by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Homer Humphries has been an attorney in Jacksonville for better than half a century. He’s also lived a second life as a member of the United States Air Force, from which he retired as a Brigadier General.
Over the course of his military career, Humphries has obtained quite a collection of classic Air Force photos. Recently, his wife noticed four of the framed photos. She also noticed they weren’t doing anything but gathering dust in the Humphries’ garage. Monday, Humphries donated the photos to J.B. Renninger, the director of Florida Community College at Jacksonville’s Aviation Center for Excellence at the school’s Cecil Commerce Center campus.
“We have a training center at our Cecil campus and an aviation art collection. We get donations from all over the world,” said Renninger, adding one came from Australia.
Overall, the aviation center has about 230 pieces and displays 100-120 at any given time.
“These are the first four I have given them,” said Humphries, who has more at home but isn’t ready to part with them just yet.
All four photos Humphries donated Monday have significance. One depicts two F-14s flying over Downtown. Another shows 16 fighter jets flying in formation.
“When you see 16 aircraft in formation, that’s a testament to good maintenance,” said Renninger.
Another photo is of a C-131 transport plane used by the Air Force to move equipment and troops. Perhaps the most intriguing, though, is a shot of an F-16 intercept flying directly under a Russian “Bear” or reconnaissance plane — off the coast of Jacksonville. It was taken April 17, 1987 at the tail end of the Cold War between the United States and Russia that dominated the late 1970s and much of the ‘80s.
“During the Cold War, they (Russia) would test us,” said Humphries, explaining the Russians kept a heavy presence in Cuba at the time and fly up the Eastern Seaboard on the way back to Russia. “When they were leaving Cuba, the would cruise by just to see what we were doing.”
Renninger remembered something else about the encounter between the U.S. jet and the Russian plane that was capable of making the trip from Russia to the U.S. and back without refueling.
“The tail gunner held up a magazine to the photographer in the second plane and it was the equivalent of a Playboy,” he said. “It was a neat time in our country’s history. We’d catch them and they’d catch us.”