Yesterday I went to Emily's ball practice and was wearing my AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Asso) hat, and an elderly man asked if *I* flew. Emphasis with incredulity on the "I" part. "Do YOU fly? I told him that yes, I flew, and he grinned, shook his head, and pulled a decades old flight ticket from his wallet. He told me he used to be a WWII aviator in the Navy. How awesome is THAT?!?!?!!!?!?!? He was excited to talk flying, so he told me about all the planes he'd flown. He trained in a T6 (how cool is that, most people spend alot of $$ just to get a chance to ride in a T6)
He also flew an F6F Hellcat, and F9F, and a T28.
F6F:
F9F:
I can't find a picture of the T28, except for commercial aircraft jets, so maybe I got that info wrong. As for the above pictures, I didn't check the dates of the planes, so they might not be the right era, but whatever, you get the point.
He told that several years ago he met a guy who flies out of the same airport that I use, and this guy talked him into taking a ride with a CFI. While flying, he said things came back pretty quickly, which is awesome, except he made a super tight approach, with a continuous steep turn from downwind to final. The CFI knew just from his approach that he was Navy. The guy said that it was from all of those years of landing on aircraft carriers!
Now, most of you might take this guy with a grain of salt, but he seemed pretty sincere and honest and didn't embellish his stories. Well, if he did, he didn't do a very good job of it.
1 comment:
Get used to the incredulty, I'm still getting it 17 years later. "YOU'RE the pilot??" or "YOU fly??" lol Welcome to the first gasp of many. ;) That's neat that you ran into that guy and got to talk flying.
We don't really call old pilots anything except "Oh, he's an old-timer." If there's another name, I look forward to learning what it is too!
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