Museum to feature Tuskegee Airmen paintings and drawings
February 25, 2013, 10:15 am
The Museum of Flight in Seattle is paying tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military pilots, with an exhibition featuring paintings and drawings of the airmen. The exhibition, Red Tails, Silver Wings: Paintings of Tuskegee Airmen by Chris Hopkins, will go up on February 28 and end May 12. It will serve as a personal tribute by Hopkins to the Red Tails and will feature 28 paintings and 15 charcoal drawings. In the past, Hopkins has produced movie posters for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and posters for numerous Super Bowls. In addition, he received a Grammy nomination for his art on the Styx album cover Paradise Theatre. The Tuskegee Airmen flew more than 1,500 combat missions from June 1943 through April 1945. Ford auctioned one of a kind Red Tail Mustang at AirVenture
The latest tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen is one of many since 1945. Just last year the first black military pilots also received recognition at the Experimental Aviation Administrations AirVenture when Ford built a one of a kind Red Tails edition 2013 Mustang that went up for auction. The car sold for $370,000 at the Gathering of Eagles charity auction. "The perseverance and excellence displayed by the Tuskegee Airmen are qualities we also celebrate at Ford," said Edsel Ford, a member of Ford's board of directors. "With this year's beautiful 'Red Tails' Mustang, we've captured the recognizable symbols in honor of their important role in our history, and paired it with the innovation our Ford design and engineering teams build into all of our products. Through this project, we take great pride in continuing our support for EAA and the Young Eagles organization." The Red Tail model sold was a 5.0 liter Mustang GT and had a red tail and school bus yellow accented paint job, while the seats featured a Red Tail logo embroidered on them and the floor mats were embroidered with the 332nd Fighter Group logo. Unlike other Mustangs, the one of a kind Red Tail model receives 624 horsepower and has a 2.3-liter twin screw Whipple supercharger, Ford Racing handling kit, unique side performance quad exhaust, Forgiato wheels and GT500 Brembo brakes and diffuser. The proceeds from the auction all go toward helping inspire fans of aviation as the Young Eagles have given introductory flight training to more than 1.6 million young people since 1992. While many in the aviation community have will be inspired by the Tuskegee Airmen for decades to come, pilots are reminded to obtain pilot life insurance to ensure their own future in aviation.
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