Flying

Bonds watch -- Homers needed to tie Babe Ruth: 3 -- Yesterday: 0-for-2, was hit on the right hand by a pitch and left after flying out in the sixth

Nov. 2 1947 Howard Hughes piloted his huge wooden flying boat, the Hughes H-4 Hercules (dubbed the Spruce Goose by detractors), on its only flight, which lasted about a minute over Long Beach Harbor, Calif.

Like tattered flagsflying from a broken fort,or faded pennantson a forgotten ship,the banners of the plastic agesurround us, windblown,clinging to winter's trees,now like bare mastsdisplaying the shredded imagesof common household trademarksin yellows, blues and whitesbut mostly blues,logo'd polymers beyond recycling,torn, grimed, but lifting in the windfilling, flying, wavingforever, for all I know.

A decade from now, business travelers may be routinely flying in aircraft that take off as helicopters do and then tilt their rotors or wings forward to fly as airplanes.The best-known of the new aircraft is the V-22 Osprey, which has a large tilting rotor on the end of each wing. Two military contractors, Boeing Helicopters of Ridley Township, Pa., and Bell Helicopter/Textron of Fort Worth, Texas, are test-flying prototype copies of the Osprey for the Marine Corps.In addition, a small Japanese-owned company, Ishida Aerospace Research Inc., has set up shop in Fort Worth and says it will have a 14-passenger craft with a tilting wing ready for regular commercial airline or air-taxi service by 1997.

Constellation songfest Yo ho ho, blow the man down. Step aboard the USS Constellation on Saturday to hear a performance by the Chanteymen. Dressed in the uniforms of Union sailors in the Civil War, the group will sing patriotic, humorous and sentimental tunes of the 19th century and play period instruments. The event takes place Saturday 2 p.m.-6 p.m. on the USS Constellation at Constellation Pier, 301 E. Pratt St., Inner Harbor. $6.50; $3.50 ages 6-14; $5 seniors; free for ages 5 and under.

Model airplanes will whiz through the air this weekend at Southwest Area Park in Arbutus. The S.W.A.P. (South West Area Park) Modelers, a radio-controlled model airplane club, present their annual "Tournament of Champions of Maryland -- 2003 International Miniature Aerobatic Club Flying Competition." Visitors can watch open flying, acrobatic demonstrations, stunts and flying competitions. An array of radio-controlled airplanes will take part, some more than 8 feet in length and weighing as much as 30 pounds.

Why is spring like thisSo all- everywhere, gatheringand the sky down closeand the white birds flying.Why is there so much light in the air,and so many small noisesunder the leavesWhy are the brown wrens trying at the sun.

For the sheer thrill of watching daredevil pilots perform almost unthinkable stunts in their souped-up planes, Baltimoreans on Depression Sunday afternoons braved long traffic jams along Smith and Greenspring avenues to reach the Curtiss-Wright Airport, a 250-acre flying field that sprawled across the city-county line."

When he died last week after 96 years of life, Jimmy Doolittle was most remembered for the 30 seconds of it he spent over Tokyo early in World War II. But that was just 30 seconds in a long, full life. It is hard to think of anyone who contributed so much to aviation in so many different areas as Doolittle did.The Wright Brothers invented flying; Doolittle added greatly to its dimensions. Lindbergh captured the public imagination, crossed the Atlantic and secretly perfected the Lockheed P-38 during World War II; Doolittle was a military flier, a scientist, an innovator, a racer, a test pilot and a stunt pilot.

Col. Benjamin Widmann, a decorated Air Force officer who later owned and operated an Anne Arundel County photography studio, died of heart attack March 31 while driving near Wisdom, Mont. The former Severna Park resident was 85. Colonel Widmann was born and raised in Los Angeles, and earned a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1941 from the University of California at Los Angeles. Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army, he was transferred to the Army Air Forces, as it was then known, to become a pilot and served in combat in the Pacific during World War II. "Flying Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters, he was credited with downing four enemy aircraft and was twice cited for landing and saving planes that had been set ablaze by enemy fire," said a son, Alan Fred Widmann of Annapolis.