Subj : USB 2.0, Warp 4, ECS and To : Bat Lang From : Will Honea Date : Sat Jun 18 2005 12:26 am Bat Lang wrote to Will Honea on 06/17 BL> Ha, a kindred spirit. What time frame, what acft? BL> Mine runs from '58 to '70, F-86D/L, F-102 and F/RF-101. Nearly BL> 2200 hrs in the Voodoo, my favorite form of transportation. {^; I BL> recently read a great book, "Malta Spitfire", the tale of a BL> Canuck's experiences flying out of Malta during WWII. Over 30 kills. BL> Sadly, he was killed in an acft explosion in '48 while ferrying acft BL> to Israel. They suspect sabotage. Blew up shortly after breaking BL> ground out of Italy. You predate - barely. I got stuck in trainers right out of UPT in 1965. T37, T38 time was nearly 3500 hours. After surviving student pilots for a long 4 years I wound up flying the AT37 in RVN for 300-odd missions, all close air support with flight test rotations during slack times. I got a little time in the F5 and F100 then got sent to grad school enroute to an Academy faculty tour. I do remember losing several classmates and friends to pitchup in the Voodoo, but I never got to fly it. I had just wrangled a slot in an A10 outfit (none of your gofast, pointy nose types available and I really enjoyed the air-to-ground stuff) when the end of the Vietnam missions in 76 caught me with too much flying time and a graduate degree that got me yanked out of that slot for R&D so the AF and I parted company. I read a collection of short stories a little while back by Fredrick Forsythe called, AIR, "More Flying Stories". The stories were in general on the macabre and dark side but the first tale in the book caught my eye and became a favorite. Believe it or not, it was a story written by H. G. Wells about 1908 entitled "My First Aeroplane". Hilarious! Even today, it catches the flavor of new pilots in a way that any pilot can immediately connect with. I have never seen the story anywhere else in print - the Air Force Academy doen't even have a copy of it in their aviation collection - but it is one of the best I've ever seen. You would probably love it if you could find it. Someday, I'm going to scan it so that I can share it - copyrights are not much of a problem after 100 years. Unfortunately, I was laughing so hard that a friend borrowed the book so now I have to track it down again - you know how that goes. Will Honea ___ þ KWQ/2 1.2i þ TANSTAAFL: You get what you pay for --- Maximus/2 3.01 * Origin: COMM Port OS/2 juge.com 204.89.247.1 (281) 980-9671 (1:106/2000) .