Aero group meets Sept. 18 in Topping

The Northern Neck-Middle Peninsula chapter of the Virginia Aeronautical Historical Society will meet Thursday, Sept. 18, at the Pilot House Inn restaurant in Topping for its monthly buffet lunch meeting and presentation. The program begins with a meet-and-greet at 11:30 a.m., followed by lunch at noon and the program at 12:30 p.m.

At the meeting, Joseph Mortati will present a rescheduled talk entitled, “The Search for Owl 08.” Mortati is a retired professor from American University in Washington, D.C., and lives in Reston. He will share the story of two American Air Force F-4 Phantom jet fighter pilots who disappeared over Vietnam in 1971 and of the extraordinary efforts by a small team of researchers to help narrow down where that aircraft likely crashed.

Since 2006, Mortati has been a volunteer researching cases of “off-the-scope” losses of American aviators from the Vietnam War. “Off-the-scope” means MIA (Missing-In-Action) pilots and their aircraft for which no crash site has been identified.

The group meets on the third Thursday of the month, where it conducts presentations about current and historical civilian and military aviation and related topics.