Date: September 7, 1972
Location: Stroudsburg, PA
By: —
Newspaper: The Pocono Record
Page: 3
LONG POND – An aerobatic show featuring skydivers, stunt pilots, comic flyers and an outstanding sailplane artist will be held at 2p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17 at the Pocono International Raceway, Long Pond.
The two and a half hour performance is sponsored by Wings of Hope, a non-profit , non-sectarian organization based in St. Louis, which provides aviation and communication services to remote areas of the world for humanitarian purposes.
Proceeds from the show will primarily benefit the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart in New Guinea, who use aircraft in the widely scattered tropical islands for transporting teachers, doctors, nurses and mission personnel and for medical emergencies among the thousands of natives they serve.
Surplus funds will be used for similar humanitarian and religious enterprises in the South Pacific.
The Pocono Raceway has donated the use of its facilities for the benefit show, and several prominent men in the aviation industry and operations are assisting the project as members of an advisory board.
They include Robert Chatley, of North American Rockwell; E. Haddaway, publisher of Flight magazine and board chairman of Wings of Hope; Charles J. Melville, director of the Reading Air Show; Dawson Ransome, ace stunt flyer, who will also perform in the show; Wilfred “Wiley” Post, Jr., A-B-E Airport manager; and Donald F. Glass, Reading Airport Manager.
Mario Andretti, three-time national USAC champion and Grand Prix race car driver, is the honorary chairman of the show.
From 12:30 to 2 p.m. Andretti will gives rides around the race track in special cars provided by Dotta Chrysler Plymouth of Pen Argyl.
After a flag-jump opening by the Adventurerssky-diving team, performances will be staged by Ray Wiseman, Dan Chapman, Dawson Ransome, Scotty McGray, and several members of the Mason-Dixon Airshow troupe, whose acts include an inverted ribbon cut and a girl-rider on an airplane wing.
Announcers for the show will be Captain Jim Webb of Eastern Airlines and Russ Brinkley, president of Silver Wings.
The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) were aviation pioneers in the northern islands of the territory of New Guinea.
Twenty-six years ago, three of the original seven American MSC priests assigned to the area after World War II obtained pilot licenses before going there. They foresaw air transportation as the key to modern progress in the primitive South Pacific islands.
The immediate business of rebuilding churches, schools and hospitals destroyed by the war, as well as the lack of adequate funds, delayed air travel for several years.
However, two of the “flying Padres”, Bishop Alfred Stemper, MSC, head of the Kavieng, New Ireland, mission, and Rev. Anthony Gendusa, MSC, finally obtained airplanes and built air strips in the late 1960s.
The third, Rev. Charles Patrick, MSC, returned to the U.S. and is the present provincial supervisor of the American MSC Missionaries.
The cost of replacing the well-used mission planes and of maintaining and fueling the new ones is the reason for this year’s air show in the Poconos.
Gates will open for the air show at noon on Sept. 17. Tickets are $3 for adults and one dollar for children between the ages of six and 13. Tickets available at the raceway on the day of the show and at various selected locations.