WYSO community voices producer and aviation historian Dan Patterson offers some perspective on why the Miami Valley has become a hub for USAF investment and innovation.

Ohio plans to give $3.5 million to rehabilitate and reopen a second runway at the Wilmington Air Park. WYSO aviation commentator Dan Patterson recounts that there is historic precedent for that.

Allied troops were about to invade Nazi-occupied Europe 80 years ago. That seaborne invasion on June 6, 1944, is known as D-Day, but the operation first began on the night of June 5 when airborne divisions were air-dropped behind enemy lines.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Army’s first around-the-world flight. Some preparation for that flight happened here in the Miami Valley at McCook Field.