DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way down in Bexar County, at Brooks Air Force Base, there stands a hangar. Not just any hangar — they call it Old 9.
Hangar 9. And the story packed inside those walls is the kind that makes you stop and stare at the sky a little longer than you planned. This building went up early in 1918, built to house JN-4 planes — the Jenny, they called her — used for training pilots in World War I.
Now picture that: a brand new hangar, brand new planes, brand new pilots learning to trust the air with their lives. Old 9 saw all of it. But here's where the story gets its legs.
Among the later classes that came through this very hangar was one Charles A. Lindbergh. That's right — the first man to solo across the Atlantic Ocean learned something about flying right here, under this roof, on this patch of Texas ground.
The marker doesn't let you forget that detail, and neither will I. And if that weren't enough, Hangar 9 also earned itself another kind of distinction — it was the initiation site of Blind Flying instruction. Think on that phrase for a second.
Blind flying. Learning to trust your instruments when your own eyes can't tell you which way is up. They started that here.
At Old 9. So the next time you're somewhere between San Antonio and the horizon and you look up at a plane cutting clean through a clear Texas sky, you might spare a thought for that old hangar — the one that stood in 1918, that shaped pilots who would go on to shape history, and that's still standing to tell the tale.
What the marker says
Built early in 1918 for JN-4 (Jenny) planes used in World War I pilot training. In later classes here were many great pilots, including Chas. A. Lindbergh, first man to solo across the Atlantic. "Old 9" was initiation site of Blind Flying instruction. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967