Testimony of Pilot -Series
Air War Vietnam: Remembrance at 40 Years – All Days Come From One Day
Note: This article was originally posted April 10, 2012 on the Project White Horse Blog On April 10, 1972, Midway steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, bound on a 7800 mile voyage to the Vietnam War Zone. This in itself was not uncommon. What made this cruise different from proceeding ones in the ship’s history was the fact that Midway was deploying over seven weeks in advance of the scheduled departure date with less than one week’s notice, with a vastly abbreviated training period, and with the additional handicap of a short, three day load out. Shouldering [...]
Sticks & Wires & Cloth
“An airplane is just a bunch of sticks and wires and cloth, a tool for learning about the sky and about what kind of person I am, when I fly. An airplane stands for freedom, for joy, for the power to understand, and to demonstrate that understanding. Those things aren’t destructible.” Nothing by Chance, Richard Bach Nanna by Kristin Hill That quote also serves as the first words in Sticks & Wires & Cloth by Anne Hopkins. Then in the closing chapter she begins: “Someday I will discover that climbing into Nana’s cockpit takes too great a toll on [...]
Remembered Sky
Everyone at one time or another stumbles across something or someone that sends their mind cascading back in time to people and events that have shaped their lives. Aviators in particular are notorious for that instantaneous hands in the air “and their I was, flat on my back, running out of airspeed, altitude and gas… but here’s what I did…” – airshow time at the bar. Late 1999 I experienced that moment when daughter Tracey – made in Hong Kong 1972 in the midst of the war over Vietnam – announced she was bringing home for Christmas an F-14 Tomcat [...]
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Testimony of Pilot -Series
Air War Vietnam: Remembrance at 40 Years – All Days Come From One Day
Note: This article was originally posted April 10, 2012 on the Project White Horse Blog On April 10, 1972, Midway steamed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, bound on a 7800 mile voyage to the Vietnam War Zone. This in itself was not uncommon. What made this cruise different from proceeding ones in the ship’s history was the fact that Midway was deploying over seven weeks in advance of the scheduled departure date with less than one week’s notice, with a vastly abbreviated training period, and with the additional handicap of a short, three day load out. Shouldering [...]
Sticks & Wires & Cloth
“An airplane is just a bunch of sticks and wires and cloth, a tool for learning about the sky and about what kind of person I am, when I fly. An airplane stands for freedom, for joy, for the power to understand, and to demonstrate that understanding. Those things aren’t destructible.” Nothing by Chance, Richard Bach Nanna by Kristin Hill That quote also serves as the first words in Sticks & Wires & Cloth by Anne Hopkins. Then in the closing chapter she begins: “Someday I will discover that climbing into Nana’s cockpit takes too great a toll on [...]
Remembered Sky
Everyone at one time or another stumbles across something or someone that sends their mind cascading back in time to people and events that have shaped their lives. Aviators in particular are notorious for that instantaneous hands in the air “and their I was, flat on my back, running out of airspeed, altitude and gas… but here’s what I did…” – airshow time at the bar. Late 1999 I experienced that moment when daughter Tracey – made in Hong Kong 1972 in the midst of the war over Vietnam – announced she was bringing home for Christmas an F-14 Tomcat [...]