CPU Computer Air Navigation owned by former Capt. USAF Robert E. Luetgens
We thank Mr.Angel Miniet for this beautiful picture of the seaplane Grumman JFR-5, a remembrance of the 1940’s Cuban Naval Aviation.
Thanks to Manel Menéndez Pou we are able to offer this interesting video of the Aviation in Cuba beginning in the year 1925. Please activate your sound system:
http://vimeo.com/4883041
We sincerely congratulate the Cuban Pilots Association (CUPA) and its President Capt. Amado Cantillo for the construction and inauguration of the Monument in Honor of the Cuban and American Pilots who were shot down during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. This majestic monument is located at the Kendall/Tamiami Airport, 128th Street SW and 145th Avenue, Miami, Fla.
We congratulate with all our heart all the CUPA members who, with their contributions, made this beautiful monument possible
We received From Col. Juan Montes this video link, and we recommend that all our visitors click on the link and view this emotional patriotic ceremony.
Inaugural Act celebrated on April 17 2010, at the Tamiami-Kendall airport. click link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmWGwouI45w
Airplane Gypsy Moth Constitutional Navy Cuba
Greetings to All the Visitors of the Circulo Naval.
Angel Miniet
Tue, June 15, 2010 Neat - the making of 'Florida 1' - Boeing 737
From: Angel Miniet
Click on the below link
Southwest
Airlines The Making of Florida One
El acorazado de bolsillo “Admiral Sheer” que fue hundido por el Aviador Cubano Mike Seiglie el 9 de abril de 1945. Mike era uno de los pilotos que participó en el ataque aéreo de 300 aviones de la RAF y hundió el buque estando atracado en Kiel reparando el ánima de sus cañones (6 de 280 mm, 8 de 150 mm, 6 de 105 mm, 8 de 37 mm y 10 de 20)que se habían desgastado por el intenso bombardeo en varias operaciones anteriores.
Este buque tuve una extensa hoja de servicio para la Kriegsmarine, su primera misión la tuvo durante la Guerra Civil Española rescatando refugiados alemanes, tambien espiaba los buques soviéticos que le llevaban suministros a la Fuerzas Republicanas, tambien le dio protección a los buques alemanes que le llevaban suministros y armas a la Fuerzas Nacionalistas.
El 31 de mayo de 1937 bombardeó con sus cañones de 280 mm las instalaciones Republicanas de Almería como respuesta a un ataque aéreo contra su buque gemelo “Deutschland” dos días antes. Posteriormente en una de sus muchos encuentros fue atacado por aviones de la RAF y aunque fue impactado por 3 bombas no pudo ser hundido y derribó 4 bombarderos de la RAF. Cortesía del Capt. Ed Porro
Estimado Webmaster:
Me alegró mucho que le haya gustado el artículo acerca del Aviador Seiglie, yo no sabia nada acerca de él hasta que mi amigo Jorge Fariñas, otro piloto cubano, retirado de la Delta Airlines, capitán de Boeing 777 me envió este artículo.
Trataré de buscar mas detalles. Si el Circulo Naval está interesado en otros personajes de nuestra historia, aunque no de la Marina, estoy poniendo junto detalles de aviadores en la primera guerra mundial.
Me fue una gran sorpresa saber que alguien con el nombre Miniet estuvieron en la Marina De Guerra, no lo sabía y le tendré que preguntar a mi hermana mayor a ver si ella sabe algo. Mi familia es de Bayamo y tenemos también familia en Santiago de Cuba, muchos están hoy en la Florida. Si usted conoce donde se encuentran hoy estos señores, o de que parte de Cuba ellos eran por favor déjame saber, siempre me gustaría encontrar otras personas con mi apellido. Si le puedo decir que el hermano de mi abuelo ( Abuelo Tío? ) fue General de la Guerra de Independencia, su nombre General Vicente Miniet. El aparece en un sello postal cual tengo y le enviaré una copia en cuanto lo encuentre.
Saludos.
Ángel Miniet 
Miguel "Mike" Enciso Seiglie
HÉROE de la 2da Guerra Mundial, nuestro querido y adorado Miguel “Mike” Enciso Seiglie, mejor conocido como “El Lord” por su bravura, coraje y heroísmo durante esa guerra contra los Nazis.
Debo añadir que Enciso fue el ÚNICO cubano en el planeta que recibió cuatro medallas y una condecoración personal del Rey de Inglaterra King George VI por haber hundido el Crucero Alemán “Admiral Scheer” en el puerto de Kiel, a unos 60 kms al norte de Hamburgo, en 1945.
(Medallas y condecoración: The English medal for Enlisted General Service (1939-1945), The Liberation of Germany medal, The French Star medal “for conspicuous valor and service” defending that nation, and the Voluntary Service medal from the Royal Canadian Armed Forces.
He also received a personal co- decoration from the King of England, King George VI, for single-handedly sinking a German battleship and thanking him for being a foreigner who risked his life fighting for Great Britain.
NOTA: Debajo de sus alas de la RAF (Fuerza Aérea Real Britanica), Mike SIEMPRE usaba sus Alas Cubanas!!! 
The Avro Lancaster, one of the most famous bombers of World War 2
Fotos y biografía cortesía de Angel Miniet.
Capt. Gustavo C. Ponzoa
Piloto de Cubana de Aviación y Bombardero B-26
Les informo que ha fallecido en Miami el Capitán Gustavo Ponzoa uno de los mas distinguidos Pilotos de la Brigada 2506 y gran amigo del Circulo Naval Cubano.
Los funerales se han de efectuar mañana Lunes 21 a partir de la 1800 hs en la Funeraria Rivero que está localizada en Bird Road (SW 40 Street y la SW 82 Avenue).
Nuestro mas sentido pésame a su viuda y a su hermano Junior Ponzoa, miembro de
Misiones Especiales.
Hurricane Hunter/Cuba
Cortesía de Rolando Figueroa
"It's a big one, and it's going to get bigger," said Lt. Col. Mark Carter, 54, a pilot who has chased storms for 31 years. "It's off land now, and feeding on the warm water down there while it gets itself back together.""Down there" is 10,000 feet below, where the swirling dark water and foaming waves of the Gulf of Mexico are only visible intermittently through the clouds.
Carter, and his fellow Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, were finishing a fourth trip across Ike, during a 10-hour, 3,000-mile trek to monitor the storm taking aim at the Texas coast. The aircraft carved a 210-mile giant "X" pattern through Ike and its eye, just off the western tip of Cuba.
"We're the only military aircraft that has permission to fly through Cuban airspace," said public information officer Maj. Chad Gibson. "We share the information we gather with them."
Using high tech equipment aboard the $72 million plane, the crew gathers data on wind speed, barometric pressure and other information for the National Hurricane Center.
"The plane makes two observations a second," said Maj. Deeann Lufkin, 35, a meteorologist who stood behind a bank of screens as she monitored the storm. Lufkin, who has more than 50 hurricane flights behind her, took the jostling of the storm as easily as a New York City subway rider handles rush hour.
Like everyone on the crew, Lufkin, of Northfield, Minn., is an Air Force Reservist � a civilian who works summers with the Hurricane Hunters, based at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. "I love this job," said Lufkin, whose husband is also a Hurricane Hunter. "It is endlessly fascinating, and it is also extremely important. We provide information the satellites can't get. And we provide something satellites will never have � a human eye and brain."
The C-130 has been a workhorse of the U.S. military for nearly five decades, is a squat, broad aircraft, painted dull gray, with four black propellers curving over the wings like exotic flowers. Inside, it resembles a high-tech auto mechanic's garage. Metal grids on the floor offer secure places to stash equipment, insulation covers most of the walls and ceilings, wires shake everywhere, red mesh behind the armless seats offer something to grab onto when the plane starts bucking and tilting in a storm. Despite its plain looks, Tech. Sgt. Scott Blair, a big man with close-cropped gray hair and tattoos running up his arms, calls the aircraft his girlfriend. "I've been married 21 years," said Blair, 38, who runs Fat Boy's BBQ restaurant in Picayune. Miss., when not flying into storms. "She's never had call to be jealous until I started flying on this plane. Now she calls it my mistress."
Flights can run as long as 15 hours, not counting preflight and post-flight briefings. Once ordered into a storm, the 10 crews made up of six people each, fly on a rotating basis, 24-hours a day, seven days a week. The flights go into everything from developing tropical storms to Category 5 hurricanes. But they don't fly into a storm over land because of the danger of tornadoes. > Since the flights officially began in 1943, only four Hurricane Hunter planes have been lost in the bump and grind through the clouds the last in 1974.
It doesn't take much to draw out stories of the storms that have tilted the plane at dangerous angles, sent shudders down its metal spine and through its human occupants, banging untethered people against the ceiling as ride-along journalists scramble for plastic bags amid lurching stomachs. Blair, who dozed in free in-flight moments with a copy of the book "Unholy War" spread across his stomach, was nonchalant about the Ike flight. But he remembers others that were more eventful. "Hurricane Charlie, what was that '03, '04?" Blair said. "That almost beat us to death. We made a pass through it as a Category 2, and 45 minutes later, when we went back through, it was a Cat 4. Every reporter on board had a bag up to his face."
The storms are most dangerous as they build or break apart, Blair said. That's when a potentially deadly microburst of wind and huge up-and downdrafts threaten the plane. Dangerous or not, the flights, with their combination of boredom and adrenaline-pumping moments, appear to be addictive.
"I'm going to keep doing this until I get too old or my hearing goes," Blair said. "Then I'll just sit up in Picayune (Miss.) and drink beer and eat barbecue and dream about it."
