Got an airplane? Vets need help

Volunteer pilots are ready to take wounded soldiers to hospitals, family and friends.

By BETH N. GRAY, Times Staff Writer
Published August 23, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - Capt. John Posey is itching to take hold of the controls of a local aircraft to help Hernando veterans.

The 68-year-old career pilot, "I've been flying all my life" is a new recruit of the Veterans Airlift Command. The nationwide organization ferries service men and women who have been wounded or injured to hospitals and rehabilitation centers. It also helps family and friends reunite with their wounded loved ones.

Posey wants to get the word out about the organization to veterans' families and to aircraft owners at Hernando County Airport. He no longer owns a plane but he said he is available as a pilot who will fly free of charge.

He has licenses for commercial aircraft, instrument rating, multiengine land and sea, glider and instructor. His dossier includes flying for the Army Air Command and the Air Force's Strategic Air Command from 1955 through 1962. He has also flown for a number of commercial airlines.

There are many certified pilots available for this duty in Hernando, he said. "I can get more pilots," Posey noted. "We need aircraft."

Owners can donate flight time in their aircraft with their own pilots or call upon Veterans Airlift Command pilots. Besides the good feeling of helping wounded service personnel, the aircraft owners can also receive a tax writeoff for a flight because the organization is a 5013(c) nonprofit.

"We primarily need aircraft that can put several people (inside), and get up there and down fast," said the former chairman of the Hernando Aviation Authority.

A number of "attractive" company- or privately owned aircraft are based at the Hernando County Airport, Posey said. They include multiengine and turboprop planes. "Of course, jets will do, but we hate to ask for them because they're more expensive to operate."

The Civil Air Patrol, of which Posey is a captain and deputy director with the Florida flight, owns planes, but they are single-engine, low-flying and slow-flying models used for search and rescue and surveillance, he explained, not really suited to the airlift's needs.

"If (aircraft) owners were to say, "You guys can use my aircraft to fly a wounded veteran's family," how can you get a more feel-good feeling than to get a veteran together with family and friends?" Posey said.

One such flight, he said, involved two friends of a wounded veteran who wanted to "bust him out" of his hospital bed for a night on the town.

Another flight, listed on the Veterans Airlift Command's Web site, described how on July 4, a volunteer flew a mother from Louisiana to Kansas to be with her son after surgery.

Observed founder, Walt Fricke, "I can't think of a better way to spend Independence Day than serving our wounded warriors."

The organization's message is aimed not just at aircraft owners, Posey said, but also at service families.

"We want to let local military folks know that there is a service, and we will pull out all the stops. If there is nothing available locally, we'll fly something in."

Of Posey's involvement, he said, "I like giving back and doing things. I do a lot of work for the VFW. When I read about helping veterans and their families, I joined in."

Aircraft owners and military families can contact Posey of Spring Hill at (352) 686-3744. For more information, access www.veteransairlift.org.

Beth Gray can be contacted at graybethn@earthlink.net.

[Last modified August 22, 2007, 20:31:51]