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Episode #661 of Hometown Heroes, airing January 2-4, 2021, pays tribute to pioneering pilot Robert Thacker, whose passing at the age of 102 was announced in a Christmas edition of the New York Times.

The Times had been one of many major publications to chronicle Thacker’s record-setting 1947 flight in a P-82 Twin Mustang with “Betty Jo” painted on the nose in honor of his wife, who waited in New York for three weeks while he waited in Hawaii for a tailwind strong enough to help him cover the more than 5,000 mile nonstop journey. That historic aircraft remains on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, OH. That was just one of his countless accomplishments in an aviation career that started before World War II and included the Korean War, the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and even model aircraft competitions as a nonagenarian. The San Clemente Times, his hometown newspaper in California, published this tribute to Thacker on December 24, 2020.