November 29, 2023 • 10 mins
The Highland Lakes Squadron of the Commemorative Air Force in Burnet is hosting Santa and a C-47 from 6-8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 8 — a unique Christmas photo opp. Squadron leader Kirk Noaker and cadet leader Aedan McLennan told KBEY 103.9 FM listeners about the high-flying event.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's KA one O three point nineFM and Mack in the Morning, along
with Kirk, Nohker and Aid.And I didn't get your last name,
mcclennan. Oh, that's weird.McLennan, mcleinarhan, brothers. Dude,
good deal. Well, welcome tothe Welcome to the show, gentlemen.
How are you? Good morning?How are you sir? Morning? Good?
Kirk of course is with the CommemorativeAir Force at the Burnett Airport.
(00:22):
And then Aiden, you're in thecadet program, right, that's right,
Yes, sir, okay A Aiddenis our new cadet leader. Oh okay,
yes, sir, hot's going.And you've just graduated from Burnet High
School, yes, sir. Andyou're a student at Tech, yes,
sir, student of Texas Tech.All right, well cool, well,
Kirk, you're here to talk aboutSanta and C forty seven. Santa in
(00:43):
the C forty seven. You know, we're as parents, were always looking
for great opportunities to kind of memorialize, you know, our children's lives and
Christmas time. We're looking for thatperfect Christmas tree. We're looking for that
perfect scene. And at the HighlandLakes Squadron, we thought what better scene
to come up with than the backdropof a World war to see forty seven.
(01:04):
That's our big airplane for those ofyou who are familiar with the planes
that we have. So we thoughtwe'd put together an event and yeah,
we coordinated with Santa at the NorthPole. He's going to come down on
December eighth between six and eight andSanta is going to help us out and
get some great pictures with some ofour local families and a sea forty seven.
(01:25):
That's really cool. And this isa beautiful airplane. I've I've seen
pictures, I haven't seen it inperson, so I need to come out
there and see it. Yes youdo, I know, but it's a
gorgeous airplane. And you know,these these warbirds and things like that are
just they're such a part of ourhistory and so cool. Well, and
this is a great opportunity also becausewe have some big planes for this airplane
at the Highland Lake Squadron. Withinthe next year, we're expecting this airplane
(01:49):
to develop and take on a newlook because the airplane has Royal Canadian Air
Force routes, okay, and weare going to completely mark up the airplane
as a Royal Canadian Air Force airplane. So right now the airplane is the
Texas Ephyr, and this is goingto be one of the last formal opportunities
that people will have to you know, again, get a picture and take
(02:12):
pictures of the Texas Efhor before itbecomes KP two two four, which is
its designator during its RCAF time.That's cool. Held is this airplane?
So this airplane was manufactured and itcame off the assembly line in June of
nineteen forty five. Holy and youknow, we just fluid here from that's
eighties. Doesn't that impressive? Eightyyears? I know? And it still
(02:32):
flies, still flies, and stilllooks beautiful. Yeah. No, I
mean the fact that it still fliesis indicative of the fact that we have
put a lot of work into thisairplane. Yeah, it's got two new
overhauled engines on there. It's aneighteen thirty radial engine on the airplane and
then you know, airframe and justso much work went into the span.
(02:53):
You and I've talked about this inthe past, Mac, but you know,
this plane was in Brady, Texasfor many, many years and then
for the last you know, threeyears, actually more than that. But
for the last several years, we'vebeen going back and forth to Brady,
Texas and with work crews and workingon the airplane getting it ready to come
here. And we were excited toget it here to Burnet finally earlier this
(03:15):
year in May. You had todo a lot of work on it just
to get it to where you canfly it here exactly. Yeah, Yeah,
that's way cool. Okay, SoSanta and the C forty seven at
the Highland Lakes Squadron of the CommemorativeAir Force at Burnet, and I mean
this is a airport that's again that'son Friday, December eighth, from six
to eight pm, and it's justgoing to be a cool opportunity. It's
nighttime too, that's it. It'sgoing to be night and we're going to
(03:38):
set up a really festive display.We'll put some up lights under the airplane
and we'll have a Christmas tree anda big Grand Santa chair and you know,
we want this to be fun.This is the first time we've ever
done this, Max. So youknow, in my experience in life,
if you're going to start something thatyou want to do year after year after
year, you better have a goodstart. So we're putting everything we have
(03:59):
into this and we want this bea great events. It's going to be
first come, first serve. Swingon by sometime between six and eight.
We're gonna have a sign up sheet, We're going to take pictures. We'll
email you the picture that was captured. And all we're looking for is a
very small minimal donation of five dollarsout of minimum for the squadron. Yeah.
(04:19):
Minimum meaning if you got a twentyin your pocket, go ahead,
it wouldn't break our heart. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about Aiden,
your guests here. Let me letme tell you the I am so excited
at the cadet program. This wasput together a couple of years ago by
one of our squadron members, ColonelJen Benton, and Jen has taking the
(04:40):
reins and grown this program to wherewe're getting national recognition throughout the Commemorative Air
Force, and recently Jen passed onthe reins here to Aiden. Aiden has
been a longtime cadet member of theSquadron. He's also active in living history
and and he's very familiar with WorldWar Two history and aviation history. So
(05:01):
we're excited to have Aiden in thisposition and you're learning how to fly too.
Huh, that's correct. Yeah,where'd you get your where'd your interest
first come from? I would sayjust reading books in the school library,
just about history and everything like that. My uncle was a pilot for American
Airlines for twenty years and he usedto take me on flights as a kid
and everything, and I was justjust kind of hooked on the subject.
(05:23):
Yeah, you know, just seeinglike a ten Warthogs and F sixteen's and
all those things fly over from timeto time. It's just it's just the
best. So what what airplane didyour uncle fly? I believe you flew
seven forty seven? Really, yes, sir, that's a big old thing.
Yeah, thereumongous. Yeah. Imean you don't know me, so
you don't realize that. I'm alsoone of those guys that any time in
(05:45):
the airplane flies over, Yeah,stop and looking at it. And my
wife knows, she reflects gonna stopright here. Yeah, he's gonna put
an airplane in the air, andit's just the way it goes. So
what do you get out of thecadet program. Well, for me,
it's a way for the Commmitative AirForce to reach out to our youth.
So there's a lot of kids thatI know, myself included, that are
interested in just aviation history, militaryhistory, or just airplanes in general.
(06:08):
And I find myself so lucky tohave in this small town of Burnet a
ginormous, awesome museum that offers opportunitieslike the Cadets. And for me in
high school, I was in alot of programs like Interact Club NHS,
that kind of thing that requires servicehours, and there was no better way
to get all those service hours completedthan through the Cadets. Because we do
(06:31):
all kinds of events, from Santaand the C forty seven to our air
show every March. Stuff like thatgives kids in high school and middle school
even younger, an opportunity to participatein their community and also learn a lot
about history and are the greatest generationand walk in that hangar and smell that
(06:53):
smell ag Yeah that a gas.Yeah it's good. There's something about it,
isn't Isn't it great? I loveseeing youth interested in stuff like this.
You know, if you look ataviation industry publications, they're constantly talking
about the fear and concern that we'regoing to have a pilot shortage in the
years to come. In fact,I think we're on that right now.
(07:15):
Yeah, So I love it.Anytime I see a young person who has
interest in aviation, there's no doubtin my mind that Aidan's going to grow
up to be a professional in somemanner in aviation. And I love that
because the industry needs it. Yeah, it sure does. I know when
I first got interested in airplanes,we had my dad flu and we had
(07:39):
an airplane and my job was togo watch that airplane and that's how I
paid for flying lessons when I whenI was younger. So yeah, that's
I can remember getting that can ofvarsol out and play a brand on the
bottom. You probably don't even usethat now, it's probably toxic. I
think you're right, get that outthere and clean up those airplanes. And
it was gosh, it was justit's such a great memory for me.
(08:00):
I still cherish those memories. SoI hope you great success with Thank you
with all the stuff that you're doingnext and come back and visit with us
now, Kirk. One last thing, let's touch on what's going on,
what's coming up for the coming year. Yeah, I'm great plans we do.
I briefly talked about our plans withthe Royal Canadian Air Force. Next
year is the one hundred year anniversaryof the RCAF, so in Canada are
(08:24):
up north neighbor. They have allkinds of events going on. So our
plan is with the C forty seven, we're going to go on a Canadian
tour with that airplane. Cool andwe need to have all these marketings done.
We need to have everything done intime for our next air show,
which would be the Bluebonded Air Showtaking place on March sixteenth, twenty twenty
(08:45):
four. That'll be a Saturday whereyou know we're we've been working on it
since the last air show, ofcourse earlier this year. We are expecting
bigger and better things. I'm excited. It looks like we're probably slotted and
in line for another Department of Defense. You know, for the last several
years, it's been the A tonThunderbolt. Saiden mentioned that earlier, and
(09:05):
to me, that's just one ofthe most perfect air show airplanes because it's
low and slow and loud. Youknow when you get that, yeah,
that burnt of the gun, youknow, the gunflayer on the front,
you know, it's a it's literallya flying machine gun as opposed to an
armed airplane. But we're we're expectingsomething along those lines again, and we're
coming up with some new and excitingacts. I can tell you right now.
(09:28):
You know, we're not sure ifwe're going to do it, but
we're looking to have more helicopter acts. Maybe the Russian Hind helicopter, the
twenty four. That would be awesomeif you remember that in the movie Red
Dawn and and then most recently italso was featured in The Top Gun too
with with Maverick when when Maverick andRooster were being chased around on the ground,
(09:50):
that was an I twenty four Russianhelicopter chasing them around. So we'd
love to get that as an appearance. But either way, Yeah, we're
working on it and we're going tohave a great show for everybody. Good
all right, But first of all, Santa Ana CE forty seven coming up
December eighth, that's that's Friday night, six to eight pm. So it
gonna be fun. Yeah, we'llsee you right there at the Burnet Municipal
(10:11):
Airport and the large hanger, it'sthe biggest hanger there at the airport and
you'll see if you look at thehanger, you'll see air museum right on
the outside. Cool. Thank youall for coming in, Aiden, thanks
for coming in. Thank you alwaysgood to see you. Think yes,
sir, we appreciate it.
It's KA one O three point nineFM and Mack in the Morning, along
with Kirk, Nohker and Aid.And I didn't get your last name,
mcclennan. Oh, that's weird.McLennan, mcleinarhan, brothers. Dude,
good deal. Well, welcome tothe Welcome to the show, gentlemen.
How are you? Good morning?How are you sir? Morning? Good?
Kirk of course is with the CommemorativeAir Force at the Burnett Airport.
(00:22):
And then Aiden, you're in thecadet program, right, that's right,
Yes, sir, okay A Aiddenis our new cadet leader. Oh okay,
yes, sir, hot's going.And you've just graduated from Burnet High
School, yes, sir. Andyou're a student at Tech, yes,
sir, student of Texas Tech.All right, well cool, well,
Kirk, you're here to talk aboutSanta and C forty seven. Santa in
(00:43):
the C forty seven. You know, we're as parents, were always looking
for great opportunities to kind of memorialize, you know, our children's lives and
Christmas time. We're looking for thatperfect Christmas tree. We're looking for that
perfect scene. And at the HighlandLakes Squadron, we thought what better scene
to come up with than the backdropof a World war to see forty seven.
(01:04):
That's our big airplane for those ofyou who are familiar with the planes
that we have. So we thoughtwe'd put together an event and yeah,
we coordinated with Santa at the NorthPole. He's going to come down on
December eighth between six and eight andSanta is going to help us out and
get some great pictures with some ofour local families and a sea forty seven.
(01:25):
That's really cool. And this isa beautiful airplane. I've I've seen
pictures, I haven't seen it inperson, so I need to come out
there and see it. Yes youdo, I know, but it's a
gorgeous airplane. And you know,these these warbirds and things like that are
just they're such a part of ourhistory and so cool. Well, and
this is a great opportunity also becausewe have some big planes for this airplane
at the Highland Lake Squadron. Withinthe next year, we're expecting this airplane
(01:49):
to develop and take on a newlook because the airplane has Royal Canadian Air
Force routes, okay, and weare going to completely mark up the airplane
as a Royal Canadian Air Force airplane. So right now the airplane is the
Texas Ephyr, and this is goingto be one of the last formal opportunities
that people will have to you know, again, get a picture and take
(02:12):
pictures of the Texas Efhor before itbecomes KP two two four, which is
its designator during its RCAF time.That's cool. Held is this airplane?
So this airplane was manufactured and itcame off the assembly line in June of
nineteen forty five. Holy and youknow, we just fluid here from that's
eighties. Doesn't that impressive? Eightyyears? I know? And it still
(02:32):
flies, still flies, and stilllooks beautiful. Yeah. No, I
mean the fact that it still fliesis indicative of the fact that we have
put a lot of work into thisairplane. Yeah, it's got two new
overhauled engines on there. It's aneighteen thirty radial engine on the airplane and
then you know, airframe and justso much work went into the span.
(02:53):
You and I've talked about this inthe past, Mac, but you know,
this plane was in Brady, Texasfor many, many years and then
for the last you know, threeyears, actually more than that. But
for the last several years, we'vebeen going back and forth to Brady,
Texas and with work crews and workingon the airplane getting it ready to come
here. And we were excited toget it here to Burnet finally earlier this
(03:15):
year in May. You had todo a lot of work on it just
to get it to where you canfly it here exactly. Yeah, Yeah,
that's way cool. Okay, SoSanta and the C forty seven at
the Highland Lakes Squadron of the CommemorativeAir Force at Burnet, and I mean
this is a airport that's again that'son Friday, December eighth, from six
to eight pm, and it's justgoing to be a cool opportunity. It's
nighttime too, that's it. It'sgoing to be night and we're going to
(03:38):
set up a really festive display.We'll put some up lights under the airplane
and we'll have a Christmas tree anda big Grand Santa chair and you know,
we want this to be fun.This is the first time we've ever
done this, Max. So youknow, in my experience in life,
if you're going to start something thatyou want to do year after year after
year, you better have a goodstart. So we're putting everything we have
(03:59):
into this and we want this bea great events. It's going to be
first come, first serve. Swingon by sometime between six and eight.
We're gonna have a sign up sheet, We're going to take pictures. We'll
email you the picture that was captured. And all we're looking for is a
very small minimal donation of five dollarsout of minimum for the squadron. Yeah.
(04:19):
Minimum meaning if you got a twentyin your pocket, go ahead,
it wouldn't break our heart. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about Aiden,
your guests here. Let me letme tell you the I am so excited
at the cadet program. This wasput together a couple of years ago by
one of our squadron members, ColonelJen Benton, and Jen has taking the
(04:40):
reins and grown this program to wherewe're getting national recognition throughout the Commemorative Air
Force, and recently Jen passed onthe reins here to Aiden. Aiden has
been a longtime cadet member of theSquadron. He's also active in living history
and and he's very familiar with WorldWar Two history and aviation history. So
(05:01):
we're excited to have Aiden in thisposition and you're learning how to fly too.
Huh, that's correct. Yeah,where'd you get your where'd your interest
first come from? I would sayjust reading books in the school library,
just about history and everything like that. My uncle was a pilot for American
Airlines for twenty years and he usedto take me on flights as a kid
and everything, and I was justjust kind of hooked on the subject.
(05:23):
Yeah, you know, just seeinglike a ten Warthogs and F sixteen's and
all those things fly over from timeto time. It's just it's just the
best. So what what airplane didyour uncle fly? I believe you flew
seven forty seven? Really, yes, sir, that's a big old thing.
Yeah, thereumongous. Yeah. Imean you don't know me, so
you don't realize that. I'm alsoone of those guys that any time in
(05:45):
the airplane flies over, Yeah,stop and looking at it. And my
wife knows, she reflects gonna stopright here. Yeah, he's gonna put
an airplane in the air, andit's just the way it goes. So
what do you get out of thecadet program. Well, for me,
it's a way for the Commmitative AirForce to reach out to our youth.
So there's a lot of kids thatI know, myself included, that are
interested in just aviation history, militaryhistory, or just airplanes in general.
(06:08):
And I find myself so lucky tohave in this small town of Burnet a
ginormous, awesome museum that offers opportunitieslike the Cadets. And for me in
high school, I was in alot of programs like Interact Club NHS,
that kind of thing that requires servicehours, and there was no better way
to get all those service hours completedthan through the Cadets. Because we do
(06:31):
all kinds of events, from Santaand the C forty seven to our air
show every March. Stuff like thatgives kids in high school and middle school
even younger, an opportunity to participatein their community and also learn a lot
about history and are the greatest generationand walk in that hangar and smell that
(06:53):
smell ag Yeah that a gas.Yeah it's good. There's something about it,
isn't Isn't it great? I loveseeing youth interested in stuff like this.
You know, if you look ataviation industry publications, they're constantly talking
about the fear and concern that we'regoing to have a pilot shortage in the
years to come. In fact,I think we're on that right now.
(07:15):
Yeah, So I love it.Anytime I see a young person who has
interest in aviation, there's no doubtin my mind that Aidan's going to grow
up to be a professional in somemanner in aviation. And I love that
because the industry needs it. Yeah, it sure does. I know when
I first got interested in airplanes,we had my dad flu and we had
(07:39):
an airplane and my job was togo watch that airplane and that's how I
paid for flying lessons when I whenI was younger. So yeah, that's
I can remember getting that can ofvarsol out and play a brand on the
bottom. You probably don't even usethat now, it's probably toxic. I
think you're right, get that outthere and clean up those airplanes. And
it was gosh, it was justit's such a great memory for me.
(08:00):
I still cherish those memories. SoI hope you great success with Thank you
with all the stuff that you're doingnext and come back and visit with us
now, Kirk. One last thing, let's touch on what's going on,
what's coming up for the coming year. Yeah, I'm great plans we do.
I briefly talked about our plans withthe Royal Canadian Air Force. Next
year is the one hundred year anniversaryof the RCAF, so in Canada are
(08:24):
up north neighbor. They have allkinds of events going on. So our
plan is with the C forty seven, we're going to go on a Canadian
tour with that airplane. Cool andwe need to have all these marketings done.
We need to have everything done intime for our next air show,
which would be the Bluebonded Air Showtaking place on March sixteenth, twenty twenty
(08:45):
four. That'll be a Saturday whereyou know we're we've been working on it
since the last air show, ofcourse earlier this year. We are expecting
bigger and better things. I'm excited. It looks like we're probably slotted and
in line for another Department of Defense. You know, for the last several
years, it's been the A tonThunderbolt. Saiden mentioned that earlier, and
(09:05):
to me, that's just one ofthe most perfect air show airplanes because it's
low and slow and loud. Youknow when you get that, yeah,
that burnt of the gun, youknow, the gunflayer on the front,
you know, it's a it's literallya flying machine gun as opposed to an
armed airplane. But we're we're expectingsomething along those lines again, and we're
coming up with some new and excitingacts. I can tell you right now.
(09:28):
You know, we're not sure ifwe're going to do it, but
we're looking to have more helicopter acts. Maybe the Russian Hind helicopter, the
twenty four. That would be awesomeif you remember that in the movie Red
Dawn and and then most recently italso was featured in The Top Gun too
with with Maverick when when Maverick andRooster were being chased around on the ground,
(09:50):
that was an I twenty four Russianhelicopter chasing them around. So we'd
love to get that as an appearance. But either way, Yeah, we're
working on it and we're going tohave a great show for everybody. Good
all right, But first of all, Santa Ana CE forty seven coming up
December eighth, that's that's Friday night, six to eight pm. So it
gonna be fun. Yeah, we'llsee you right there at the Burnet Municipal
(10:11):
Airport and the large hanger, it'sthe biggest hanger there at the airport and
you'll see if you look at thehanger, you'll see air museum right on
the outside. Cool. Thank youall for coming in, Aiden, thanks
for coming in. Thank you alwaysgood to see you. Think yes,
sir, we appreciate it.
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