By ANN Correspondent Rob Milford

Commemorative Air Force Director Bob Rice was pitching his organizations aircraft for three straight days in the ICAS trade show, all the time getting plaudits and congratulated for having the guts to call a safety stand-down for the entire fleet this fall, following the loss of two CAF aircraft.

It had been a challenge.

“The Flight Safety Review was very well received throughout the CAF” he told ANN. “The members understand the need. Already, about 75 percent of the flight crews have completed the review, which included going through the regulations, and doing risk assessment.”

He detailed the meetings: “We sit the pilots down around a table, and there is a written set of guidelines, a checklist, for assessing actions. This has promoted communication and brought focus on safety issues.”

He summed it up by saying “A lot of good is going to come out of the tragedies this year.”

For the CAF in 2004, there will be some old friends returning to the fleet: “The P-51 Red Nose, our first airplane, will be back in service, and our Me-109 will be operational this spring for the first time since the mid-1980’s, flying from the Oklahoma City area.

We’ve added a C-53 “Skytrooper”, a late-model C-47 modified for paratroop and glider operations. B-17 “Texas Raiders” has their repair parts on order, and they expect to be flying by the 4th of July… and they’ve been missed for the last couple of years.”

As far as the ICAS Convention, Rice tells ANN “It’s been non-stop, a great convention for us. Tora-Tora has 11 confirmed stops, but we’d like to get back to the time when the CAF could produce the entire airshow… do a turn-key job for cities. We still can provide the planes, announcers, pyro, the PA, air boss, marshallers, but not many people need the entire package.”

Col. Doug Rozendaal of the Southern Minnesota Wing of the CAF was tasked with making the Flight Safety Review happen. He told ANN that “This was a positive move. There’s not much of a feedback loop in the warbird community. We don’t have the procedures and tools for lessons learned, like the military does. This was an effort to start changing the culture. To get inside people’s minds, to acknowledge the risks we take with every flight, and deal with them.”

FMI: www.confederateairforce.org