Exciting News!
Crosswinds to be Shown This Summer in Oshkosh
Newsletter #2 – May 1, 2026
Crosswinds: The Courageous Life of Cornelia Fort, our 80-minute documentary, will be shown on Wednesday, July 22 at 2:30 p.m. in the SkyScape Theater at the EAA Museum during the 2026 EAA AirVenture, known globally as the World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration.® I will be there as will Leslie Sargent, retired FAA inspector and Crosswinds aviation consultant who is featured in the documentary. Les and I will be answering questions from the audience after the showing. EAA, the Experimental Aircraft Association, has 300,000 members in 100 countries.
The 2025 AirVenture set an attendance record with 686,000 people coming to Oshkosh last July for the seven-day event. The warbird community always has a strong presence at the show and with AirVenture and the nation celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I am sure another record setting crowd will gather in Oshkosh to celebrate aviation. I am really looking forward to it!
As part of the warbird community, the National WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater, Texas will be flying their BT-13 to Oshkosh, one of hundreds of warbirds expected to fly in for the show. What a unique opportunity and a thrill it will be to see these beautiful warbirds together in one location!
In each newsletter I am including one or more photos used in the documentary with additional information about the photo. The photo to the right is Sgt. Samuel Ashker, one of Cornelia’s students in Hawaii in fall 1941.
I learned of Sgt. Ashker through a letter he wrote to Cornelia after she became a member of the WAFS in fall 1942. In his letter, he fondly recalls what a good instructor she was. Through my research I was able to find and talk with Maureen Ashker Reagan, his daughter. She said her father was injured during the Pearl Harbor attack and sent stateside to recover. Not married at the time, her mother moved to South Carolina to help him recover. Maureen sent me this photo of her dad in Hawaii. He learned to fly in a Fleet with the tail number N776V. I only wish Cornelia had been in the picture!
As a member of the WAFS, Cornelia was ferrying a BT-13 from Downey, California to Love Field in Dallas, Texas on March 21, 1943 when she was tragically killed in a mid-air collision with another BT-13.
The WASP Museum BT-13 is featured in Crosswinds with Les, in the cockpit, explaining what BT-13 pilots had to do to adjust their radios. For years and still today, many people believe Cornelia’s mid-air collision was caused by the other BT-13 pilot doing a barrel roll over her plane. After studying the U.S. Army’s official accident report, Les determined that could not have been the case.
Please join us in Oshkosh! And tell your family, friends, and associates who will be attending AirVenture that Crosswinds will be shown on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. in the SkyScape Theater. After an incredibly harsh winter – and early spring – in many parts of the country, I bet July’s heat will be tolerated a little better this year. I know I will not be complaining!
For more information on Crosswinds, visit: Crosswinds Cornelia. And please feel free to forward this Stories 250 newsletter to family and friends!
All the best,
Judy
editor@stories250.com