The CV-22 Osprey got its first encounter with a massive storm on Sept. 11 when it joined several other Air Force planes in an effort to rescue crewmen from a freighter ship in the path of the Hurricane Ike in the Gulf of Mexico.

“In the end, all the aircraft had to turn back and the ship’s crew rode out the storm”, said Lt. Col. Stephanie A. Holcombe, director of public affairs for Air Force Special Operations Command.

Two Ospreys, along with an MH-53 Pave Low, an MC-130W and an MC-130 P were ordered to the mission around 11 a.m. on Sept. 11 after getting the report earlier about the stranded oil freighter named Antalina. The mission was launched after the Coast Guard requested Air Force help with the rescue, Holcombe said.

The ship was reported to be floating without power about 12 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas. However, the ship in fact did have power, according to Holcombe. The Air Force planes carried four rescue crews made up of three pararescuemen and a combat controller.

But as the Ospreys encountered winds in excess of 100 miles an hour they had to turn back. Those same winds prevented the Coast Guard from extending its rescue hoists from their own HH-60 helicopters, according to reports, prompting them to ask the Air Force for help.

The National Naval Aviation Museum is a place that brings together different people who have one thing in common: a love of aviation.

Located at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida, the museum has a flight simulator that depicts a jet fighter swooping into battle during the first Iraq war, a seven-story atrium that features a collection of Blue Angels jets hanging from the ceiling, an IMAX theater that shows a film about the acrobatic fliers, and a café that is a recreation of the Cubi Point officer’s club in the Philippines.

However, the main attractions of the National Naval Aviation Museum, which opened in 1963 and has been expanded three times, are its restored aircraft. Among them is the Navy’s S-3B Viking that President Bush flew when he landed on the carrier Abraham Lincoln and made his “Mission Accomplished” speech about the Iraq war.

The PB2Y Coronado, the first US plane that landed in Tokyo after World War II, is the latest restoration project of the museum. Restorations are undertaken by mostly volunteers composing of hundreds of military retirees.

The volunteers often draw on their own military experience to make the restorations authentic. Thousands of hours in labor are contributed each year to the museum, making the volunteer program a model for other museums.

Former Navy pilot Mort Eckhouse, 79, has logged thousands of volunteer hours over almost 20 years of working in the restoration area’s machine shop. He meticulously recreates rusted and broken aircraft parts on donated 1950s era milling machines. His work is then tested whenever a pilot or crew member of a restored aircraft sees the finished product in the museum.

“It’s a wonderful moment when the guy who actually flew the plane comes and checks it out,” said Eckhouse. “We try to restore them as close to the factory specs as we can.”

Volunteer Jeff Peyronnin, 62, who served in the Coast Guard, has spent the last two years working on the Coronado’s tail section.

“Every time you mess with it you feel like you are touching history,” he said. “I like to picture this old lady at Tokyo Bay.”

World War II veteran Les Schnyder, 82, has logged more than 18,000 hours as a volunteer. His specialty is restoring the blimplike airships that escorted convoys in WWII, and many of his restoration projects are already on display inside the museum.

Some of the planes were brought back to life after being pulled from the water years later, including an early World War II era Brewster Buccaneer that was at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked. It later flew in the Battle of Midway before becoming a training aircraft for pilots practicing carrier landings in Lake Michigan, where it sank after a crash. It was only salvaged from the lake six decades later.

Wally Farrand, after 22 years in the Navy, now restores the museum’s vintage aircraft engines, including the Brewster’s. He joked that his best work is never seen by visitors because it is inside the aircraft.

“But everything I do here, I just love it,” he said.

And it is that kind of tireless dedication from the volunteers that keeps the museum running smoothly.

For operation hours, activities and other information about the National Naval Aviation Museum, visit www.navalaviationmuseum.org.

The impact of Hurricane Ike has reached out into space and delayed the planned Friday arrival of a Russian cargo ship at the international space station.

The unmanned Russian space freighter Progress 30 was slated to arrive at the space station at 5:01 p.m. Friday, but flight controllers at NASA’s Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston had yet to move the orbiting laboratory’s expansive solar arrays into position for the docking before closing down Thursday to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Ike.

“The Russians and NASA came to an agreement today to postpone docking until Wednesday,” said John Yembrick, a NASA spokesman at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. NASA has setup a backup Mission Control teams for the space station near Austin, Texas and in Huntsville, Alabama. Yembrick said that the main Mission Control room in Houston is preferred to feather the space stations’s US solar arrays into an edge-on position to incoming spacecraft to avoid damage from thruster firings.

If required, the agency could command the solar array movement from a backup center, but mission managers preferred to wait until Wednesday and allow time for NASA personnel to evacuate, Yembrick said.

As of 5 p.m. Thursday, Hurricane Ike was a Category 2 storm centered about 400 miles (645 kilometers) east-southeast of Galveston, Texas, and was expected to strengthen into a major hurricane before making landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Did you know that professional use them for scientific and theory testing of aircraft behaviour?

Paper Airplane are used by Paper Aircraft and by large Aerospace Aircraft manufacturers

Did you know that the longest UK (ex-World Record) duration of a flight by a paper aircraft, indoors, is 20.9 seconds?

This was achieved by Chris Edge of British Aerospace Defense LTD, and Andy Currey from the Defense Evaluation Research Agency. By an amazing coincidence they both recorded exactly the same time and on consecutive throws. This record was established on July 28, 1996 at Cardington Airship Hangars in Bedfordshire, England.

Did you know that the longest duration of a flight by a paper plane, indoors, is 27.6 seconds?

This was achieved by Ken Blackburn in the USA. Ken is one of the superstars of the paper aircraft world today and keeps all of us, all over the World, working hard to match his skills.

Did you know that the largest wingspan of a paper aircraft world record holder measures 40ft 10in (1.97m)?

It was made by a team of students from the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. It was flown indoors on May 16, 1995. Launched indoors by one person, it flew a distance of 114ft 2in (34.80m) from a 10ft (3m) high platform.

Did you know that the smallest paper airplane was made from origami paper?

The smallest origami paper model of a Crane Bird was folded under a microscope using tweezers by a Mr Naito from Japan and was made from a piece of paper 2.9 mm square. It is displayed on top of a sewing needle. Now that’s small – what a pity it didn’t fly!

Did you know that paper aircraft won’t fly if you thrown it in space?

There is no atmosphere and it would just float away in a straight line. With no gravity to pull it down, it would possibly fly on forever until it hit an object.