Marana Rotary Zoom Round-Up for 5/12/20
Attendance: Richie, Laura, Peter, Harold, Denise, Bob, Don, Mary, Beckie, Randy, Dave. Guests: Rob Tommasone, DG Ellie Patterson, DG 1130 Tony Sharma (London).
Announcements
- MCAT has 85 students on track to graduate this May, according to Denise Coronado.
- Move Zoom meetings to 7 a.m. John Dooling’s brother-in-law passed awary.
- June 28 – Governor installation at Desert Museum.
- June 20-26 – Rotary Intl Virtual Convention.
- Next week – guest speaker Charles from Rotary who works on improving relations between Russia and U.S.
- Should we send graduation cards to MCAT graduates. Randy, Denise, Mary, Laura. Richie will reach out to Denise for list.
- Harold talked to John Zwick and he’s doing well, and his wife is still in a nursing home but gets to come home three times a week. Need to send a card to him.
- Javier is trying reopen today; Denise reopening by appointment only.
Our very own Bob Bishop presented about his amazing achievements as a pilot and past president and owner of “Missile Defense” Aerial Productions Intl.
Bob’s connection to Arizona goes back to his father who flew B-52s in World War II at just 21 (the navigator was 17!). After the war, Bob’s dad landed a job with Frontier Airlines and flew out of Phoenix Sky Harbor starting in 1951. Eventually, Bob’s dad started Marsh Aviation, the world’s largest agricultural crop dusting operation, which was Bob’s “playground”. He worked with his dad, who was a major influence on his life, until Bob’s father died in a crop dusting flying accident when Bob was 16.
When Bob turned 20 he competed in flying races with airshow pilots. This led to a career in flying and building BD-5 jets, which are the smallest manned jets, in airshows. The BD-5 jet was plane flown by James Bond in “Octopussy”. Bob had a Coors Light Silver Bullet sponsorship, too.
At one point, his company helped the Joint Cruise Missile Defense group. Our armed forces were really good at shooting cruise missiles but not sure how good we were at shooting them down, Bob said. BD jet reminiscent of a cruise missile. The Joint Cruise Missile Defense Joint Test & Evaluation was a five-year program. The inability to detect low-altitude missiles was a major threat.
The BD-5 is the world’s smallest manned jet with the following capabilities:
- Speed: 270 knots
- Maximum endurance: 2.1 hours.
- “Quick turn” capabilities
- Low observability.
- Unrestricted low-level operations.
- Low-level night missions – modified aircraft
- Can assemble in a matter of minutes.
- Used for military exercises and gaming.
- NORAD missions.
It was an amazing presentation from our amazing Bob Bishop!
