About Retro-Aero
Connect. Educate. Inspire.
Retro-Aero connects people with aviation history, advances traditional stick-and-rudder skills, and inspires future aviators through aircraft, education, storytelling, and community.
Why Retro-Aero Exists
CONNECT. EDUCATE. INSPIRE.
Retro-Aero, Inc. is an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We believe historic aircraft matter most when people can see them fly, hear their stories, and carry their lessons forward.
CONNECT.
Keep historic aircraft, aviation stories, and the traditions surrounding them visible, active, and connected to the sky.
EDUCATE.
Advance aviation knowledge and the stick-and-rudder skills, judgment, and confidence that traditional flying demands.
INSPIRE.
Create experiences that introduce new audiences to aviation and remind lifelong aviators why they first looked skyward.
Our Mission in Action
Five Ways We Keep Aviation Moving Forward
Aircraft, training, conversation, and storytelling turn the mission into experiences people can join.
Cessna 190 Available Now · Stearman Coming 2027
The Airshow Experience
Our flagship Boeing Stearman Airshow Experience brings WWII training history to life, coming in 2027. The Cessna 190 Heritage Experience is available now—two ways to connect audiences with vintage aviation, living history, and ground engagement.
EXPLORE THE AIRSHOW EXPERIENCE →
See the people and craftsmanship bringing our Stearman back to flight.
Training
Charlie’s Tailwheel Academy Fund
Founded in Charlie’s memory, CTAF helps pilots gain the training, skills, and confidence that keep traditional flying skills alive.
Community
The Retro-Aero RoundTable
Student pilots, airline pilots, controllers, mechanics, examiners, and other aviators meet as equals to share what aviation has taught them.
Stories
The Retro-Aero Podcast
Conversations about vintage aircraft, pilots, training, restoration, aerobatics, and the culture that keeps aviation moving forward.
Interactive Stories
The Pilot’s Path
Step inside an aviation story where your decisions determine what happens next. The Pilot’s Path is interactive fiction: read the story, make the choices, and discover where they take you.
The People Behind Retro-Aero
Experience, Curiosity, and a Love of Flying
Dale Melichar
Dale’s aviation career spans more than three decades as a flight instructor, airline pilot, and check pilot. An Embry-Riddle graduate with more than 30,000 hours of flight time, he brings together vintage aircraft, instruction, aerobatics, aviation history, and storytelling.
For airshows, Dale portrays Captain D.C. Wolfe—a clearly fictional living-history character. MEET THE CHARACTER →
Lynn
Lynn is a tailwheel pilot and an Advanced and Instrument Ground Instructor. Her interests include traditional flying skills, mountain flying, and creating an aviation community in which people can learn from and encourage one another.
Hangar Staff
Keeping the Humans Honest
Whiskey
Aileron
Crash · Flown West
Whiskey and Aileron specialize in supervision, purring, and removing unauthorized objects from countertops. Crash remains part of the Retro-Aero story.
Aviation History, brought to life.
History Isn’t Something We Keep Behind Glass.
It belongs in the sky, in the cockpit, around the table, and in the stories we pass forward.