From the Introduction to Part 2 by Garry J. Nokes
"World War II and its
impact on the postwar local aviation experience provided the setting for
the second major era of aviation history in Southern Indiana. Changing
economic and social factors through these dozen years from the early
1940s to the mid-1950s marked a critical transition from the early
period, when general aviation first took root in the area, to the modern
period, when general aviation reached its maturity.
"The era began with the activities of the flying community at Jeffersonville Airport on the eve of World War II. It continued with the great upheaval experienced by that community due to the federal government’s many wartime restrictions on private flying because of the potential use of aircraft by the nation’s enemies as weapons for domestic espionage or outright attack. Jeffersonville Airport closed on account of these restrictions, but local pilots found that they could stay in the air and even assist the war effort through their participation in a new civil defense organization, the Civil Air Patrol (CAP). Local CAP squadrons, based in Louisville, counted among their members pilots and support personnel from both sides of the Ohio River.
"The era continued with
the closing days of World War II, when civic and private interests,
anticipating the significant role aviation would play in the
nation’s
transportation infrastructure, planned for the reestablishment of a
local airport. The end of the war and the subsequent relaxation of
federal restrictions on flying did inspire a great boom in local
aviation with the opening of several local airports under private
ownership and the return of hundreds of war veterans receiving
federally-sponsored pilot training under the G.I. Bill. That boom played
out, however, after an intense and exciting couple of years as the era
came to an end with a vast reduction in the number of pilots seeking
training and the decline and closure of every local airport in Clark and
Floyd Counties.
"... The three most
influential—and 'air-minded'—individuals in Southern Indiana’s aviation
history each played a role in this important transitional period:
Russell
Beeler, William “Hap” Happel, and Charles Bush. Beeler closed his
Jeffersonville Airport, reentered military service, and then retired
from all flying by war’s end to cap a celebrated career that extended
back into the early days of local flying. Happel, another veteran,
returned to Kentuckiana after the war and began a long and remarkable
career of professional flying that extends into the present day. Bush,
however, stands as the defining figure of this era. He left the farmland
of Harrison County, Indiana, as a youth “nuts over aviation,” assumed
ownership of Beeler’s airport, and built it up as the New
Albany-Jeffersonville Airport. Bush promoted local aviation with a
gambler’s confidence and a zealot’s ardor, but he suffered the
consequences for his personal and financial devotion to local aviation
as the flying boom played out after the war."
162 pages
81/2"x11" hardcover edition
180+ illustrations
100 years of history
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