TEMECULA, CA — The Temecula Valley Historical Society Little Temecula History Museum invites the public to a program on The Aviation History of Hemet at 6 p.m. Monday at the newly air-conditioned museum, located next to Kohl's in south Temecula at 32075 Wolf Store Road.
"The speaker, Ken Graff, started hanging out with aviators at the Hemet-Ryan Airport in 1947 when he was a child. He heard yarns about the field's rich history during its years as a training base for World War II Army Cadets trainees, including the legendary Chuck Yeager, the first to fly faster than the speed of sound," Historical Society spokesperson Rebecca Farnbach said.
The Hemet Valley Flying Service hired Graff as a "line boy" in 1960, and he met many of the Ryan flight instructors from the war years who hung around the airport drinking coffee and reliving Ryan stories.
"Following his interest in aviation, Graff began flying lessons at the age of fifteen, soloed on his sixteenth birthday, received his private pilot’s license at seventeen, and received a commercial pilot's license with instrument and multi-engine ratings at eighteen. Graff started a job as a Forestry Pilot during the 1965 fire season, four days after graduating from Hemet High School. He then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1966 and served as a Loadmaster on C-130 A, B, and E model cargo planes, flying in Vietnam for two years, and then one year as an instructor on AC-47 Gunships.
"From 1970 to 1990 Graff worked for the Hemet Valley Flying Services, flying firefighting and agricultural aircraft. He took over the maintenance and operations of the company’s Stockton facility for five years, overseeing the Department of Forestry’s thirty-three-aircraft fleet, which included S2 Air Tankers and Cessna 0-2 Air Attack aircraft. When the Stockton facility closed in 1990, he moved to Arkansas and opened Graff Aviation, a full-service fixed-base operation. and within a few months became manager of the Clarksville City Airport. In 1993, Graff joined Hyline International Airlines based in Palau in Mocronesia, operating a Boeing 727 to carry fish from various islands to Guam and Saipan for the Chinese and Taiwanese fishing fleets of Palau and the Marshall Islands.
"In 1996, Graff returned to take over Hemet Valley Flying Service when Jim Venable, owner of the company, became a County Supervisor. In 2000, he assumed the role of a Legislative Assistant in the Third District County Supervisor’s office. He left the Supervisor’s staff in 2004 to join the newly created Western Riverside County Regional Conservation Authority (R.C.A.) as an Administrative Services Officer and later as Director of Land Acquisition & Property Management for the agency, which was responsible for acquiring and maintaining habitat reserves.
Graff retired from the R.C.A. in 2011 and spent his spare time at Hemet Ryan Airport in various activities, including roles with the Hemet Hangar of “Quiet Birdmen” and other groups that promoted activities and improvements at the airport. When the Ryan School of Aeronautics Museum closed its doors, he volunteered to inventory the contents of the Museum, catalog them and pack them for storage, according to Farnbach.
From his personal flying experiences and his encounters with aviation heroes, Graff has a lot of stories to tell, some of which he has put into a book, "Mr. Ryan's Field."
"The Temecula Valley Historical Society presentations like this one on the fourth Monday of most months are a free service to inform and entertain the community.
The programs are also offered live-streamed and archived on the society's Facebook page, as well as being archived on the society's YouTube channel.
For any questions about the program on the Hemet-Ryan Field, please contact Rebecca Farnbach at [email protected].