On 29 Feb 2004 18:10:14 GMT, 362436 (Ron) wrote:

In late 1969, when George W. Bush showed up at Ellington Air Force Base in
Texas for flight training, his instructor was a 270-pound judo black belt and
self-described "mean S.O.B." named Maury Udell. "I know your dad is a
congressman, but that doesn't mean a thing to me," Udell told Bush. After Bush
had learned to fly jets, Udell tried to rattle him by getting on his tail in
mock dogfights. Bush gave his instructor a hard look and began doing his own
high-speed zigzags, "doing his damnedest to lose me," Udell recalled to
NEWSWEEK. "He was not a candy a--." Udell rates Bush "among the top 5 percent
of fighter pilots I've ever trained."


Ron
Tanker 65, C-54E (DC-4)

And, let me add that when George W. Bush was in USAF Undergraduate
Pilot Training (a year long program which made it longer than John
Fonda Kerry was in SEA in BOTH of his "combat" tours), his T-37
instructor pilot was Tom "Baby Huey" Lockhart, an F-105 100-mission
over North Vietnam veteran who was with me at Korat in 1966.

Lockhart speaks well of the President's flying skills, but more
importantly, he is always ready to address the President's integrity
and friendship. When visiting a base nearby, the President spotted his
old IP across the rope-line--despite not having seen him in nearly 20
years, the President broke out of his Secret Service guards and went
to shake hands and express his gratitude to Tom for his instruction
years earlier.

Tom's got the pictures to prove it.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8