Aviation Story

On Mon, 02 Feb 2004 02:20:22 GMT, Roger Halstead
wrote:

Many years ago, and I do mean many!

I was a teen ager out on the Farmall A, cultivating beans the first
time through.

I don't think there is anything in this world that takes less brains
than cultivating beans the first time through. You just sit there,
"in the heat", with the tractor idling along, and keeping the rows
between the shoes.

It was about mid afternoon and I had been doing this exciting job
since day break. All of a sudden my day dreaming was interrupted by
this tremendous noise. I whipped around to see an F-80 pulling up with
one whale of a cloud of dust billowing up behind me. I was headed
north, he was headed east. Couldn't have been much more than a couple
of wing spans behind me. I was still fascinated, seeing him climb out
like that when I realized the tractor was still moving, but who knew
where.

I had to get off the tractor, and count rows to get back where I
belonged. Worst case of "cultivator blight" I ever saw.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

About twenty years ago, I was sitting on a boulder just after daylight
with the sun to my back. I was mule deer hunting 20 miles north of Big
Bend National Park. Suddenly a dark shadow fell over me; and then an
earth shattering roar. My first thought was that I was breakfast for a
lion.

Three B-52's were doing terrain following maybe 200 AGL. Low enough to
feel the breeze and smell the smoke.