Air War In Progress?

A private group of DC-3 pilots and devotees that claim to have spent "over a year" organizing a mass gathering of DC-3 and C-47 aircraft for this summer (including a showing at Oshkosh 2010) seems to think that they are the victim of a hostile takeover... by the EAA, itself.

According to public statements made by the organization, 'The Last Time is an organization created for the sole purpose of reuniting flying examples of the Douglas DC-3 and the people associated with them, for one last time. The goal of the organization is to celebrate this aircraft and these people. At the same time we want to honor their service, we also want to provide assistance to the people and aircraft making this journey to EAA AirVenture 2010.'

Originally, the event was put forth as a cooperative venture between EAA and The Last Time... until the night of May 26th, when notice went out that EAA would be dealing with the matter, 'exclusively."

The EAA notice about the event and its relation to the Oshkosh Fly-In, created some consternation and many TLT proponents claim the announcement "caught us by surprise." Shortly after EAA's late Wednesday announcement, TLT posted the following statement to their web site. 

'The Last Time' Public Statement

EAA announced (May 26) their planned hostile takeover of The Last Time celebration and formation flight. In the announcement, the Association stated, "EAA will exclusively organize and coordinate all AirVenture activities for the DC-3 75th anniversary." This is clearly an attempt at ousting the celebration's original organizers.

In spite of Tom Poberezny's assertion that EAA has been planning the event for the past year, The Last Time project was developed by an independent group of DC-3 pilots. It was planned, coordinated, and privately funded without any support from EAA. Now they want to claim it to be theirs.

The kickoff celebration at the staging airport (KSQI) at Sterling/Rock Falls, Illinois will still occur on July 24th and 25th. Free media rides and all the planned DC-3 activities will remain intact. Come to Whiteside County Airport and witness the world record formation flight on Monday, July 26. See these historic airplanes together again, for the last time. 

ANN is checking with sources on both sides of the controversy and will furnish more background shortly. 

FMI: http://www.thelasttime.org