Knights Without Parachutes

We are back from the Dawn Patrol airshow. Highlights included Dogfights in the dawn's early light, performed by RC aircraft. They looked pretty real at that hour. You could tell them from the real aircraft flying later in the day in a couple ways: the RC engines sounded a bit less like something that might quit, and the real pilots, not needing to do so to save their lives in actual battle, did not do maneuvers as aggressive as the RC aircraft. Young boys getting hooked on the Wings of Glory WWI board game and the WOFF WWI simulator. Smart...

I posted the following in a LinkedIn group for Cornell University alumni, because it was rather striking to read, in the Military Records of Cornell University in the World War, the Class Index of who from what class was in the war. One doesn't think of 50 and 60-year-olds as war volunteers. Classes of '80s and '90s; a hundred years ago you might have been in WWI! Yes, the normal age for World War 1 soldiers was early twenties, if that, but not all were that young. The oldest Cornellian in World War 1 was Louis Livingston Seaman, class of 1872, so...

For homeschoolers, and others considering a unit on World War 1: 9. It's always fun comparing what happened 100 years ago today, and playing, "had they but known...." 8. More fun dressing up in a pickle helmet (Pickelhaube) than any helmet since. 7. Yes! The Red Baron was actually a baron! (Now find out what is a baron compared to a count, a duke, an earl, a knight, and Queen Victoria.) 6. How about studying Queen Victoria's family tree, and how it affected the war? (A gene for hemophilia results in a major power falling apart, which results in the...

We are headed for Dayton, for the Dawn Patrol airshow at Wright-Patterson AFB, on 1 and 2 October 2016. The Vintage Aero Flying Museum (VAFM) is bringing its SPAD replica and some displays from the museum. This year, the biennial airshow is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Lafayette Escadrille. Several families of the original Escadrille members are expected to be there, including VAFM friend Lt. Col Rutgers, descendant of James Norman Hall. Following in the footsteps of his father, who arranged reunions in the 1980s for surviving WWI pilots, Andy Parks will be part of a banquet honoring the...

A quiz about WWI, from AMAC (one would hope that however bad current education is, "mature citizens" at least would know something about history.) If you get 10 of 10 you can consider yourself a serious WWI buff! If not, you can consider that knowing the specific year something happened is not always important, but then you'd better make up for it by getting the question about root causes of the war right.