News

Here’s a link to a video created by member Lon Magdich of the Living History Presentation on the Utility Aircraft in January

Here’s a link to a video created by member Lon Magdich of the Living History Presentation on the Pacific Airwar

CAF SoCal Wing is honored to have our most recent restoration project included as part of the headquarters’ annual 12 Planes of Christmas fundraiser.

Follow THIS LINK to find out more about the status of the project and pitch-in to get this monumental effort off to a good start.

Help us return this one-of-a-kind aircraft back to it’s original glory.

One of our own suffered a complete loss of home and property to the devastating recent California fires.

Help our family take care of one of our own by donating to the Go Fund Me page we’ve setup for him and his family.

Don has been a member at CAFSoCal for many years. Like most of our volunteers, he’s the quiet type who shows up and gets the job done without much fanfare.

You know the type. The kind of guy that makes organizations like ours successful.

So you may not have seen him in the pictures and videos we post, or have heard us mention his name much. And we don’t even have an emotional picture of his property loss to tug at your heart strings (the one on the GoFundMe page is a stock image).

But here’s our chance to say “Thank You” when it really matters.

Please pitch in to the fund raising campaign and help Don and his Family get back on their feet.

Every dollar counts.

Thank you!

The 2018 Aviation Career Day held at the Camarillo Airport and the CAF hangars was a fantastic event.

We were once again thrilled to have the Ventura County Ninety Nines, VC Career Education Center, VC Dept or Airports, CP Aviation and the California Aeronautical University, to name just a few of the participants hold this annual event at our hangars.

High school and middle school students from Ventura County were in attendance to explore the possibilities of a future in the aviation industry. Just look at the joy in our good friend Si Robin in the images below to get a sense of what this event means to us.

We are already looking forward to the 2019 edition of this fun event!

Visit their Facebook page for further information.

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The Bearcat

The October edition of the Living History Series was one of the best attended presentations since the inception of this program.

This success can be attributed to two facts: the subject matter, the fastest propeller driven fighter of World War Two, and the presentation skills of CAF Col Hertberg and his supporting speakers. CAF Col Fleishman spoke on the history of our own Bearcat, and Cols. Barber and Somes gave engaging accounts of what it’s like to fly this little hellion.

Join us on December 8th for the next installment of the series, the Pacific Conflict.

The video of the presentation linked below is well worth watching:

The PBJ and crew departed on Friday September 28th to attend the Miramar Airshow in San Diego.

The PBJ Mitchell bomber will be available on the ramp for static display only from September 28th through the 30th.

The public will have an opportunity to tour this one of a kind B-25 and speak with the crew.

With great appreciation to the airshow organizers for including this unique WWII Marine bomber as part of the highly anticipated Miramar Airshow, we look forward to the possibility of performing at the venue in future shows.

SemperFi!

The B25-PBJ, F8F Bearcat, F6F Hellcat and Mitsubishi AM63 Zero along with the P51 ManO’War of CAF SoCal’s fleet made a successful appearance at the 2018 Air Races.

The performances included flight demonstration, aerobatics by the Bearcat as well as a mock dogfight including the PBJ, Zero and Hellcat.

The Mustang took the place of the Hellcat on the first day of the show.

In addition, spectators had the opportunity to see our aircraft close up in the pits, tour the PBJ, speak with the crew and purchase rides aboard the PBJ and the Mustang.

Countless people at the venue did just that and left with a better appreciation of these historic warplanes, and almost 60 took it one step further and experienced flight aboard the PBJ or the P51, with two lucky individuals doing both!

Sixty rides in four days! This represents a new high bar in our efforts here at this all-volunteer organization.

The races were magnificent as always, and a spectacle to be heard as well as seen.

We look forward to participating in the 2019 edition of the Reno Air Races, and can not emphasize enough the professionalism and courtesy that the organization extended to us as they hosted our participation.

Here are a few images of our aircraft at the Reno Air Races 

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It is our pleasure to introduce you to Dan Miroballi, 92 years young and with plenty of patience to spare.

As you’ll hear in Dan’s own words in the video below, he is a WWII Air Corps veteran on whom the war ran out on before he got a chance to make his mark aboard a P51.

Some 70+ years later, he finally got that P51 ride, and it is our honor to have provided it for him.

Saturday September 1st was the date for our latest Living History Presentation Series organized and conducted by CAF Col Rob Hertberg.

This installment covered the 23 year restoration of the PBJ, Presented by CAF Col Marc Russell, and the  operational history of VMB611, the unit in who’s honor the PBJ was painted, presented by CAF Col Rob Hertberg. The presentation concluded with a trip report presented by CAF Col Arash Afshari, of the 2017 cross-country tour by the PBJ and her crew shortly after becoming operational to participate in the 75th anniversary of the Doolittle Raiders at the USAF National Museum at Wright Paterson AFB in Ohio. 

The following is a two part YouTube playlist of videos prepared by CAF Col Lon Magdich covering the entire presentation. 

If you’d like to dig deeper into the PBJ’s 2017 mission, follow this link to the trip report from that event, which includes photos, full length videos of the veteran interviews and more.

Don’t miss our next presentation on the Grumman F8 Bearcat, taking place on October 20th.