POS Memorial at the
National Museum of the USAF


CONTENTS:

...FLEW IN JUST TO VISIT OUR NEW MEMORIAL!



Memorial Project Chairman Denny Jarvi found this image on the NMUSAF's Facebook pages. Denny thinks it is a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk that was also circling overhead during the dedication ceremony on 17 July 2023.
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7/7/2023 PHOTO OF THE COMPLETED MEMORIAL!



HERE IT IS!   WALK TALL!   BE PROUD!

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MEMORIAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN'S UPDATE - 4/17/2023:

Greetings Pioneers of Stealth

Significant progress has been made on the memorial. All of the monuments have been created.



All four aircraft monuments are complete. The Have Blue and F-117 aircraft models have been completed and polished as well as the pylon to mount the aircraft.



The Tacit Blue model is being created as I write this note. The pad where the memorial will be placed is in position. The concrete was poured on 10 April. Once the concrete is cured, the monuments will be installed and then the aircraft models set in place.



In terms of the dedication ceremony activities on 16 and 17 July, planning is well underway. I have signed the contract with the museum to hold the celebration banquet inside the museum. This once in a lifetime event will be memorable. Plans for the dedication ceremony are in place.

I ask you to please sign up for the events. Up until 1 May, we will work to seat you with your guests. After 1 May, we cannot guarantee seating preferences will be met. On 12 June, at midnight Eastern time, I will close registrations, period.

Please click HERE to register for the Memorial Dedication events.

Dennis W Jarvi, Chairman
Pioneers of Stealth Memorial Committee
1092 Kenbrook Drive
Beavercreek, OH 45430-1312
Cell: 937.361.6025
djarvi@woh.rr.com

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MEMORIAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN'S UPDATE - 1/23/2023:

To All Pioneers of Stealth Members:

        The planning for the Pioneers of Stealth (POS) and the National Museum of the USAF (NMUSAF) Memorial Dedication to be held in Dayton Ohio is progressing well. You and your spouse/partner are invited to the three Memorial Dedication Events to be held on 16 and 17 July (Sunday and Monday) 2023. This momentous event is a celebration of the quite rare, game changing events, in aviation history. All of you participated in the creation of this technological event.

POS Memorial Social, 16 July 2023 (Sunday) at 1400 - 2000 hours:

        The POS Memorial Social, sponsored by the POS organization, will be held at the Holiday Inn, 2800 Presidential Drive, Fairborn, OH, just off I-675. The Social is open to all POS Members, Spouse/Partner, and invitees. We are working on the exact room. There will be hors d'oeuvres and a beer and wine bar. This will be a great opportunity to talk to many of your co-workers from the "Old Days"! The Dress Code is appropriate casual. There may be a nominal charge for the Social and it will be shown when you make reservations. We do ask that you make reservations so we can have an estimate of the food and drink necessary. We are also planning to have a hospitality suite available on the 16th, 17th and 18th.

NMUSAF POS Memorial Dedication Ceremony, 17 July 2023 (Monday) at 1000 hours:

        The Memorial Dedication Ceremony will be held at the National Museum of the USAF (NMUSAF) Memorial Park, outside, in front of the Museum. There will be an Honor Guard, "Presentation of the Colors", the National Anthem, and General Joseph "Joe" Ralston (USAF, Ret), our good friend and one of the original Pioneers of Stealth, will deliver the Dedication address. (We hope to record the event.) There will be seating for all attendees. This event is open to pioneers, family, friends, and the general public. The ceremony will take about 35 to 40 minutes, with picture taking to follow. Reservations are not required and there is no charge for this event. Dress accordingly for this Dayton summer-time outdoor event.

POS Memorial Dedication Celebration Banquet, 17 July 2023 (Monday) at 1730 hours:

        The banquet will be held inside the NMUSAF, The Banquet social hour will start at 1730 hours. There will be ample pay-as-you-go beverage stations. The Social hour should give you time to share with friends and to spend time visiting with our aviation heritage "children and grandchildren", parked on the floor and hanging from the ceiling throughout the four buildings that make up the Museum proper. Especially, the Museum has the original 25% scale Have Blue RCS model, circa mid-1970's (yes, we found it several years ago and had it furbished specifically to display in the Museum), Tacit Blue, the F-117 and the B-2. Dinner will be served at 1830 hours, followed by the keynote address by Paul Kaminski, another one of the original cadre of military Pioneers of Stealth. Anyone that was ever "anyone" will be there, so a word to the wise! The Dress Code for this event is Business Casual. Please note that there is limited space for the Banquet so the invited have until 1 May 2023 to select their reserved seats. After 1 May 2023, the reservations will be released on a first come basis to others that would like to attend.

        POS Member reservations for these events can be made through the pioneersofstealth.org website. Click on the "POS Memorial Dedication" link which will be operational by 31 January 2023. The process to make your own reservations will be specified on the website. Hotels, locations, and contact information will be provided. Several local hotels have agreed to hold a block of rooms at reduced rates. The Holiday Inn Hotel at Presidential Drive will be our central gathering location and "hub" for the transportation that will be provided. There will be an on-line "store" for purchase of memorabilia we will offer, along with a place to enter special needs and dietary preferences.

        We will be sending letters like this out periodically just as a reminder and to make sure we are all staying on the same schedule. If there are changes, it will be so noted in the first line of the new blast. Please copy this letter and send it to others who are pioneers, but not POS Members, to help spread the word.

        Several of us will have questions over the next several months and the burden of answering them should be answered by the person doing the activity. This list will be modified as we proceed. These are your contacts for your questions:

Dennis W Jarvi, Chairman
Pioneers of Stealth Memorial Committee
1092 Kenbrook Drive
Beavercreek, OH 45430-1312
Cell: 937.361.6025
Email: djarvi@woh.rr.com

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MEMORIAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN'S UPDATE - 12/6/2022:

Greetings Pioneers of Stealth,

You have likely already read what our POS President has recently sent to you about the POS Memorial Dedication. He mentioned we have interviewed very experienced local events planners. We are currently drafting a Statement of Work for one of them to accomplish. Our memorial committee will hammer this out. Following interviews, I have asked them for a rough ball park figure for our financial planning purposes. Our plan is to issue a Request for Proposal along with the SOW. Then pick one. Included will be your hotel needs, transportation, and links from our POS website to their web site laying out everything we can think of for your needs and perhaps items you would like. This includes lapel pins for the Have Blue and Tacit Blue aircraft, first of their kind that I am aware of. We will need to do this very soon so as our President stated, we are planning on this link to be posted for you in January.

Thank you for your responses to my “soft RSVP” on attending the dedication ceremony. Your responses helped us in our plans, creating to do list, helped us figure out how many hotel rooms we are after. Next year we will be sending you a “hard RSVP” with drop dead dates. This one will require you to signup and commit. There will be provisions for late signups but that will incur a price increase as well as what you will have to do.

Your memorial committee has made a change in the model sizes to be placed on top of the monuments. I said one of my letters to you, the models would be scaled in size to each other. After long discussions we realized the size of Have Blue compared to the B-2 would not work. The aim of the models is to draw people to the models and the memorial. We decided to increase the size of the Have Blue model but still make it smaller than the F-117. We also settled on using round numbers rather than being absolutely “accurate”. You will be looking at this model from 15 feet and it will be close enough.

We settled on:
  • Have Blue, length 31 inches, 16 inches wing span.
  • F-117, 37 inches length, 24 inches wing span.
  • Tacit Blue, 30 inches length, 22 inches wing span.
  • B-2, length 22 inches, 41 inches wing span.
We also settled on the pylon height and shape. It will be an elongated quadrangle that you see here:




The Have Blue model shown is the model you will see on the monument. It was temporarily mounted on a pylon for demonstration purposes ... in the opposite direction! It is a work in progress. The welding will be ground smooth. The cockpit, intakes, and exhaust will have surface treatments to make them visible.

Spradlin Brothers had been in close contact with BASTech who is creating the templates for Spradlin’s use. Spradlin believes the F-117 model will be built by the end of the year or soon after.

On 29 November, your memorial committee, and Matt Morrison, our prime contractor, visited Spradlin Brothers in Springfield, Ohio to view their progress on creating the Have Blue model that will be mounted on top of the 8 foot high Have Blue memorial. This model is 31 inches long.

This is the view from 9 feet down and a few feet back:



This is the rear view, from 9 feet down and a few feet back:



Front view showing stainless steel welds on American made stainless steel sheets:



3/4 view from above at ground level:



Click HERE to read Skip Hickey’s terrific trip report to the Spradlin Brothers on 29 November. It includes technical and important schedule details I have not included above.

I absolutely could not have been able to lead us to this point without John Griffin, Skip Hickey, Pete Knauth, Jack Wilson, terrific web support by Jerry Vanden Bosch and Pat Saatzer and support from all of you.

Nothing left to do but build it, install it, dedicate it, and have a terrific party!

Please look for updates on the dedication and celebratory dinner.

Here’s wishing you a Happy, Healthy, Holiday Season.

Dennis W. Jarvi, Chairman
Pioneers of Stealth Memorial Committee
1092 Kenbrook Dr.
Beavercreek, OH 45430
Cell: 937-361-6025
Email: djarvi@woh.rr.com

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LATEST PHASE II DONATIONS RECEIVED STATUS:

As of: 23 September 2022
FUNDING:

We've progressed well over our goal in our Phase II fundraising!! Treasurer Pete Knauth reports that as of 23 September 2022, more than one hundred six donors have contributed so far; some twice or three times... Several donations have been made through NAHA (see "DONATIONS" below). Total donations are now almost 114% of our Phase II goal!

On 19 January 2022, Memorial project chariman Denny Jarvi signed a firm fixed price contract with Morrison Monuments for $234,850 based on the chosen final design and details. This includes the four individual aircraft obelisks with wording and graphics, the center dedication obelisk, the concrete pad, the aircraft models and poles, installation and taxes for everything.

Also, at project completion, we will be obligated to pay the Air Force Museum Foundation $19,500 for perpetual care.

A year ago, we had set a Phase I, pre-final design estimated funding goal of $150,000. On Jan 20, 2022, we paid Morrison Monuments their 50% down payment ($117,425) from the Phase I funds received from the 92 contributors to this memorial.

The Phase II Goal on January 21, 2022 after the first Morrison 50% down payment was set at: $136,929.00. We request your support to complete this effort.

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MEMORIAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN'S UPDATE - 7/2022:

Our prime contractor, Morrison Monuments, has a contract with Spradlin Bothers to manufacture the models. We met him this week.



We had a great discussion with Jeff Spradlin, the model builder. His manufacturing facility and his staff is well capable of making the models. And he is an “airplane guy” and very motivated to build our models. Their company has been welding and creating parts since 1962.


We spent time over the last year researching numerous methods of making models at reasonable cost and for the best longevity in an outside environment. We have settled on 1/8 stainless steel cut parts, formed into shape, welded, ground smooth and polished to a high gloss. The welds will be invisible This has been a very durable product. It will allow construction of a B-2 model a proper size to be built in a reasonable weight since much of it will be hollow.

We have investigated many different approaches to making the models and consulted with people who built and constructed outdoor metal objects. We have discarded 3-D printed models (The B-2 size drove a high cost), Hogged out models due to weight, chrome plated cast brass (weigh, dissimilar metal ionic corrosion, different coefficients of expansion of the metals, all integrated. is difficult) and aluminum (risk that the anodize will become chalky in appearance). There is no perfect solution. Stainless steel plate rolled and formed to shape, welded, and smoothed out with a high polish is the current approach for our first prototype.

The attachment of the models to the top of the granite blocks is a primary consideration. Morrison Monuments, the prime contractor, is designing the interface together with Spradlin Brothers and the construction of the mounting plate and the pylon. The pylon will be shaped like the RCS pylons that will be welded to the base of the models and to the granite metal interface. The base of the models will be made out of quarter inch stainless plate.

We are going to match the scales of the aircraft in pairs. Have Blue’s size will be selected to be large enough to be seen and recognized on its 8 foot high granite block. The F-117 will use the same scale, so it will be physically larger. The B-2 size will be visually larger than the others and the Tacit Blue size will be scaled back from that. We will lay out cardboard cut outs of the different sizes along with visuals from our 3-D memorial mockup. Our model maker agrees this is the best solution. The models will not contain any cut outs for the inlets or nozzles, will not have cut lines for the control surfaces or details for the windshields. The purpose of the models is to look like the real thing at 10 to 50 feet away. The actual aircraft details will be inside the Museum.

Jeff made many suggestions and gave us some really good ideas. We reciprocated with our ideas and took the first steps and creating what I think is going to be an excellent team. Larry Morrison, our prime contractor, was also there with us. We have been invited back to watch the process and to comment as it unfolds.

Our next steps are to work with BAStech, a subcontractor hired by Spradlin Brothers, who is developing the 3-D math model of the airplanes, which will be used by Spradlin Brothers to design and cut the parts. Our model builder has already contacted them, and they have a general agreement on timeframe It would be hard to call it a schedule. The intent is to have the models finished, including the model polishing by Boyd Machine, before the end of the year.

Our plan is to have the monuments installed by early June 2023.

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MEMORIAL DESIGN:

Over this past year the Memorial committee and the POS membership have worked together to design a magnificent memorial dedicated to all the pioneers of stealth. We have done that. Preliminary and Critical Design Review processes have been completed. Narritives have been created for the front and back sides of all five of the obelisks for review by the National Museum of the USAF before we formally submit our package.


The memorial will be very close to the museum’s parking lot and will be facing it. The words PIONEERS OF STEALTH on the dedication obelisk will be very visible from the parking lot with a sidewalk leading directly to the memorial. The other four obelisks of the memorial are arranged to chronologically illustrate the growth of stealth technology from Have Blue to the B-2 Stealth Bomber. Each of these will have a stainless steel model on top and a description of their contribution to stealth technology and their achievements of the front and back sides of the obelisk.

Near term, we are hoping to receive the required Air Force approval of our proposal by July 4, 2022. This will give Morrison Monuments a year to create and install the memorial. We are aiming at on or about July 4, 2023 for the dedication ceremony and celebration party.

Click HERE to view a slide show depicting the Memorial's location, more final design images, and the proposed narratives about each aircraft program.

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DONATIONS:

You can submit monetary donations directly to the Pioneers of Stealth by PayPal or check. Click HERE to view the dedicated POS Memorial “Donations” page. All donations will be most gratefully accepted and acknowledged.

New POS Partnership with National Aviation Heritage Alliance:

During the course raising funds for the memorial, people asked if we are a 501(C)3. Because the POS is not a charitable organization, other avenues were pursued. Your president, John Griffin, found a workable option.

As of March 23, 2022, A total of ninety-eight POS members have donated $144,810 for the POS Memorial at the Air Force Museum in Dayton. We will be collecting another $109,544 before the end of 2022 to complete the $254,350 project.

Until March 22, 2022, all donations made for the Memorial did not allow donors to the reap 501(c)(3) tax benefits because the Pioneers of Stealth Organization was not, and could not be by its nature, designated by the IRS as a Charitable Organization.

However, on March 23rd, the Pioneers of Stealth signed an agreement with the Dayton-based National Aviation Heritage Alliance (NAHA), a designated 501(c)(3) organization, which will allow donations of $1,000 or more for the POS Memorial to be sent to NAHA, thus permitting the donor to accrue the 501(c)(3) donation and tax benefits that designation provides.

Donations of any amount, including those larger than $1,000, can continue to be made directly to the POS via the POS web site just as before if you wish to do so.

Please note that if the memorial donations made to NAHA this year exceed the $109,544 needed to complete the POS Memorial, our agreement with NAHA stipulates NAHA will transfer any excess POS Memorial funds they have received to the Air Force National Museum Foundation for "...the development of future Stealth displays at the USAF Museum".

Donations of $1,000 and above for the POS Memorial can now be made - by check only at this time - payable to the "National Aviation Heritage Alliance", Post Office Box 414, Dayton, Ohio, 45409. Please be sure to clearly designate in the memo line of your check that your NAHA contribution is an "AF Museum POS Memorial" donation.

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MEMORIAL PARK SITE LIMITATIONS:

The area for the memorial footprint is 30 feet by 30 feet, and the height is restricted by the NMUSAF to 10 feet.

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DESIGN SELECTION PROCESS:

Concept Exploration: THIS EFFORT IS COMPLETE All members’ design concepts and inscription ideas must be submitted by 4 July 2021. That is the firm cutoff date for submittals.

Preliminary Design Review: THIS EFFORT IS COMPLETE The committee's activity in the weeks ahead will be consumed with filling in details of your chosen design: graphics, aircraft models?, phrases, and explanatory words. All TBD. We anticipate completing this by 31 October for your next vote on PDR 2. The POS memorial committee will evaluate all submittals and select the five best design concepts and the five best inscriptions ideas based on NMUSAF requirements. Ideas may be combined by the committee. These five design and inscriptions concepts will then be voted on by you, the members. The committee will then select the top three options and then present them to you the members to vote again on your number one option. These design concepts and inscription ideas will be submitted to the POS membership for a final selection vote. This Preliminary Design Review process will be completed by 26 November 2021. The committee will coordinate with the senior leadership of the POS during this process.

Critical Design Review: THIS EFFORT IS COMPLETE The final selection phase will be moving to exactly what will be built. The number one option you voted for in PDR will be presented to you, the members, for your final vote in December. We will be nailing down the color(s) and other remaining questions that may arise. This CDR phase will end on 25 December 2021.

The memorial committee will look for concepts that are attention getters, unique, tell our story to the future public, and leave them with WOW, that’s what these people did, and is handicapped accessible.

The POS memorial committee will select and combine, if necessary, the best design(s) and inscription(s) by 3 January 2022, and the “frozen” final design will be submitted by formal letter to the NMUSAF.

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MORE INFORMATION:

Early in 2021 we uploaded considerable information about our POS memorial team, the NMUSAF Memorial Park location selected for our POS memorial, views of other memorials at various locations in the Park, and a few early design concepts with some inscription ideas for the POS memorial as submitted by local companies Dodd Monuments and Morrison Monuments. You can view all this in a slide show by clicking HERE.

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If you have questions, comments, etc; please contact our POS Memorial Committee directly:

          Dennis W. Jarvi, Chairman
          Pioneers of Stealth Memorial Committee
          1092 Kenbrook Dr.
          Beavercreek, OH 45430-1312
          Phone: 937.361.6025
          Email: djarvi@woh.rr.com
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