Ceremony, Expo salutes LA's long association with Air Force

  • Published
  • By Senior Master Sgt. Matt Proietti
  • Air Force Public Affairs Agency
LOS ANGELES (AFNS) --  Without even taking flight, a falcon from the Air Force Academy gave air and star power a run for their money Nov. 14 during the opening ceremony for Air Force Week here.

The 2-year-old bird, Banshee, was a favorite of dozens of youngsters, who took turns stroking her chest as she rested on the arm of handler Cadet 3rd Class Jeremiah Baxter. A leather hood blocked her keen vision and kept her calm despite being in the midst of several hundred people at a retail, dining and entertainment complex on Hollywood Boulevard.

As part of the academy's falconry team, Banshee is one of a dozen birds who are the school's mascots and handled by 14 cadets. She flew to Los Angeles from Colorado on an airliner with Cadet Baxter. She was not in a cage and posed little concern at the security checkpoint, he said.

"We have a special contract -- it's no problem. We just go right on through," said Cadet Baxter, a native of Lawton, Okla., in his second year at the academy.

Cadets bring mascots to public events around the country to promote the academy and Air Force service. Air Force Week, held at three cities annually the past two years, has similar goals.

The youngsters walked to the event from nearby Selma Avenue Elementary School. They were enthralled at being so close to a large bird and posed for photos with Banshee, some of them warily eyeing her out of the corners of their eyes.

Adults with them coaxed the children to pay attention to the onstage ceremony, which featured actor Rick Schroder, 37, who talked about his introduction to the Air Force while filming the TV miniseries "Lonesome Dove" in 1988. Much of work adapting Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a western cattle drive was done near Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, whose leaders agreed to adjust flying schedules to not disrupt shooting, he said. The actor also recalled dating the base commander's daughter and flying in a training aircraft.

The ceremony was a salute to the Air Force and its relationship with the nation's second-largest city, particularly the movie industry. It was held adjacent to the Kodak Theater, home to the Academy Awards festivities, whose first winner for Best Picture was "Wings," a 1927 silent film about World War I fighter pilots. Nearby is the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theatre, where handprints, footprints and signatures of movie stars are set in concrete.

Gen. C. Robert Kehler, commander of the Air Force Space Command, said U.S. military aviation dates back a century to Orville Wright's September 1908 demonstration flights at Fort Myer, Va., home to the Army Signal Corps' Aeronautical Division. The unit grew dramatically and went through a series of name changes until the Air Force become a separate service from the Army in September 1947.

"The Air Force is 61 years old, but I don't think we look a day over 30," said General Kehler, whose command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., includes overseeing the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base.

California is a central place for the Air Force, said the general, who acknowledged the breaking of the sound barrier in the sky above Edwards AFB and the aircraft production industry's long presence in the state. C-17 Globemaster III airlifters continue to roll off the production line in Long Beach south of Los Angeles. 

Throughout the weekend, Los Angeles residents and visitors also visited the Air Force Expo. They took the F-22 Raptor for a test drive with the use of simulators. They also played a flight video game on the U.S. Air Force 80-foot-long tour van called, "Do Something Amazing."

Adults dressed as superheroes strolled Hollywood Boulevard, charging tourists to pose with them in photos. Visitors appeared for free with an Air Force-themed NASCAR race car, hauled to California by Ron and Dubrena Mullins, who work for North Carolina-based Wood Brothers/JTG Racing and displayed the vehicle in Texas and New Mexico as they headed west.

The event featured a performance by the Air Force Honor Guard drill team and flyovers by five aircraft. The elementary school students, waving U.S. and Air Force flags, craned their heads skyward and squealed when the airplanes flew overhead.
 
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