National Hall of Fame's ‘Oscars of Aviation' En Route to Fort Worth in 2017

After half a century at the birthplace of aviation, the National Aviation Hall of Fame's black-tie enshrinement ceremony is taking off from Dayton, Ohio, for a visit to one of the epicenters of the modern U.S. aviation and aerospace industries — Fort Worth.The hall of fame's board of directors voted this month to relocate the ceremony, touted as the "Oscars of aviation," from its current home at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to Alliance Airport in Fort Worth next year. It will coincide with the airport's annual air show, which regularly draws over 100,000 visitors."We didn't want to go to any town and rent their convention center. We really wanted to keep the close ties to aviation," said Ron Kaplan, enshrinement and outreach director for the hall.North Texas, home to American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Bell Helicopter, Airbus Helicopters, Lockheed Martin and a huge network of suppliers, fit the bill."The Fort Worth area already has a rich aerospace history," Kaplan said. "We're looking forward to welcoming a lot of new friends and reconnecting with old ones in their own backyard."Kaplan said that moving the ceremony was the culmination of a years-long discussion about how to raise the event's profile and leverage it to help fund the hall of fame's operations and outreach programs.The enshrinement ceremony has been held in Dayton since the hall was founded there in 1962. But it never found a permanent home, moving from a hotel ballroom to the Dayton Convention Center and ultimately the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson.That's where the hall of fame operates its learning center, which features plaques of the hall's nearly 250 members from commercial and military aviation, aerospace and space exploration history.  Continue reading...

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