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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:
Elwood L. Nickerson Sr.

As a child I went to the Danbury Fair in Connecticut each year with my parents. It was held near a small airport. You had to walk alongside the runway from the parking lot to the gate. My dad would point out the planes and tell me what they were and we would stop to watch them land or take off. I always enjoyed that as much as the fair itself.
As I got older I started to build scale models with my dad. Seven out of ten models I built were planes. The more I built, the more I wanted to know about them. I would read books on planes and watch any war movie that might have aircraft in it.
My father had a job with an aerospace contractor and would let me come to work with him to see some of the planes they used for research. Most were surplus World War II aircraft.
Soon all aircraft of that era became a passion of mine. As time passed, I found that military aircraft of all types and eras were my real love. I think the singleness of purpose of these designs, coupled with the huge leaps in progress they embody was what I enjoyed most.
Today, my favorite outdoor activity is attending any air show I can get to. I live in New York and attend Warbird shows in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and here at home. Whenever I visit my father in California, we try to schedule it around an air show in his area. It does not matter to me if I see jets, WWI, WWII, pre or postwar aircraft. Just to see and smell and hear these magnificent machines and watch them swim in an ocean of blue sky, this to me if joy.