{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.moran.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=9F817522-1329-4EB0-858F-16D37BED27F0", "Sen. Moran Delivers Remarks for National Aviation History Month", "2024-12-20", "2024", "2024-12", "Republican", "Senate", "KS", "Jerry Moran", "M000934", "www.moran.senate.gov", "moran", "https://www.moran.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) delivered remarks this week on the Senate Floor recognizing \u201cNational Aviation History Month\u201d and Kansas\u2019 contributions to the aviation industry.\n\n\u201cKansas is an aviation hub, and it has a rich history in aviation manufacturing,\u201d said Sen. Moran. \u201cKansas has played a key role in cultivating America\u2019s leadership in aviation and is home to thousands of engineers and manufacturers who have supported America\u2019s aviation heritage for more than a century. We are and will continue to be the \u2018Air Capital of the World\u2019 not only because we build airplanes, but because we have leaders and students driving the industry forward with innovation, ingenuity and a relentless pursuit of excellence.\u201d\n\nClick HERE to watch Sen. Moran\u2019s Full Remarks\n\nRemarks as prepared:\n\n\u201cLast month, we celebrated \u201cNational Aviation History Month\u201d across America, and I would be remiss not to recognize the Air Capital of the World and Kansas\u2019 contributions to the aviation industry \u2013 both historically and still today.\n\n\u201cKansas is an aviation hub, and it has a rich history in aviation manufacturing. This tradition dates back to Albin Longren, who developed Kansas\u2019 first aircraft, the Longren Flyer, which was fully designed, produced, and successfully tested in Topeka in 1911 \u2013 less than a decade after the Wright Brothers\u2019 Historic first flight.\n\n\u201cClyde Cessna went on to develop his pioneering aircraft, the \u201cSilverwing,\u201d in 1911, which was designed and built in Kingman County, Kansas.\n\n\u201cClyde Cessna, Lloyd Stearman, and Walter Beech partnered to found the Travel Air Manufacturing Company, which would later be spun off into three companies with global recognition \u2013 the Cessna Aircraft Company, Stearman Aircraft, and the Beech Aircraft Company \u2013 all of which were headquartered in Wichita.\n\n\u201cCessna, Stearman, Beech, and over a dozen other aviation entrepreneurs in Wichita produced 120 airplanes each week at the outset of Wichita\u2019s aviation dominance in the late 1920s. It was then that Wichita earned its title the \u201cAir Capital of the World.\u201d\n\n\u201cDuring WWII, tens of thousands of Kansans contributed to the war effort by working in aircraft plants, making nearly 26,000 planes, including over 1,600 B-29 Superfortress heavy bombers.\n\n\u201cFollowing the war, The Boeing Company started testing mid-flight refueling using the B-29 Superfortress and eventually delivered the KC-135 Stratotanker to the United States Air Force in the 1950s, still one of the premier mid-flight refueling aircraft for the United States Armed Forces. Many of these tankers are stationed at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita.\n\n\u201cOther than agriculture, the aviation and aerospace industries in Kansas support more jobs than any other sector in the state, including more than 65,000 aerospace and defense jobs across more than 450 world-class suppliers.\n\n\u201cKansas is a global leader in general aviation, producing 35% of all general aviation aircraft in America and supplying 75% of all general aviation aircraft since the Wright Brothers\u2019 first flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903.\n\n\u201cAt the end of November, Bombardier delivered its first Global 6500 to the U.S. Army in support of its next generation Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platform.\n\n\u201cOne week later, Wichita State University\u2019s National Institute for Aviation Research received a Boeing 747-8i as part of a strategic partnership with Sierra Nevada Corporation on the Air Force\u2019s \u201cDoomsday\u201d program.\n\n\u201cI would also like to highlight that NIAR and Wichita State was recently ranked by the NSF as the number 1 R&D expenditures university in the country for aerospace engineering.\n\n\u201cOur state is also diversifying its aviation and aerospace work with companies like General Atomics and now has 17 Kansas manufacturers working on NASA\u2019s Artemis Program,\n\n\u201cWe are also developing essential components for commercial space providers such as SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Sierra Space, Rocket Lab and Blue Origin.\n\n\u201cAdditionally, Kansas is home to Crew-9 astronaut Nick Hague of Hoxie, who is currently stationed at the International Space Station.\n\n\u201cMuseums across Kansas, including the Kansas Aviation Museum; Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison; B-29 Museum in Pratt; Mid-America Museum in Liberal; and the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, showcase the rich aviation history, and point toward a continued legacy of excellence in aviation and aerospace in Kansas and our entire nation.\n\n\u201cYou cannot talk about aviation without talking about Kansas.\n\n\u201cKansas has played a key role in cultivating America\u2019s leadership in aviation and is home to thousands of engineers and manufacturers who have supported America\u2019s aviation heritage for more than a century.\n\n\u201cWe are and will continue to be the \u2018Air Capital of the World\u2019 not only because we build airplanes, but because we have leaders and students driving the industry forward with innovation, ingenuity and a relentless pursuit of excellence.\u201d\n\n# # #", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:07:19Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.moran.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=9F817522-1329-4EB0-858F-16D37BED27F0"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8712420240044594, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}