Date: Friday,
August 30, 2013
11:00 AM:
Stearmans to arrive at Ottumwa
Airport , most of them coming
from Antique Airplane Assoc. Fly-In at Blakesburg. The Ottumwa Postmaster
(or other post office official) will be on hand at the terminal to
"cancel" our commemorative air mail covers with this custom
stamp.
Between 11:00 AM and 12:45 PM the airplanes will be on display at the OTM airport for the public
and press. We will welcome the pilots and hold a small ceremony, which
will consist primarily of the postal official "swearing in" the
Stearman pilots as official USPS air mail pilots (for one day). The
pilots will also be served refreshments inside the terminal by the Friends of
OTM NAS. Once the postal official has all of our air mail covers
cancelled, they will be loaded onto the Stearmans. At this time we expect
that 4-6 Stearmans will be participating in the event.
Around
noon another flight of airplanes (not Navy Stearmans) will be arriving at OTM
NAS from Antique Airfield. These are airplanes carrying the AAA's 60th
Anniversary commemorative air mail. Once they land, the airmail they are
carrying will be off loaded, taken into the terminal where the postal official
with "back stamp" their covers with our cancel stamp (on the back
side), and then loaded back onto their airplanes.
12:45 PM:
All of the air mail airplanes at OTM NAS (both our Stearmans and the AAA
airplanes) will be taking off and heading for the
Oskaloosa Airport .
Oskaloosa was one of the OTM NAS "auxiliary fields”, as well as the
site of several of the first AAA Fly-Ins. At Oskaloosa airport all mail
will be off loaded from all airplanes and taken into the terminal, where an
Oskaloosa post office official will back stamp all the mail with the custom
Oskaloosa cancel stamp.
2:00PM: Once the mail is back stamped it will be loaded back onto
the airplanes for the return flights, which are targeted to take off from
Oskaloosa at 2:00 PM. The AAA airplanes will be going directly back to
Antique Airfield. At this time we are not sure if our Stearmans will also
go directly back to Antique Airfield, or if they will be willing to go back to
OTM NAS. We are planning to discuss this with the pilots before the first
takeoff from Ottumwa
airport. Our preference will be for them to return to OTM NAS and drop
the mail off to us there, and then they return to Antique Airfield.
However if some prefer they can certainly go directly from Oskaloosa back to
Antique Airfield, after their mail bag is put onto one of the Stearmans that
will be returning to Ottumwa from Oskaloosa.
The event should conclude by 3:00-4:00 PM
with everyone back to Antique Airfield. The flown OTM NAS covers will be
available immediately after the Oskaloosa flight lands back at
Ottumwa. |
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