Dudley Henriques wrote:
One example of what you folks are discussing on this thread would be
the Paris Texas operation back in the sixties run by Junior Burchinal.
(Issac Newton to his friends :-)
Junior would take you from not knowing anything at all, right though a
complete checkout in his Mustang or his Bearcat, or several other
military airplanes.

Funny you should mention Burchinal - I recently finished reading "Zero 3
Bravo" by Mariana Gosnell (about a cross-country flight in her Luscombe
Silvaire) and she has a chapter on meeting him and getting a chance to
fly with him in a T-33. Quite a character! Claimed to be a reformed
boozer (claimed to drink to get his courage up to fly - which he wanted
to do more than anything in the world). A few quotes from the book:

Burchinal:
'"One day I was flying home from Dallas in in a ragwing Luscombe[!] I'd
cracked up the day before landing in a fog when I was half drunk and
stepped on the brakes too hard. I put a cloth over the torn part of the
windshield, had a couple swigs of tequila, and took off."'

(And the reason one person came to view his B-17

'One Israeli made a beeline for the B-17 and started crying as soon as
he sat in the pilot's seat. He told Burchinal why. During World War II
his parents, who were Jewish, hid him and his little sister under the
floor of their house in Holland and told them if they heard a noise in
the night they should run away to a cave that had been prepared for
them. One night they did hear a noise. "The Gestapo came to the house
and slit his parents' throats," said Burchinal. "He and his sister ran
away and hid in the cave. The cave was on a hillside and during the day
they usually stayed there but at night they'd sneak down to the valley
and take food from people's gardens. One day they were standing outside
and saw Germans with bloodhounds climbing up the hill toward them. They
stood hugging each other. They were sure this was the end of their
lives. But instead of a few shots they heard thousands of rounds of
ammunition. Then they saw a B-17 flying up the hillside, shooting at
every German in sight. When it passed them the pilot waved. The Israeli
said he'd never forget that as long as he lived."'

One story, out of several close calls, related in the book:
'Once during a takeoff in the P-38 the canopy's emergency latch came off
and then the canopy itself, tearing loose the top of Burchinal's and a
student's scalps. "By the time they landed, the student's scalp was
flapping in the slipstream," said Bo. (Bo is his son.)

A bunch of other tales, some tall, squeezed into that 14 page chapter.
(E.g. Mariana met the woman from Paris, France who Burchinal claimed was
the first female civilian to solo a T-33. How he came to have his own
chapel, and so on.)