Over the weekend several Marana Aviation Foundation members met to participate in a Marana Adopt-a-Roadway Clean-up. The Marana Adopt-a-Roadway Project is part of a state-wide effort to improve the appearance and keep Arizona roads beautiful.
The day began at the Marana Regional Airport for breakfast at the Sky Rider Cafe. It was a combination of a social event, good food, a business meeting, and doing a small part in keeping Marana beautiful, especially over by the Airport where many visiting dignitaries fly in regularly for events at our world-class resorts.
Every few months the foundation chooses to clean up the mile and a quarter stretch of Sandario Road from Avra Valley to Twin Peaks Road. At first glance it didn’t look too bad, but thirty 55-gallon trash bags were filled in the 2 hours spent there. From cigarette butts (yes, obsessive members even went after those) to shredded tires and iron bars...afterwards, some parts of the road were so clean, they could have had a picnic there.
The Marana Aviation Foundation is made up residents of Marana and surrounding communities that have banded together to promote a common interest in aviation. These folks come from all over the country, from diverse occupations and backgrounds, from all income brackets, and especially from a varied aviation history (commercial and private pilots, mechanics, administrators, businesses)...and they formed the foundation.
The Marana Aviation Foundation was chartered last year with three goals: to encourage and support aviation education, to promote aviation and pilot safety, and to perform community service in Marana.
In addition to the Adopt-a-Roadway Project, the Foundation will be helping out the Marana Unified School District by supporting the new Aviation Curriculum, focused on training pilots and aviation mechanics for a future career in the industry. A “plane wash”, a most unique event, will help generate funds to purchase needed equipment for the curriculum.
Other programs and events include sponsoring FAA safety seminars on a variety of topics ranging from how to do aircraft maintenance to aviation medicine to aviation photography and videography; sponsoring informational tours of the Marana Regional Airport for schools and youth groups; project-based learning involving aircraft refurbishing; and sponsoring ground school and flight training scholarships.
The major fundraiser for the foundation this year will be Marana AirExpo, to be held at the Marana Regional Airport on Saturday, October 29th from 9 AM to 3 PM. There’s a lot that’ll be happening at the AirExpo. To check it out, go to MaranaAirExpo.com. If you see something that particularly interests you, let the Foundation know - maybe you would enjoy working on one of the committees, creating a first-of-its-kind event in southern Arizona.
On another note: attention aviation trivia wannabees! Do you know how many military aircraft were manufactured for use during World War II? The answer: 294,000. Of those, 65,000 were lost for various reasons and a bunch were recycled for their aluminum; many were sold to civilians and became “war birds”.
Original article can be found here: http://www.tucsonlocalmedia.com
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