Jim Davis and Steve Kelly jointly buy an acre in memory of Captain Benny Foulois, the FAS’s Commanding Officer in 1916’s Punitive Expedition.

Jim Davis (left) is well known to FASF members as one of its founders, and also throughout the General Aviation Community at large.  A retired FAA Executive, FASF Officer and Trustee and forever a “QB” (Quiet Birdman), Jim established the FAA Administrator’s Command Post, the quick response team which immediately investigates all major air disasters within it’s jurisdiction. Jim remains very active in the FASF as a member of its Board of Advisors.

Jim spends his time between his home in Alexandria, Virginia, or at his Airpark home in Columbus, NM. His 2012 video, archived under our “New Videos” section on this site, describes the re-opening of the old 1916 Aerodrome from which the FAS launched it first operations.  He and his good friend and fellow “QB”, Steve Kelly, a corporate jet pilot for General Dynamics, (pictured at right and now flying both Gulfstream G200’s and the Beech 1900, is seen at Dulles International Jetport in Washington, DC during preflight of his General Dynamic’s Gulfstream), just called your webmaster from Washington, DC to report that they were going to once again join the “Buy an Acre” campaign by sending in $250 to specifically buy an acre in memory of Benjamin Delahauf Foulois.

“Benny” Foulois (below in 1916 by his “Jenny” at our Columbus Aerodrome) was the Captain who commanded the First Aero Squadron back in 1916 and directed both its military operation and the simultaneous Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Car Company’s aircraft test program out of Columbus, an enterprise which gave birth to the most mass produced single airplane model, the ubiquitous JN-4 “Jenny,” ever manufactured – anywhere.  Over 8,000 of these airplanes were produced.  After  WWI ended, Foulois went on to become the commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, while the “Jenny” went on to become not just the most popular barnstorming show plane of all time, but the one in which notables such as Charles Lindbergh made their first solo flight.  Among many other “Jenny” firsts was the inaugural carrying of the first U.S. Airmail.

Jim and Steve invite you to join the “Buy and Acre” campaign with them so that the entire FAS airfield from which American Air Power was born will be entirely protected, recreated and preserved for posterity by the FASF.  Don’t miss this opportunity to help restore the Aerodrome. Hurry and join the fray – in only a matter of months, we are already more than half way (over 80 acres of the total 160 acre parcel) there! 

You, too, can join the “Buy an Acre” campaign. Simply send your tax-deductible contribution in any increment of $250 for each acre you’d like to “buy” in your own or anyone else’s name, to:

FASF – Buy an Acre Campaign; PO Box 1516; Columbus, NM 88029.

Please state the name of the person or persons to whom the acre(s) are to be memorialized, either your own – or anyone else’s.  You’ll receive an official tax-deduction reply thank you letter confirming your donation to the memorial.                    Thank you!