CAF Rocky Mountain Wing

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CAF Rocky Mountain Wing See www.rmwcaf.org for our WWII warbird rides online Tour Schedule for a location near you. Otherwis You can also fly in these aircraft as a paying pasenger.

We operate one of the few remaining flyable TBM Avengers as part of the CAF's fleet of "flying museum" aircraft. We also fly a Piper J-3 Cub, also known in the military as a "Grasshopper". The Wing grew in membership with this addition of another flying aircraft. This type aircraft had the military designation of L-4 in the Army Air Corps and NE-1 in the Navy. The TBM Avenger and J-3 Cub are available for air shows and fly-overs at local civic events. Member meetings are held the last Saturday of each month

If you wonder what's at the end of a rainbow... how's THIS for a pot of gold?📸 GJT Jet Photos
10/10/2026

If you wonder what's at the end of a rainbow... how's THIS for a pot of gold?

📸 GJT Jet Photos

While visiting Centennial for the airshow, they gave 309 some nice hangar space. Our thanks for the hospitality!
10/07/2026

While visiting Centennial for the airshow, they gave 309 some nice hangar space. Our thanks for the hospitality!

Photographer Erik Johnston got some fabulous photos of TBM 309 Spanish Fork Airport Utah’s Wings and Wheels air show!For...
10/06/2026

Photographer Erik Johnston got some fabulous photos of TBM 309 Spanish Fork Airport Utah’s Wings and Wheels air show!

For this one, we took to the air with Karl Gashler in his T-6 Texan. The TBM is literally 2x the size of the T-6, but they look almost the same in this pic.

Do you know what the Navy called the Texan during WWII?

Keep your eyes on the skies, Grand Junction. It's airshow weekend!
10/03/2026

Keep your eyes on the skies, Grand Junction. It's airshow weekend!

Are you coming to see us this weekend at the Grand Junction Airshow?
10/02/2026

Are you coming to see us this weekend at the Grand Junction Airshow?

Okay, it's October 1, so it's official. If you wear your vintage clothing or uniforms between now and October 10, you a...
10/01/2026

Okay, it's October 1, so it's official. If you wear your vintage clothing or uniforms between now and October 10, you are just dressing up to support a good cause and keep our birds flying at our hangar dance. If you dress up after that, it's definitely a Halloween costume. 🎃

So which will it be for you?

Get your tickets for the dance at https://rmwcaf.org/1940s-hangar-dance/

On September 30, 1937, the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) was commissioned at Naval Operating Base Norfolk, Virgin...
09/30/2026

On September 30, 1937, the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown (CV-5) was commissioned at Naval Operating Base Norfolk, Virginia, with Capt. Ernest D. McWhorter in command. She was the lead ship of a new class of carriers that would help define American naval aviation on the eve of World War II.

No one standing on her flight deck that day could know how quickly she would be tested, or how large a role she would play in proving that the aircraft carrier had become one of the most important weapons in modern naval warfare.

Yorktown had been laid down at Newport News Shipbuilding in 1934 and launched on April 4, 1936, sponsored by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. At commissioning she displaced about 19,800 tons, measured more than 800 feet long, and could make better than 32 knots. Her air group could number more than 80 aircraft, giving the Navy a fast, mobile striking force built around aviation rather than battleship guns.

In the years before America entered World War II, Yorktown trained intensively and took part in major fleet exercises designed to test how carriers might be used in a future war. Those lessons would become brutally important after Pearl Harbor.

Yorktown’s wartime career would be short, but extraordinary. In early 1942 she participated in raids against Japanese-held islands in the Pacific before playing a central role in the Battle of the Coral Sea, where her aircraft helped stop the Japanese advance toward Port Moresby. Damaged in that battle, Yorktown returned to Pearl Harbor for hurried repairs and was sent back to sea in time for Midway.

There, aircraft from Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet helped destroy four Japanese fleet carriers in one of the decisive naval battles of the war. Yorktown herself was struck repeatedly by Japanese aircraft, later torpedoed by the submarine I-168, and finally sank on June 7, 1942. She earned three battle stars during a combat career measured in months rather than years.

Her name did not disappear, though. While the war was still raging, the new Essex-class carrier originally named Bon Homme Richard was renamed Yorktown (CV-10) in honor of the ship lost at Midway.

Address

780 Heritage Way
Grand Junction, CO
81506

Telephone

+19702560693

Website

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