After Robin returned from his summer glider camp he soloed again at
Traben-Trarbach the next weekend, he was growing up fast. Natalie was
too, she sneaked off one night with the Klingles daughter while Nelly and I were on a trip she came home over imbibed, I hope she had a gigantic
hangover but I don’t think she will ever tell me. Our niece Marsha, a
college girl visited us when she was on a European adventure, she was
into hiking and one day she took off to hike the trails of Edercompf she
found military guards blocking many of the trails Continue reading →

We had bought a used 1971 VW bus while at Westover, I am glad it was it was still in warranty, we had of plenty of problems with it. It had air conditioning and on every long trip we took we had problems with the engine, on two separate trips to Florida from Westover to visit Disney World and my parents place I had to have the engine serviced, burned valves were usually the problem. Continue reading →

Col Harris and I made a couple of trips to Westover to scout out what they had to offer and make plans for our move, SAC was the host, all their B-52’s had been sent to Guam to support the Vietnam war and we where going to be a tenant. We started neogations , I demanded the hanger adjacent to Base Ops, I also demanded the north ramp for our aircraft parking area and the end of the building opposing the hanger but still the closest building to our proposed flight line for the ground power section. Continue reading →

The family had been in Panama for four years, our best assignment, I got to fly all over South and Central America Nelly had a maid and the children went swimming nearly every day. We owned a 20 ft sail boat, yeah, I worked on it one weekend and my partner used it the next but eventually I got it fixed up enough that we could each use it for a weekend before it needed some attention. My parents had come to visit for several months and I can only say we all had a great time. Then my orders came I was to go back to B-57s and join the 8th Tactical Bomb Sq. at Phan Rang, Vietnam. Continue reading →

Vance AFB was on the south west corner of Enid, Oklahoma. Enid was a really nice town, there was a small college on the East side of town and oil drilling platform factory on the north side of town, agriculture was the bread and butter for the area and grain was the major product. Enid was one of the major grain shipping centers so yes there was good railroad service for the produce. The only flaw of Oklahoma was it was dry at that time so us military types tended to stay on base, but the local population sure came to the officers and cadet clubs on weekends. Continue reading →

Lockbourne AFB was a SAC base and home to the 91st Start Recon Wing. They had RB-45’s and KB-29 tankers. The Air National Guard squadron had P-51’s and Base Flight that I was assigned to had a B-25 exec transport, a C-47, two T-11 Bombadeer/Navigator trainers and a bunch of T-6’s for the staff pilots to get their four hours a month to qualify for flying pay. As the winter of 1952 approached and one of the T-6’s made a forced belly landing off field. Continue reading →

Some of you will remember Milton Caniff as the “Steve Canyon” comic strip creator, but he was also a big aviation enthusiast. He bought a Junkers JU-52, the German trimotor transport plane used in the Spanish civil war and WWII, had it restored and named it “Iron Annie”. Iron Annie was at the Quito, Ecuador, altitude about 10,000 ft above sea level, when I first saw it in 1964, it was in pretty bad shape,it had been used to haul sacks of cement up the mountain from the Pacific seaport at Guayaquil. Continue reading →

I have asked myself several times lately where or when did I make a decision to make flying my carrier. I still just don’t know where or when it happened maybe it just grew on me.

Several of the neighbor kids and I were playing in our back yard in late summer of 1945. The war had just ended a small airplane was doing training maneuvers over the farm. I recognized what they were doing, turns, climbing turns, gliding turns. stalls, slow flight, etc, I had checked out the only “how to fly” book in the school library, Jordanoff’s “Your Wings” many times and I had it almost memorized. All the maneuvers described in this book were being demonstrated over our farm and it happened every day, even spins, chandelles and lazy eights. Continue reading →

While in cadet flying school at Marianna, Florida the Donaldsonville bridge was one of the challenges that was passed around that you had to fly under it if you were really a good pilot. One day a gaggle of us kind of formed up and the leader took off and headed for the Donaldsonville bridge, we were all solo at that time and practicing aerobatics in the T-6 a really sturdy airplane, that could absorb a good bit of abuse. I ended up as tail end Charley and was the last to drop into the river bottom for the pass under the bridge, Continue reading →

There was a vibrance about the people in New England that I did not understand at the time but I have since ponderd on the subject enough that I think I have it figured out. It starts in the fall all the boat owners are preparing their boats for winter storage. Every thing is cleaned, bottoms are scrubbed, snow covers are put on and the boats are moved on each yard so they are packed almost like sardines and owners still check their treasures every week all winter, except the week ends they go skiing in Vermont. Continue reading →