Flight Training

The FBI believes that one or more of the Arab men who an agent reported were suspiciously taking flight lessons at an Arizona school last summer have links to a terrorist group, Director Robert Mueller said at a Senate hearing yesterday. Nearly two months before the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, an agent in the FBI's Phoenix field office reported that seven or eight Arab men were studying engineering, airport operations, and pilot training at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.

Richard H. Shepherd Sr., 88, founder of a surety bond agency in Fort Washington, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Monday at the Hill at Whitemarsh, a continuing-care retirement community in Lafayette Hill. He lived in Chestnut Hill from 1956 through 2007. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Shepherd graduated from Germantown High School in 1939. He attended the University of Miami for two years and earned his bachelor's degree there in 1945, with credit for course study while he was in the Army Air Corps.

Maj. James Joseph Ridgway, 53, a retired Air Force pilot who grew up in Philadelphia, died of a heart attack Saturday near his home in Williamsburg, Va. He died while running an errand at nearby Fort Eustis in Newport News. Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from St. Joseph's Preparatory School and earned a degree in accounting in 1963 from St. Joseph's University, where he was in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. He enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, but before he could complete his master's in business, he was ordered to Vietnam in 1968.

Military pilots are taught that their first concern during a flight emergency is to risk all - even their own lives - to save those on the ground, military officials said yesterday. During emergency flight training, every military pilot is taught to maneuver a failing aircraft away from populated areas, said Col. Bob Kershner, commander of the 111th Tactical Air Support Group, Pennsylvania Air National Guard. But when the engine failed yesterday on the jet fighter that Air Force Maj. Bruce L. Teagarden was flying over Indianapolis, he either could not or did not divert the crashing plane from the heavily populated area around the Indianapolis International Airport.

David Gethers, 31, a Philadelphia native who was within weeks of realizing a lifelong desire of becoming a commercial pilot, died Friday when his single-engine Mooney plunged into Galveston Bay, Texas. The crash was under investigation. Mr. Gethers, who belonged to the Civil Air Patrol while growing up in Philadelphia, graduated from Saul High School in 1983 and earned a bachelor's degree in earth sciences in 1987 at Bloomsburg State University. A member of ROTC, he went direct from college into the Air Force as a second lieutenant.

Support for the military can take many forms, as five Chester County companies discovered on Independence Day. They were to be honored by the U.S. Department of Defense as flags waved and bands played in Fourth of July ceremonies at East Goshen Park in West Chester - not for producing war materials but for helping employees who not only changed jobs but changed incomes when they put on uniforms to serve in Operation Desert Storm. Chester County Ob-Gyn Associates, Lukens Steel, MBB Helicopter, Shared Medical Services and Roy F. Weston Inc. were to receive Seven Seals Awards for going beyond what the law requires of employers.

James J. Coyle, 78, a career naval officer whose ship survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died of a stroke Tuesday at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point, N.J. He was an Ocean City, N.J., resident for the last 13 years. Born in the Fairmount section of the city, Mr. Coyle graduated from St. Joseph's Prep and won an appointment to the Naval Academy. He graduated in 1940 as an ensign, and his first assignment was as senior engineering officer aboard the USS Raleigh, a light cruiser.

Combat pilots are used to doing their fighting high in the air. For several months, however, members of a Pennsylvania Air National Guard unit at Willow Grove Naval Air Station have been waging a struggle on the ground. With each other. The battle involves top officers and pilots of the 103d Fighter Squadron, which flies the A-10 Warthog, a two-engine jet fighter, between the suburban Philadelphia base and training sites near Harrisburg and at the Jersey Shore. Two A-10 pilots, Capts.

DEAR Osama bin Laden: The destruction that you have caused has only made our nation stronger. Nations around the globe reach out to us in support and condemnation of you. I'm sorry you hate us with such a blackened heart. It must be painful to know that every murderous act that you commit serves only to strengthen our resolve while leading you one step closer to your own extinction. You obviously don't understand us or the ideals we embrace. You don't know what you just started.

Jason Wismer was still in college, but he was already soaring toward a career as a commercial airline pilot. He waited tables at Franklin Mills Mall. He'd worked at his father's auto repair shop in Bensalem, Bucks County. He'd spent his earnings on flying lessons. Within two weeks, the 20-year-old Wismer would have completed the flight time he needed for a commercial pilot's license, his family said - even though he was heading back to college next month. "He couldn't wait to fly the big ones," said family friend Joe Carrello yesterday.

In the Region Housing contracts on the rise Sales contracts for existing homes rose 2 percent nationally in January from December and were 8 percent above the first month of 2011, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. In the eight-county Philadelphia region, these "pending" sales, which typically go to settlement within 45 and 60 days of contract-signing, rose 20 percent from December and were 14 percent above January 2011, Prudential Fox & Roach HomExpert reported.

Looks like Red Tails , George Lucas' World War II biopic about the Tuskegee Airmen, made $19 million over the weekend. Decent, considering its limited opening in the dreaded dead zone between Christmas and the Oscars. I wasn't going to let ho-hum reviews stop me from seeing it. If anything, I went to honor men like Maj. John L. Harrison, one of the 320 surviving airmen (out of about 900) to receive a Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. Harrison saw it, too, and liked it. "I thought it was a superior depiction of aerial combat.

First Lt. Shawn Nice, 26, a Levittown native, was a Marine officer training in Pensacola, Fla., to be a naval flight officer. He had a degree in electrical engineering. He and his wife, Kimberly, were expecting their first child. Nice was on a routine training flight on a T-39N Sabreliner out of Pensacola when it crashed in dense forest in northern Georgia on Monday. He was one of four killed in the crash. The twin-engine jet nearly struck a house when it went down, according to authorities, but no one on the ground was hurt.

Richard H. Shepherd Sr., 88, founder of a surety bond agency in Fort Washington, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Monday at the Hill at Whitemarsh, a continuing-care retirement community in Lafayette Hill. He lived in Chestnut Hill from 1956 through 2007. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Shepherd graduated from Germantown High School in 1939. He attended the University of Miami for two years and earned his bachelor's degree there in 1945, with credit for course study while he was in the Army Air Corps.

At the intersection of Swedesford Road and Valley Stream Parkway in the Great Valley Corporate Center in Chester County, there's an old tree that stands out from the other flora on this manicured, man-made landscape. This tree marks the location of the all but forgotten Main Line Airport, according to Roger D. Thorne, a local historian. Located in the middle of what was then a farming community, the airport was for more than 45 years a working airfield, involved in service and research on both fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft during the formative years of aviation in our region.

The FBI believes that one or more of the Arab men who an agent reported were suspiciously taking flight lessons at an Arizona school last summer have links to a terrorist group, Director Robert Mueller said at a Senate hearing yesterday. Nearly two months before the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, an agent in the FBI's Phoenix field office reported that seven or eight Arab men were studying engineering, airport operations, and pilot training at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.

DEAR Osama bin Laden: The destruction that you have caused has only made our nation stronger. Nations around the globe reach out to us in support and condemnation of you. I'm sorry you hate us with such a blackened heart. It must be painful to know that every murderous act that you commit serves only to strengthen our resolve while leading you one step closer to your own extinction. You obviously don't understand us or the ideals we embrace. You don't know what you just started.

Federal and state authorities scoured for clues from Maine to Florida as they began uncovering the complex plot that led to Tuesday's deadly terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Investigators in the FBI-led probe tracked down hundreds of potential leads, following trails left by the suicide terrorists, from hotel rooms to rental cars to Arabic-language piloting manuals. Law enforcement authorities have identified many of the hijackers by name, and efforts are under way to find their associates, FBI director Robert Mueller said.

Mike Byrne does not need a Global Positioning System to find his way around the track. The Upper Darby senior can run 800 meters in 1 minute, 59.8 seconds, and 400 meters in 52.1 seconds, but he's looking to go faster, farther and higher. Byrne, who has accepted an Air Force ROTC scholarship to Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., is looking forward to a career as a pilot and engineer. "I knew I wanted to go into the Air Force and serve in the armed forces," Byrne said.

Jason Wismer was still in college, but he was already soaring toward a career as a commercial airline pilot. He waited tables at Franklin Mills Mall. He'd worked at his father's auto repair shop in Bensalem, Bucks County. He'd spent his earnings on flying lessons. Within two weeks, the 20-year-old Wismer would have completed the flight time he needed for a commercial pilot's license, his family said - even though he was heading back to college next month. "He couldn't wait to fly the big ones," said family friend Joe Carrello yesterday.