On Sun, 29 Feb 2004 15:36:42 -0500, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

That's one pilot's opinion of another and hardly definitive. BTW, in earlier
days, anybody weighing 270 pounds would not have been able to fit into a fighter
cockpit. The tall guys inevitably ended up in bombers or transports, and the
real heavy guys (like 270 lbs.) ended up as the flight surgeon's medically
grounded annual project. Century series cockpits might be far more forgiving
and I'd certainly defer to someone like Ed Rasmussen, who'd be far more
knowledgeable than I on that subject. Anyway, one might be forgiven for
wondering what Udell's supervisors thought of him, and if Udell admired Bush so
much because they were cut from the same cloth and excelled at juvenile drinking
games in the O Club bar.

George Z.

After all these years, still misspelling my name....

The big guys to bombers, small guys to fighters concept is strictly an
urban legend. And, it isn't simply related to Century Series--take a
look at Robin Olds, 6' 2" and a solid 220 for most of his flying
years. That means starting with his WW II experience in P-38s and 51s.

I'm 6 foot and have been 200 pounds for my entire active flying
career. Lots of guys were taller and a few were shorter. Had one guy
in the 613th TFS with me at Torrejon named "Tiny" Reich. He was 6' 6".
He was a pilot in the F-4 at that time, but had been a WSO, shot down
in the back-seat of an F-4 and POW in Hanoi for almost a year.

The T-37 IP I mentioned, Tom Lockhart (who has a stronger favorable
opinion about GWB than Udell) is 6' 3" and generally ran about 225.



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