(Dayton, OH – September 24, 2007) The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) announced today that the recipient of its Fifth Annual Combs Gates Award will be Jane Gardner Birch, a first-time author currently residing in Annapolis, Maryland. Birch will be recognized with the $20,000 cash award for her soon-to-be-published book, They Flew Proud, inspired by the WWII experience of her father, Gardner Birch, a flight instructor in the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) at Grove City College and Airport, Pennsylvania. The award will be formally presented at the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) Annual Meeting & Convention tomorrow, Tuesday, September 25, in Atlanta, Georgia.
Birch, a mother of three and grandmother of six, wanted to learn more of her father’s role in the CPTP, created in 1939 during FDR’s administration to ensure a supply of trained pilots for the spreading conflict that was certain to involve the U.S. Her extensive research enabled her, in book form, to outline the big picture behind the seldom heralded CPTP, one of the largest federally funded vocational education programs in history. They Flew Proud also shares many personal accounts of the personalities and pilots that comprised the CPTP, such as her father, who died in 1962, and includes the recollections of many living today. “A few will become notable, but most remain anonymous, yet everyone’s contributions are important,” wrote Birch in her award application.
Judges reviewed each submission based upon criteria such as historical accuracy, creativity, potential for long-term impact, and value to the Hall of Fame and its mission of honoring America’s outstanding air and space pioneers.
The prestigious Combs Award grew out of a 2001 donation to the NAHF by the late Harry Combs, a 1996 enshrinee of the Hall of Fame. As part of his generous $1.3 million gift for the creation of a NAHF research center, Combs stipulated that the Combs Award be established to encourage and support relevant aviation history research and preservation efforts. The inaugural award was presented in 2003, the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight.
Combs was instrumental to the growth and development of business aviation. Consequently the NAHF partnered with the NBAA to host the award presentation at its annual meeting and convention, the largest purely civil aviation event in the world.
Presenting the award on behalf of the NAHF at the NBAA Opening General Session will be Amanda Wright Lane, Great Grand-Niece of Orville and Wilbur Wright, along with former astronaut and the last man to walk on the moon, Eugene Cernan, and WWII fighter pilot, test pilot and air show legend, Bob Hoover. The Wright Brothers, Cernan and Hoover are among the 195 enshrinees honored to date by the NAHF.
Joining them will be John Gates who, along with his sister, Diane G. Wallach, are co-trustees of the Gates Frontiers Fund created by their late parents and philanthropists, Charles C. and June S. Gates. Their father was a partner with Combs in several aviation businesses including Combs Gates FBO chain and Gates Learjet. Gates passed away in 2005 at age 84. This year marks the fifth year for the award and the second year with the name changed to reflect a multi-year commitment by the Gates Family to fund the award.
The award pays homage to Gates belief in the benefit of historic preservation and study, and to Combs’ own research efforts behind his acclaimed 1979 book, Kill Devil Hill: Discovering the Secrets of the Wright Brothers. Combs was inspired to write the book after close friend and fellow enshrinee, Neil Armstrong, presented him a bound collection of the Wright Brothers’ personal papers.
Combs died in December 2003 at age 90. During the inaugural award ceremony at the NBAA convention held a month before his passing, Combs remarked, “Just as Neil’s gift inspired me to discover the secrets of the Wrights, I want to motivate a new generation of historians, researchers and preservationists to continue the process of clarifying and preserving our nation’s amazing air and space history for generations to come.”
To find out more about the NAHF or to secure an application for next year’s Combs Gates Award, please contact the NAHF Harry B. Combs Research Department at (937) 256-0944, Ext. 18, or visit www.nationalaviation.org.
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MEDIA CONTACT:
Ron Kaplan TEL: (937) 256-0944 ext. 16 NAHF Executive Director CEL: (937) 212-8847 (at NBAA Atlanta)
