Warbird Information Exchange

The Central Texas Wing of the CAF will be holding it's annual Hangar Dinner/Dance November 8th, 2008, in our WWII hangar on the San Marcos, TX, Municipal Airport (KHYI). Check out the web at:

http://www.realtime.net/centex/DD2006.htm

The evening will feature:

The big band sounds of the Sentimental Journey Orchestra
A Silent Auction
A Dance Contest

A great tasting BBQ dinner from Fuschak’s of San Marcos

BYOB - NO ICE CHESTS ALLOWED
Ticket price $30 per person (includes dinner)

Dinner at 6:00 PM

Dancing from 7:30 – 11:00 PM

For information contact Col. Ray Ender at: 512-396-0765

or the Centex Wing hangar at:

512-396-1943 or FAX: 512-396-1992

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Mike

That sounds like a great program! We've been at a hangar dance in the Weight and Balance hangar at the former Kearney Army Air Field, and the acoustics really work with the Big Band orchestras. We plan to be there if at all possible.

Scott

This is shaping up to be one of our best dinner-dances yet! The biggest problem is going to be the pre-event clean up for the hangar. It seems a Great Horned Owl has taken up residence in the hangar. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get owl droppings off an old concrete hangar floor?!?!

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Mike

I always pried off an inspection panel from an old broken down Piper twin and used is like a scraper or dust pan---works for me!

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If God had wanted man to fly behind a flat motor, Pratt Whitney would've built one.

I'd say it would be just about as hard as getting owl droppings off a B-24 wing. That stuff has amazing adhesive powers. I guess you have a little advantage in that you can use scrapers to break up the big clumps first and you most likely can't fall off the hangar floor.

Hopefully we'll see you there!
Scott

The hangar dinner/dance was a sell-out! We limited the tickets to 1000, that way we would have plenty of dance floor. This was the most profitable dinner/dance we've had to date! (and a lot less work than an airshow)

Make plans to attend next year, and get your tickets early. It's always the Saturday before Veteran's Day.

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Mike

I'm glad to hear the dance and dinner were a success! We were all set to come down but ended up with self-invited weekend guests. Did anyone get any photos of the proceedings? I love to see dances and get-togethers inside WWII hangars.

Scott

I'll see if I can find some and get them posted. I'm sure there are some around. I wasn't able to make the dance either. They could only have about four lights on. We got some money from the city, and other donors, and replaced the old bulbs and fixtures with mercury vapor lights. Sure makes working on planes after sunset a lot easier!

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Mike

Thanks for looking for photos, Mike.
The last hangar dance we attended was at the former Kearney Army Air Field in June of 2005. The dance was held in the last remaining WWII hangar, the Weight and Balance hangar, where many, many B-17s were scaled before heading to the combat zone. It was a great evening that would have been even neater if we could have gotten the north doors to open fully. The plan had been to park Sentimental Journey in the north end with the bandstand in the middle and the dance floor on the south. Unfortunately the doors didn't cooperate and SJ had to be parked at the south doors for the event. It was still neat to listen to big band music while looking out the door at a Fortress, knowing so many of her sisters (and big brother B-29s) had been parked on that same apron all those years ago.


Scott

I asked for photos, and here's what I got. It's a link that supposedly has a preview of a book that was done about the last dinner/dance. Also a site referenced with photos of past events.

"For the mother load of professional photos from a couple of dances ago, go to sjoswing.com, click on photo gallery at the bottom of their Betty Grable page, then click on "more photos" at the top of the page.

If you want photos of this year's dance contact John Gibson. He published a book of Dinner Dance 2008. To preview the book, go to: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/449916 "

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Mike