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  • Aviation History

    WRIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME

    Mar 05, 2019 4 minutes
    BY DAVID SEARS

    “I was a person of good fortune,” said Ken Chilstrom, 97, during a recent interview at the Freedom Museum in Manassas, Va. “First at Wright Field, then Muroc, the forerunner of Edwards Air Force Base.”

    If good fortune indeed propelled Chilstrom’s aviation achievements, it intervened as early as November 1942 when his 58th Fighter Squadron, part of the 33rd Fighter Group, flew 77 P-40 Warhawks off the pitching deck of the escort carrier Chenango in the Mediterranean Sea 100 miles off North Africa. “We didn’t get to make a practice takeoff,” he recalled.

    “I was number 35, right

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