Category Aviation Photography

The 1994 and 1995 National Biplane Fly-Ins were held in the northeastern part of Oklahoma, at Frank Phillips Field in the town of Bartlesville. There’s a lot of interesting history that I learned about during my two visits to these fun-filled and educational fly-ins. Here’s a quick recap of my journeys, including mention of some of the VIPs that attended the weekend-long gatherings, plus a good look at just some of the aircraft that participated.

Kreider-Reisner (Fairchild) KR-31 powered by an OX-5 engine

First, let’s look at some history. Frank Phillips was the man behind Phillips Petroleum – and the Phillips 66 fuel company...

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic continues to affect air traffic and the airline industry globally. Air Travel is slowly recovering with most airlines adding flights and putting aircraft back into service, but there is a very long way to go yet. I recently spent a few days spotting down at Chicago O’Hare International Airport and this downturn in traffic was very evident. On a typical day landing traffic will use up to four runways for simultaneous approaches, during my visit the traffic flow was light enough at times that all arriving traffic was easily accommodated on one runway.

Despite this downturn in traffic, O’Hare still offers the aviation enthusiast plenty of interesting aircraft types and airlines to be seen on a daily basis...

Here’s our second collection of older airliners, liveries and companies that no longer exist. Airliners have been retired, color schemes changes, and companies either merged or ceased operations. Sometimes, all three conditions have been met… how much of their history do you know? 

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