'Maiden Flight' Series Made Up Of 121 Cards

by ANN Correspondent Aleta Vinas

"I'll trade you three Han Solo's, four Pokemon's and a whole stack of baseball cards for one of your Blue Angels cards." A statement like this would be music to Todd Trainor's ears. Trainor is President of Aviation Trading Company. The company is introducing a set of Aviation Trading Cards designed to "encourage kids to become interested in aviation."

Trainor has been in aviation almost all his life, he would fly with his father in an Aeronca K. Trainor now lives on an airport, owns a Cessna Cardinal RG and loves giving airplane rides to kids and adults. He has done Young Eagles flights with kids and just jump in the plane and go flights.

The idea for the cards came from Trainor’s nephew who asked his uncle if there were airplane trading cards. Trainor found the last cards were manufactured over 50 years ago by Topps. Trainor was on to something.

Soon after his release of the prototype version at Brighton (MI) Airport Fly-In in August 2006, two youngsters became fans. The boys scraped together money to buy more cards. The boys found Trainor at several shows so Trainor put their enthusiasm to work. Trainor and the boys mother tutored the boys on how to research the planes and write the text on the flip side of the card. The boys work appears on several of the cards. There were about eight other authors hailing from four different countries.

The photographs have an even more international flavor; 56 photographers from 18 countries shot 177 photos of 88 aircraft types over 22 countries. Many of the shooters were plane spotters and donated the photos to Trainor for free. Others traded the photos for memory cards but some wanted to be paid, so Trainor had a supply of Euros available.

Trainor didn’t want the flip sides to contain the same boring stats, such as wing length and range. He wanted them "to be as interesting as possible to try to capture interest in aviation."

The set, called Maiden Flight, is a total of 121 cards; 88 aircraft cards, 22 aviation trivia cards, and 11 aeronautical fact cards. Each pack contains eight aircraft cards and two bonus trivia cards and one fact card and no rock hard stick of flavorless gum. The aircraft span all eras and types from the Goodyear blimp to the Blue Angels.

While some aircraft aficionados may be disappointed the Wright Flyer and SR-71 are absent from the set, Trainor has a reason. "they were meant to be airplanes that a child would see at the local airport, museum or air show."

The cards are designed for the aviation community primarily then the trading card collectors and the general public. The trading card collectors may be a bit unhappy with this first set since there are no "chase cards", which are the cards you have to "chase" because they were produced in lesser quantities.

For the next set Trainor is thinking about having chase cards and possibly autographed cards from the various aerobatic pilots.

FMI: www.alphatangocharlie.com