Big Easy Wing supports both its local community and its neighboring communities.

2022–Working with Second Harvest to bring food items.

2021–Fund raiser and food drive for victims of Ida and Laura

2020– Participating with the WWII Museum to honor a WWII Veteran

The Big Easy Wing will be joining the WWII Museum in their celebration of Mr. Lawrence Brooks 111 birthday. The N’awlins Lady (1942 Stearman) will join the AeroShell Team on September 12 for a 10:40 salute to Mr. Brooks, the oldest WWII veteran. Please see the National Geographic article on Mr. Brooks who just happens to live in New Orleans and the WWII Museum.

2020–Honoring our Front-Line Responders with flight–UNITED WE FLY – 4TH OF JULY  The Big Easy Wing Flies Over New Orleans/ Hammond, LA

Big Easy Wing (BEW) of The Commemorative Air Force (CAF) will host “Honor Flights” over the city of New Orleans.  These flights will honor frontline responders and honor our country’s independence.  The first flight will take place at noon on Friday, July 3. This flight is the first of three scheduled for the 4th of July weekend.  We are honoring our frontline responders as part of the nationwide initiative of the Commemorative Air Force, United We Fly-4th of July.  This initiative invites the country to come together at noon across time zones to observe WWII aircraft adorning the sky.  As a nation we are stronger when we are united.

Video of a First Responder Flight

2020–Inspiring Our Community-providing comfort and hope to a city devastated by COVID 19–Our First “Spirit Flight” was held on Good Friday,  April 9, 2020.  The flight took the Archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, over the city to bless the citizens of Metropolitan New Orleans during this pandemic crisis and then at noon, Rabbi Alexis Erdheim of Gates of Prayer Synagogue prayed over the city.

 

2019–Helping Fellow BEW member— a fellow member’s Stearman had an incident landing at Lakefront back in October, 2019.  Members of our unit assisted  with the disassembling process.

2018–Helping Fellow CAF members–A few CAF units had some issue after the 2018 WWII Air, Sea, and Land Festival in October.  Our members especially Terry assisted these units with their repairs.

2018–Promoting Aviation through a Flight Raffle

Soon, we will offer flights on vintage warbirds.     But at present, we have had only a raffle at the WWII Air, Sea, and Land Festival for someone to win a chance to fly in a T-6G Texan.  We had the drawing on Sunday, October 29, 2018.

The winner was Mary Ann Clemons from Amite, LA.  She bought a $20 ticket hoping to win a dream ride in an actual WW2 airplane.  That dream came true on Saturday, November 11th as wing member Sonny Schilleci gave her a bucket list ride in his AT-6 fighter trainer.

2017-2019 Restoring/Rebuilding Our Hangar

Wouldn’t you like the opportunity to be part of a group of man and women who finds giving life to Vintage warbirds fun and exciting. While at the same time learning new skills or using some skills that hasn’t been used recently.

Soon, we will be working on aircrafts but for now we are busy rebuilding and restoring our hangar.

Helping our Neighbors

2017–Project 1.     Thanks to everyone who came out to help “Cajun Airlift” send supplies to Houston.  We sent upward of 15 thousand pounds of well-needed supplies to the Houston area. Thanks to David Capo, our Unit Leader, the BlueBonnet Belle and all the Big Easy Wing members that came out to help. Photo taken by Jeannine DiFulco

2018–Project 2:  One of our members, Donald Allen, who has been helping with the rebuilding of the hangar has found a non-profit who is benefiting form several items found at the hangar.  The group is called options4u.  OPTIONS improves the lives of over 200 people with disabilities through maximizing life skills, meaningful work, inclusive community and support beyond the family.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continuous Learning

  • To restore and maintain vintage aircraft will teach you new skills.
  • To learn the history of that vintage aircraft will broaden your knowledge base.
  • To provide a service to your community by working with other volunteers will enhance your quality of life.
  • To develop and inspire our youth about aircraft and flight history.
  • To instill the importance of safety at all levels of learning.

 

 

 

 

Next Steps…

Not sure if you want to become involved then check out the Commemorative Air Force.

They can show you in detail what volunteers and sponsors can achieve. CAF