. Nowak
Executive Sectretary:
Frances A. Bainbridge
Director Emeritus:
Richard Forrestel
Ronald Grimm
Harry Hays
M. R. Jim Kaletta
Thomas Kopera
Hugh Neeson
Jack B. Prior
Darla Richter
Audrey Schillo
Director at Large:
Theodore E. Deck
Director:
Greg Barnhard
Renso L. Caporali
Larry M. Cobado
George L. Fillgrove
Walter Gordon
Bruce E. Hornung
Donald Klug
Russell LoPresti
Arlene LoPresti
Mary Mattocks
Paul Maze
Roy McCready
Raymond W. Meissner
Neil E. Nolf
John W. Paul
Historian:
Suzanne S. Dietz
Videographer:
Mark LoPresti

Links Section

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	VIRTUAL AIR MUSEUM

APRIL 2012 GENERAL MEETING

DATE: Thursday, APRIL 19, 2012

PLACE: Protocol Restaurant
6766 Transit Rd.
Williamsville,NY

TIME:
6:00 PM Cocktails (Cash Bar)
7:00 PM Dinner - $21.00 per person

Our April meeting brings two speakers from Canada to address our group. Author and
biographer, Ted Beaudoin, will present a tribute to 3,500 civilian men and women who
came from 23 countries to the rescue of the Allied Armed Forces between 1935 and
1945 in World War II. He will chronicle the efforts of the Royal Armed Forces Ferry
Command, headquartered in Canada to deliver 9,442 mostly American made bombers
and fighter aircraft across the world's oceans to places they were needed. In adddition,
he will be bringing some artifacts to display and explain to us.

Ted will also introduce our main speaker, Ruedi Hafen, owner and Chief Pilot of
Niagara Helicopters Limited, an operation that is celebrating its 50th year of operations.
Ruedi had logged nearly 40,000 hours of flight time in helicopters across Canada and
the United States, making him one of the very few high-time helicopter pilots in the
world. For trivia buffs, 40,000 hours at the controls of a helicopter are the equivalent of
having spent nearly 4-1/2 years in a cockpit.

Ruedi Hafen, in his three-decade long career as a helicopter pilot, has become an
internationally recognized pioneer in the helicopter tourism industry with one of the
highest aviation safety standards in the world. His company has flown more than
2,000,000 happy tourists over and above Niagara Falls. Please don't miss the
opportunity to attend and hear from our northern neighbors. We hope to see all of you
there. For any changes or questions regarding your reservations, please call Fran
Bainbridge at 833-4978.

G. Wayne Hawk
President

Dinner reservation forms must be received by Monday, April 16.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

NIAGARA FRONTIER AVIATION & SPACE HALL OF FAME DINNER
Friday, May 18
Pre-paid reservations required by May 11.
Call (716)687-1589 for more Information

DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED

The Aero Club of Buffalo annual membership dues are only $30.00 and are due January 1st.
Two new membership types are available for Students (15-21 Yrs.)-$10.00, and Family (2 or more living at the same address)-$50.00 are available.

**Click here to download a Membership Application**

Your additional donations are tax deductible and help us brings speakers from all over the country. Thank you for your generosity.

Other local clubs developing ballooning (and blimps) and racing pigeon interests were the Press cycling club, the Ramblers, the East Side Cyclers, and the Eldridge Club of Tonawanda. They all reached their period of greatest cycling activity in the 1880's and then turned their interests to autos while others went to the air. These cyclists constructed small blimps and used a bicycle with large propellor styled pedals to motor their way in the air. These "sky bicycles" made their appearance around Buffalo and barnstormed American cities.

Members of the Carrier Pigeon Club of Buffalo were more interested in the antics of Otto Lilienthal, a German, than they were in John. J. Montgomery, an American, who in 1883 with his brother as an assistant, made his first gliding attempt. Montgomery's first craft was patterned after a seagull, its wings had a downward slope and a considerable lenght. Lilienthal's early attempts were along the lines of wings, which when attached to the arms of the aeronaut and whipped madly back and forth it was hoped, would take the enthusiast soaring like a bird, into the air. These early attempts were doomed to failure.

In 1891, Lilienthal's attention was directed to the construction of a biplane glider - an affair made of peeled willow saplings and cotton cloth, waxed to make it air tight. The glider was so designed that it provided armrests to assist the flyer. To Lilienthal, must go credit for the first sucessful soaring attempts; Montgomery, it will be rembered, had merely glided.

During this period there were trials and failures to fly by the most adventurous of the Carrier Pigeon Club of Buffalo but it was for Wilbur and Orville Wright of Dayton, Ohio to persevere. Historians note the pursuits of these two brothers in reading avidly accounts of Lilienthal's gliding and soaring experiences in German, and studying with peculiar fascination, Marey's "Animal Mechanization of Flight in the Animal Kingdom."

On July 2, 1900 the Automobile Club of Buffalo was organized, and shared its club rooms in the Hotel Lennox (North Street) with a dozen air enthusiasts headed by John. M. Satterfield as their president. They were the charter members of the present AERO CLUB of Buffalo.

On the occasion of the golden anniversary of the first regular meeting of the AERO CLUB, the late John W. Van Allen, a former president and "dean" of the AERO CLUB of Buffalo, Inc., recalled that the founders of the club, sparked by the late John M. Satterfield started regular meetings in 1900. A few years later the group recieved its charter as the first U.S. AERO CLUB Chapter from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale of France, making it the oldest aero club in America, second oldest in the world.

One of the exploits of the AERO CLUB preincorporation enthusiasts was the 1906 flight of the first dirigible over Buffalo.

"Every street car on Main Street was stopped and all the children were let out of school to watch it. For two hours you couldn't get a telephone connection because everybody was at the windows."

"After a few years as a group it combined with another group and incorporated under the laws of the State of New York on March 29, 1910. I am enclosing a copy of the Certificate of Incorporation, paragraph Second of which outlines under the title of "PURPOSES", the objects of the group. In the Certificate of Incorporation you will find the names of the original incorporators which represented the most active members of the original group, all prominent men of Buffalo at the time." From a letter dated December 16, 1953 by John W. Van Allen to Gordon W. Campbell.

The Amherst Bee

by KATE MOCKLER-Reporter

“We organized when the Wright Brothers were still experimenting with their walloping windowpane.” So said Aero Club of Buffalo founder John Satterfield, often known as the father of aviation in Buffalo.
The Aero Club, celebrating its centennial this week, has its roots in the Carrier Pigeon Club of Buffalo.
In the 1880s, some of its members became interested in examining just exactly how carrier pigeons managed to fly. Members from the Buffalo Bicycle Club who were working to develop a blimp powered by pedaling also became involved.
Before they were incorporated, the club sponsored a dirigible flight over Buffalo in 1906.
Aero Club President Stan Nowak, an Amherst resident, said that during the flight, the city virtually shut down as everyone rushed to their windows and went outside to watch.
The club received its charter in 1910 from the Federation Aeronautique Internationale in France. It is the first and oldest Aero Club in America and the second oldest in the world.
During its 100-year history, the Aero Club has heard talks by Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh and Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier. Yeager did so in a plane built in Western New York by Bell Aircraft.
On Thursday, Oct. 14, the Aero Club will celebrate with a dinner and presentation on the history of the Aero Club and on Western New York’s rich aviation heritage.
The dinner will be held at 7 p.m., with a social hour starting at 6 p.m. at the Westwood Country Club, 772 N. Forest Road, Amherst.
“This area was the mecca for aviation,” said Nowak. “There’s so much history. I’m just one of the people that follows it up.” Nowak says that hischildhood bedroom was filled with model airplanes and other memorabilia related to aviation. Nowak fulfilled and exceeded his childhood ambition to become a commercial pilot. He has multiple certifications and is a flight instructor. “I remember my dad coming home with the Buffalo paper when Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier. I was only 6 or 7, but I remember his enthusiasm,” Nowak recalled.
Nowak says that he is inspired by hearing the personal histories of many of the club’s older members, many of whom worked for regional aircraft pioneers such as Curtiss-Wright and Bell Aircraft.
“I had pilots telling me they used to fly planes out of the parking lot at Bell to the Buffalo Airport to test-fly,” he said.
Nowak and several other club members are coordinating an oral history project to capture these memories.
Although the club was originally male-only, Nowak says that has changed over the years. They have had several female past presidents, and Nowak intends to include the history of women in aviation in his upcoming presentation on aviation in Western New York.
“Many of the planes built here were flown to Europe by women. You’ve heard of ‘Rosie the Riveter’; well, we also had ‘Rosie the Pilot,’” he said. “Women risked their lives, and some did get killed.”
Nowak estimates that the Aero Club has more than 200 members. Their membership includes pilots, air traffic controllers, aerospace technicians, engineers, FAA weather observers, aviation museum personnel and people who fly as a hobby.
The organization meets monthly and always features a speaker. It also offers two scholarships a year to people who are going into any aspect of aviation.
“Our goal is to develop the young people of Western New York into the great thrills of aviation,” said club treasurer Ron Grimm. ““We try to do a lot of our monthly meetings to attract the young. We send out notices to a lot of flight schools. That’s how we’re going to grow.” “We have a tradition, we have a great history, we’ve had great speakers,” said Nowak.
To learn more, visit www.aeroclubofbuffalo.com.