"Lord, guard and guide the ones who fly, through the great spaces of the sky. Aloft in solitudes of space, uphold them with thy saving grace. O God, protect the ones who fly, thru lonely ways beneath the sky."

-The U.S. Air Force Hymn

Though this painting, the artist commemorates the heroism and ingenuity of those serving our nation in the United States Air Force. Since the days of Kitty Hawk in 1903, these brave men and women advanced the United States strength through aviation from last to first. This leap is exemplified by the 1903 world’s first powered flight of the Wright Flyer in 1903 to the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.

The artist captures America’s love affair and fascination with aviation as a father and his son point to the Wright Flyer going airborne for the first time, and a rank of USAF pilots who have just dismounted their T-38 Talon fighter trainers. The T-38’s earliest predecessor, the Curtiss JN4 "Jenny" (the first US military trainer), banks in a final approach below.

But it is the valor of the pilot who, on a wing and a prayer and in the face of withering fire, goes out into harms way to protect those below from threats in the air and on the ground. The B-17E which (after being ferried to the front by its all-woman crew) was flown in the highest casualty wrought missions of WWII, and the pilot in the cockpit of the P-51D (who shepherded the B-17s home from these treacherous missions) at the focal point of the painting, demonstrates this indomitable spirit. From the F-15 Strike Eagle patrolling the no-fly zone over Iraq, to the HH-60 helicopters poised to recover US pilots shot down, The spirit of these crews renders the title of this painting as appropriate then, as it is fitting today…Heroes of the Sky.