A.M. Sortie by Craig Kodera

About the Art: The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was one of the most distinctive-looking US Army Air corps planes during WWII.  It originated as an entrant in, and subsequent winner of the Feb. 1937 US Army Air  Corps design competition for a high-performance pursuit plane capable of intercepting enemy aircraft at high altitude. C. Kodera

About the Artist: Craig Kodera has always loved aviation.  Born in riverside, Calif., in 1956, he cannot remember a time when airplaines and flight were not part of his life.  He was raised in what he calls an "aviation family," in a neighborhood very close to the Los Angeles Airport.  Kodera started to paint at 14 and earned his private pilot's license at 16.  He attended UCLA, earning a BA in Mass Communications and completing the equivalent of a minor in Art History.  After granduation, he worked as a commerical artist for several small advertising and design firms, and for McDonnell Douglas Aircraft.  There art and aviation merged, and Craig found himself employed as a production/design artist and illustrator.

Kodera spent more than seven years in the Air Force Reserve.  He also served with the Strategic Air Command, stationed at the same air base where he flew the McDonnell Doughlas KC-10A Extender.  He is a charter vice president of the American Society of Aviation Artists and he is a member of the Air Force Art Program and the Los Angeles Society of Illustrators.  His work hangs in several museums and is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.