Strong-armed by the "Quiet Birdmen"?

On Thursday, January 18, 2001 at 8:23:17 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Please humor me...

What's with this group known as the "Quiet Birdmen"?

I'm a free-lance writer with little or no interest in aviation.
However, through a fortuitous turn of events, I stumbled across this
seemingly ultra-secretive group known as "The Ancient and Secret Order
of Quiet Birdmen." I happened to get a great angle on what I thought
would be a provocative story, then hit a brick wall -- and worse.

The story is centered on the group's annual party -- known as a "Wing
Ding" -- held in Las Vegas last October.

After a preliminary investigation of circumstances surrounding this
event, I was clearly discouraged from publication of the piece. Certain
self-proclaimed members of the "Quiet Birdmen" took a very heavy-handed
approach to discouraging me from writing the article. They backed off
after I went to the police, as their techniques may have bordered on
harassment and criminal threatening. So what gives here? The last time
I checked, the first amendment was still in effect.

Should I be worried? They came on pretty strong (while hiding behind a
telephone, anyway). My family is concerned. To add to the frustration,
my attempts to find a central office for this fraternal group have
yielded no results. It's weird.

Any opinions or info on "The Ancient and Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen"
would be most welcome.

Thanks,
Sid Goldfarb



Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/

Hey Sid, **** off. Why would you want to mess with a bunch of retired old pilots? Go chase an ambulance or something.

wrote:
On Thursday, January 18, 2001 at 8:23:17 PM UTC-5, wrote:
Please humor me...

What's with this group known as the "Quiet Birdmen"?

I'm a free-lance writer with little or no interest in aviation.
However, through a fortuitous turn of events, I stumbled across this
seemingly ultra-secretive group known as "The Ancient and Secret Order
of Quiet Birdmen." I happened to get a great angle on what I thought
would be a provocative story, then hit a brick wall -- and worse.

The story is centered on the group's annual party -- known as a "Wing
Ding" -- held in Las Vegas last October.

After a preliminary investigation of circumstances surrounding this
event, I was clearly discouraged from publication of the piece. Certain
self-proclaimed members of the "Quiet Birdmen" took a very heavy-handed
approach to discouraging me from writing the article. They backed off
after I went to the police, as their techniques may have bordered on
harassment and criminal threatening. So what gives here? The last time
I checked, the first amendment was still in effect.

Should I be worried? They came on pretty strong (while hiding behind a
telephone, anyway). My family is concerned. To add to the frustration,
my attempts to find a central office for this fraternal group have
yielded no results. It's weird.

Any opinions or info on "The Ancient and Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen"
would be most welcome.

Thanks,
Sid Goldfarb



Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/

Hey Sid, **** off. Why would you want to mess with a bunch of retired old pilots? Go chase an ambulance or something.

Thank you for reminding us of this 18 year old post.


--
Jim Pennino

On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 08:41:12 -0800 (PST)
wrote:


Hey Sid, **** off. Why would you want to mess with a bunch of retired
old pilots? Go chase an ambulance or something.




---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 08:41:12 -0800 (PST), wrote:

"The Ancient and Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Birdmen


Dean Ivan Lamb's membership card

The Quiet Birdmen is a secretive club in the United States for male
aviators. Founded in 1921 by World War I pilots, the organization
meets in various locations, never announced to the public. Members,
called QBs, must be invited to join, and they join for life. Today,
the club's membership, organized into regional "hangars", is made up
primarily of retired airline, military and freight pilots, as well as
a few astronauts.[1] It is also known as ye Anciente and Secret Order
of Quiet Birdmen.[2]


Contents
1 History
2 Activities
3 Notable members
4 See also
5 References

History
In France in November 1919, a group of World War I aviators started a
drinking club called "The American Flying Club", and re-convened in
New York City only to be barred from their clubhouse by the bailiff.
In January 1921, a subset of that group, some ten to twenty aviators,
began meeting fairly regularly on Monday nights in New York City at
Marta, an Italian restaurant located at 75 Washington Place in the
Greenwich Village neighborhood. Harold Hersey, the editor of Aces High
magazine, ironically called the group the Quiet Birdmen because they
were so boisterous.[1] At one meeting, reporter Steve Hannigan noticed
the jocular group, and visited again the next week, bringing a sketch
artist. Hannigan wrote up a feature story about the group, accompanied
by a sketch—the first public information about the group. The
attendees that night were Harry Bruno, S. H. MacKeon, Wallace James,
Richard R. "Dick" Blythe, Earle D. Osborn, Charles S. "Casey" Jones,
Harold T. "Slim" Lewis, Ernest Loftquis, Paul G. Zimmerman, Donald
Mcllhenny, Ladislas d'Orcy, Richard H. DePew Jr, George Hubbard, R. B.
C. Noorduyn, John (Jack) Bishop and J. E. Whitbeck.[3] Because the
group grew too large,[4] or because of the noise bothering other
patrons, the management at Marta stopped them from meeting there.[1]
Subsequent meetings were held in a different location each time, often
a restaurant. Membership in the 1920s cost one dollar and lasted until
death.[5] In the 1920s the emblem of the club was created: a blue
shield with the letters QB in silver, the shield flanked by silver
wings. In 1938, the club's meetings settled into the building owned by
the Architectural League of New York.[4][6]

Harvey Mummert, vice president and chief engineer of Mercury Aircraft,
has been credited as co-founder of the club.[7] Early members Bruno
and Blythe started a public relations firm in 1923 and in 1927 they
became known for promoting Charles Lindbergh's solo trans-Atlantic
flight.[8] Lindbergh was made a member of the Quiet Birdmen.[1]
Unusually, a former combat foe was invited to join the club: Ernst
Udet, the highest-scoring German flying ace to survive World War I.
Known as a fun-loving playboy, Udet performed aerobatics at the
National Air Races in Cleveland in 1931 and '32, Los Angeles in '33,
and again in Cleveland in '38. While visiting the U.S., Udet
befriended Lindbergh,[9] Eddie Rickenbacker,[10] Jimmy Doolittle,
Wiley Post, Roscoe Turner and other American QBs.[11]

Outside of New York, other Quiet Birdmen regional groups, or hangars,
were formed. Before 1938, the club had a strict agreement against
having a constitution, by-laws, dues, assessments, or club officers.
No business was to be conducted, and no sales. Only male aviators were
allowed to join, not female aviators or "Keewees" (non-flyers).[4] At
the Cleveland Air Races in 1938, the QBs adopted a slightly more
formal arrangement: a Board of Governors would be composed of one
member from each hangar, and this board would choose an Executive
Committee. Each regional hangar was to select a Key Man to handle club
business. A year later, the group settled upon a QB Code of Procedure
which described the structure of the club.[4] During World War II in
London, England, a temporary hangar was formed in 1943 for club
members posted to the UK.[12] The club's national Code of Procedure
was modified again in 1953.[4]

In addition to the still existing New York Hangar, other early
Hangars, originally called "leantos" to the original New York Hangar,
had been formed. Currently Hangars are formed independently and exist
in Washington DC, Cleveland, Atlantic City, Wayne, San Francisco Bay
Area, Los Angeles, Palomar in San Diego County, Oxnard/Santa Barbara,
Fresno, Santa Ana, Long Beach, Palm Desert, Philadelphia, Rhode
Island, Ocala, Seattle, North Cascade in northern Washington state,
Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Amarillo, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Columbia
and Greenville in South Carolina, Daytona Beach, Honolulu, Kalamazoo,
Lansing, Boise, Hartford, Rockford, Akron, Indiana, Syracuse, Las
Vegas, Cincinnati, Tampa Bay, Orlando, Melbourne, Venice, Stuart,
Jackson, Knoxville, Wilmington, Greensboro, New Orleans, Cape Cod,
Kansas City, Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, Buffalo, Binghamton, Fort
Smith, Chicago, Jackson Hole, Boston, Somerville, Hilton Head,
Anchorage, Hagerstown, Denver, Lehigh Valley, Atlanta, Waterloo, and
Tulsa, Shreveport, Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City, Pensacola,
Trenton, and perhaps other cities throughout the US.

Activities
Depending on its location, QB regular activities generally reflect the
age of its members. Typical QB get-togethers start with a silent toast
to deceased members, glasses raised to the west in keeping with an old
pilot's expression euphemistically referring to death as having "Gone
West." Food and drink are served, and perhaps a talk or other program
is given. Off-color jokes are plentiful. Occasionally semi-nude female
entertainment has been seen at some of the meetings, especially the
Wing Dings, which are larger parties held in late spring or
summer.[13]

The Quiet Birdmen print a periodical called BEAM which features
stories, jokes, and news of hangar get-togethers. No photos of QB
parties are allowed in the journal. From time to time, various hangars
have published commemorative membership books consisting of a brief
recounting of the club's history, and photograph portraits of
individual members. One such book was owned by club member K. S.
"Slim" Lindsay, printed in May 1936. After Lindsay's death, it was
donated in 2007 by his daughter to Wright State University. The
leather-bound book has 160 pages and 640 photographs of Quiet Birdmen
including portraits of Jimmy Doolittle, Wiley Post, Roscoe Turner,
Walter R. Brookins and Ephraim Watkins "Pop" Cleveland.[6] Another QB
book was donated to the National Air and Space Museum by Arthur
Raymond Brooks; it contains photographs of the members of the New York
hangar and a description of the history and by-laws of the club.[14]

Astronaut Edward Givens died in a car crash following a QB meeting. On
a rainy Monday night, June 5, 1967, the Houston hangar of Quiet
Birdmen met at the Skylane Motel on Telephone Road in Pearland, Texas.
Fellow astronaut Gordon Cooper was there, and so were two U.S. Air
Force reservists who had just been invited to their first QB meeting:
Major William "Bill" Hall and Lieutenant Colonel Francis "Fran"
Dellorto. Hall and Dellorto were told that they would become full
members after attending twelve meetings. Givens was not drinking
alcoholic beverages at the party as he was required at an important
meeting the following morning. Between 11:30 pm and midnight, Givens
offered Hall and Dellorto a ride back to their quarters at Ellington
Air Force Base in Houston, and the three left the motel in Givens'
Volkswagen Beetle.[15] Givens drove north toward the main east–west
highway, but mistakenly turned east onto parallel Knapp Road. He
missed a sharp turn in the road and the car crashed into an irrigation
ditch. Though he was wearing his lap belt, Givens' chest was crushed
against the steering wheel. In the front passenger seat, Dellorto was
seriously injured, while in the back seat, Hall was in fair condition.
Givens, 37 years old, died on the way to the hospital early on June 6,
pronounced dead on arrival at 12:40 am.[16][17][18]

In Ventura, California, on a Monday night in October 1974, Ben Rich
gave a talk to the Oxnard and Santa Barbara hangar of Quiet Birdmen
about the Skunk Works program at Lockheed. Rich spoke of the Lockheed
U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird programs which had recently been declassified,
and identified QB member and attendee R. Scott Beat as a former U-2
pilot. Beat wrote in his book So Many Ways to Die: Surviving As a Spy
in the Sky that this was the first time any of his friends or family
had heard of that part of his past—he had faithfully kept the
government's secrets to himself.[19]

Beginning in 1971, rancher and aviator John S. "Jack" Broome, a
founding member of the Oxnard hangar, held an annual private airshow
and barbecue for the Quiet Birdmen at his ranch in Camarillo,
California. Members of the Commemorative Air Force and Planes of Fame
often piloted several of their warbirds at the events.[20] After
Broome died in April 2009, the 39th annual airshow was held in his
memory in June 2009.[21] The Broome family hosted one final private
airshow for the Quiet Birdmen on June 14, 2010.[22]

Notable members
Buzz Aldrin
Edwin Eugene Aldrin Sr.
Walter Beech
Floyd Bennett
Forrest Bird[23]
Arthur Raymond Brooks
Jack Broome[21]
Richard E. Byrd
Gordon Cooper[15]
Glenn Curtiss
Eugene Peyton Deatrick
Jimmy Doolittle[6]
Charles Stark Draper
Robert G. Fowler
Fitzhugh Fulton
Ernest K. Gann
Edward Givens[16]
Chalmers Goodlin
Caleb V. Haynes[24]
Cliff Henderson[7]
Bob Hoover
Elrey Borge Jeppesen
Alvin M. Johnston
Fiorello LaGuardia, Mayor of New York
Dean Ivan Lamb[2]
Bill Lear
Walter E. Lees[25]
Tony LeVier
Charles Lindbergh[1][6]
John H. Livingston[26]
Edgar Mitchell
Zack Mosley
Clyde Edward Pangborn[7]
Wiley Post[6]
Eddie Rickenbacker[1][6]
Charles E. Rosendahl
Burt Rutan
Johnny Rutherford, Three Time Indy 500 Winner
Wally Schirra
Igor Sikorsky
Charles Kingsford Smith
Dean Smith, Of the Byrd Expeditions, Air Mail Pilot
Lloyd Stearman
Moye W. Stephens
Jack Swigert
Richard G. Thomas
Roscoe Turner[4][6]
Ernst Udet[7]
Albert Lee Ueltschi
Jerry Vasconcells
Dwane Wallace
Fred Weick
George Hubert Wilkins
Alfred Worden
See also
Order of Daedalians
References
"QB & OX5 Clubs". Flying Dutchman. Retrieved July 3, 2011.
"Card, Membership, Quiet Birdmen". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved
August 7, 2018.
"Harry Augustine Bruno". Early Aviators. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
"Quiet Birdmen". Jardur Watches. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
Thurber, James (January 7, 1921). "The Talk Of The Town: 'Beyond
Keewee and Modock'". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 3, 2011.
"MS-359: K.S. "Slim" Lindsay – "Quiet Birdmen" Book" (PDF). Special
Collections and Archives, Wright State University Libraries. Retrieved
August 7, 2018.
QB Membership. Quiet Birdmen. 1936. Engraved on the leather cover is
the name of club member C. W. "Cliff" Henderson.
Cohen, Charles D. (2004). The Seuss, the whole Seuss, and nothing but
the Seuss: a visual biography of Theodor Seuss Geisel. Random House
Digital. p. 132. ISBN 0-375-82248-8.
Gurney, Harlan "Bud" (1977). "Air Line Pilot". 46. Air Line Pilots
Association.
Haymes, Edward R. (1980). "Theatrum mundi: essays on German drama and
German literature dedicated to Harold Lenz on his seventieth birthday,
September 11, 1978". Houston German Studies. 2. W. Fink: 176.
Van Ishoven, Armand (1979). The fall of an eagle: the life of fighter
ace Ernst Udet. W. Kimber. ISBN 0-7183-0067-X.
Fitzmaurice, John A. "Col. James M. Christopher Fitzmaurice". Origins
of the Fitzmaurice Families. Archived from the original on July 18,
2011. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
Lunken, Martha (March 11, 2010). "Unusual Attitudes: A Name I Won't
Utter". Flying. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
"Booklet, Quiet Birdmen". National Air and Space Museum. Retrieved
August 7, 2018.
Burgess, Colin; Doolan, Kate; Vis, Bert (2003). Fallen astronauts:
heroes who died reaching for the moon. U of Nebraska Press. pp.
190–193. ISBN 0-8032-6212-4.
Jean, Charlie (March 18, 1986). "Memorial Will Honor All Who Died".
Orlando Sentinel. p. 2. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
"Major Edward Galen Givens, Jr. (USAF)". In Memoriam: The
Astronaut/Cosmonaut Memorial Web Site. Archived from the original on
May 31, 2011. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
"Auto Accident Kills MSC Pilot Givens". Roundup. Houston, Texas: NASA
Manned Space Center. 6 (17). June 9, 1967. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
Beat, R. Scott (2007). So Many Ways to Die: Surviving As a Spy in the
Sky. Dog Ear Publishing. pp. 160–161. ISBN 1-59858-277-1.
"Quiet Birdmen Airshow operations at Camarillo, June 12, 2006".
Air-and-Space.com. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
Van Gilder, Eric (June 9, 2009). "QB-39 Staging, Camarillo Airport".
Van Gilder Aviation Photography. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
Van Gilder, Eric (June 14, 2010). "QB-40". Van Gilder Aviation
Photography. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
"Dr. Forrest M. Bird: Physician, Inventor, Aviator" (PDF). Rudder
Flutter. Idaho Transportation Department, Division of Aeronautics. 54
(1). March 2008. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
Taylor, Mary S. (April 18, 2008). "Haynes, Caleb V. 1895–1966".
Monterey County Genealogy and History. Fresno, California: CAGenWeb
Project. Retrieved July 4, 2011.
Fraser, Art. "Service in the Philippines, WWII, 1944–1945". BEAM.
Quiet Birdmen. Retrieved July 4, 2011. From Ralph Cooper's website
"Pioneer Pilot: Walter E. Lees, 1887–1957"
Leighty, H. D. "Ike". "Our History". Livingston Aviation. Archived
from the original on January 3, 2010. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
Categories: Flying clubsAviation in the United StatesClubs and
societies in the United StatesMen's organizations in the United
StatesOrganizations established in 1921
-----------------------------------------------

https://www.qbird.org/login.php
-----------------------------------------------

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Quiet...47015512102297
-----------------------------------------------

http://events.r20.constantcontact.co...&llr=7se7xqpab

58th QB Dallas Meeting May 12, 2014
WE WILL BE AT DUNSTON'S!!!

Burro!

Please join us for our Monthly QB Dallas Hangar Meeting.

We will be at DUNSTON'S starting at 1830.

This will be a business meeting.

We will be voting on candidate Les Bowles.
We will be discussing the 80th anniversary Birthday Celebration on
July 19, 2014... our best Wing ding ever.
We will be discussing the Dallas Hangar's involvement in the 2017
Governor's Convention.
We also need every members input on some decisions about our group
moving forward.
Finally we will be pairing up members for the QB Buddy plan to make
sure every
Pre-flight/ De-icing at 1830

GW Toast 1710

Business Meeting.... Guests and Candidates will be excused.

50/50 Drawing 20:45

Adjourn 21:00

Look forward to seeing you there!

Contact
Chester Jurskis
The Dallas Hangar of the Ancient and Secret Order of Quiet Birdmen
469-995-5401