Ty Greenlees
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Ty Greenlees grew up in Doylestown, Ohio where he received his first instamatic camera as a seventh birthday gift. His father recognized his intense interest in photography and taught him the finer points of manual rangefinder cameras. He saved his lawn mowing money and assembled an odd collection of cameras and darkroom equipment from yard sales and friends to start his photography career in 1980 as the high school yearbook photographer.

Greenlees has been a staff photographer with the Dayton Daily News since 1984. Earning a bachelor’s degree in communication from Wright State University in 1988, while working at the newspaper, he found a niche for his love of photojournalism and flying in Dayton, the birthplace of aviation. Greenlees covered the Dayton Air Show with writer Timothy R. Gaffney from 1985 though 2006, capturing thousands of photographs of showplanes and the people who make them fly. A licensed airplane and helicopter pilot, Greenlees teamed with Gaffney in 1997 to fly a small airplane across the country, photographing and reporting about general aviation for the newspaper. The resulting series, titled “Spirit of Flight,” earned them the Max Karant Award for aviation journalism from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

His photographs have been published by the Dayton Daily News, Associated Press, University of Dayton, Miami Valley Research Park, Smithsonian Air & Space, Women in Aviation International, Miller Brothers Construction, Ohio Magazine, National Aviation Hall of Fame and the National Aviation Heritage Foundation. He was a photographer for A Place Called Home, a 2006 book by Orange Frazer Press.

Timothy R. Gaffney
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Tim Gaffney is a professional writer and author of a dozen children’s and adult books about aviation, space and exploration. A native of Dayton, Ohio, he grew up with a strong appreciation for Dayton's aviation heritage. He graduated from Colonel White High School in 1969 and received a bachelor's degree in journalism from The Ohio State University, Columbus, in 1974. He held various reporting and editing positions at the Piqua Daily Call and the Kettering-Oakwood Times before joining the Dayton Daily News as a feature writer in 1979. He became the newspaper's aviation writer in 1985 and held that position through 2006, when he retired.

Covering Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Dayton Air Show gave Gaffney opportunities to learn about a wide variety of military aircraft from the cockpit. Aircraft he flew in included the F-4D Phantom II, T-38 Talon, B-1B Lancer, F-16D Falcon, F/A-18B Hornet and T-33 Shooting Star, among others. At the 1990 Dayton Air Show, he became one of the first western pilots to fly in the Soviet Union's MiG-29 fighter.

Gaffney serves on the boards of trustees of the United States Air and Trade Show Inc. and Wright “B” Flyer Inc. He is a member of the Aviation Heritage Foundation’s Branding and Marketing Council and Sinclair Community College’s Aviation Advisory Committee. He is a private pilot. He and his wife Jean live in Miamisburg, where they raised four children. He publishes news and photos about his books, local aviation, and other topics on his website, www.timothyrgaffney.com