Any fliers?

In message , BUFDRVR
writes
Ed Rasimus wrote:

Flying with the boids is great, but doing the job in the BUFF at FL
250, 12,000 miles from home plate, against a bunch of folks who really
don't like you all that much....there's the rub.

You mean there are actually people who don't like the BUFF?

I can think of some North Vietnamese, Iraqi and Serbian folk who would
hold that opinion, yes.

It's probably just envy.

--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

mainbox{at}jrwlynch(dot)demon[stop]coperioduk

On 18 May 2004 22:21:55 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

ArtKramr wrote:

Fying is all fun games and a million laughs until the shooting starts.

I've experienced several "light" moments over "Injun country" and while I might
not have laughed at the time, I certainly did so once we landed.

All too true. Here's a little anecdote I wrote up to commemorate my
old room-mate's last flight when he retired as a Captain for American
Airlines last year:

Bill Ricks, Boy Fighter Pilot

Bill Ricks and I went to pilot training together, but we didn't get to
know each other despite being in the same small class of thirty-two
Americans and eighteen Germans. Bill was in the 3526 Pilot Training
Squadron and I was in the 3525th. He flew in Smoke Pot and Boysan
flights while I flew in Mule Train and Hacker. We were on the same
base for 53 weeks without encountering each other more than on
graduation day. He was married, I was single. He lived in town and I
lived on base. He was a responsible Mormon, I was a hell-raising,
hard-drinking wannabe fighter pilot. When we graduated, however, we
both wanted to fly F-105s and we were both good enough that we got to
do that.

When we got to 105 training, the class was only nine students, but
Bill didn't drink and I did so each day when training was over, we
went our separate ways. We knew a little bit more about each other. I
knew he was tall and thin, he knew I was short (relatively) and
chubby.

We only got to know each other when we got to Korat Thailand when a
real-life odd couple was formed. Bill and I became room-mates during
the most intense six months of our young lives. We weren't supposed to
be scared and we never said we were, but we both knew that there were
lots of folks trying to kill us and they weren't all on the North
Vietnamese side of the guns. We had a flight commander who hated
lieutenants and a squadron commander, Barney Barnett, who hated
everybody.

Barnett was a huge man, probably six feet three inches tall and
weighing close to three hundred pounds. He had the largest head ever
seen on a human being and when he suited up to go flying his parachute
looked like a kindergartener's daypack and his G-suit was stretched to
the breaking point. The criss-crossed lashings of the thigh and calf
sections left his legs looking like huge salami links supporting his
massive body. He had the personality of a watermelon and was never
heard to say anything to a lieutenant except in a shout. We were
scared ****less of him.

I managed to avoid him during the first month I was at Korat and
eventually he completed his 100 missions and left. Bill, however was
not so fortunate. Lieutenant Ricks got scheduled to fly the squadron
commander's wing on a huge strike against the heavily defended
military storage area at Yen Bai on the Red River in North Vietnam.
One hundred planes would hit the town, each flight with a section of
the area to drop their bombs. Timing was critical, coordination needed
to be precise. The mission was a tough one in a high threat situation
and it was going to be a pressure cooker.

Lt. Col. Barnett briefed the mission in minimalist, single syllable
words and growled at Bill that he'd better be in position and clear
his leader's six and drop his bombs on target and do a decent job, but
there was no doubt in Barnett's mind that a sniveling, skinny, green
lieutenant like Ricks had no business there and would screw up.

Bill vowed to do a perfect job. He hurried out to preflight his
airplane. He started on time. He taxied with perfect spacing and made
all his radio calls crisp, clear and snappy. He rolled with perfect
spacing and rejoined in less than ninety degrees of turn. He was
perfectly in position all the way to the tanker. As Barnett took his
gas, Bill held in place on the tanker's wing. Then moved into
pre-contact position precisely as Barnett moved off the boom to the
left wing.

It was just the sort of job Bill needed to do to impress the boss.
Then as Barnett watched, Bill smoothly reached down by his left knee
and pulled the bright yellow handle that released the gear doors and
unlatched the landing gear, dropping his wheels at nearly one hundred
knots above recommended gear lowering speed and promptly slowing his
aircraft to disappear behind and below the tanker. The emergency gear
handle was just outside of his left knee and the refueling door handle
was just inside his left knee. It was a mistake that only a lieutenant
could make and Bill made it perfectly.

Barnett yelled for his lieutenant to clean up his airplane and go
home. And, that's when Bill Ricks began to drink.


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

On 18 May 2004 22:18:56 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

Flying with the boids is great, but doing the job in the BUFF at FL
250, 12,000 miles from home plate, against a bunch of folks who really
don't like you all that much....there's the rub.

You mean there are actually people who don't like the BUFF?


They would be known as the "recipients" AKA, "the target du jour".


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

Subject: Any fliers?
From: (BUFDRVR)
Date: 5/18/04 3:21 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

ArtKramr wrote:

Fying is all fun games and a million laughs until the shooting starts.

I've experienced several "light" moments over "Injun country" and while I
might
not have laughed at the time, I certainly did so once we landed.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it
harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"


I always wanted to fly when I was a kid. But once I got into military flying I
must admit that I never loked at the sky and said, "What a great day for
flying. Wish I was up there" Never once. And I must also admit that when we had
a hairy mission scheduled over the deadly Ruhr Valley, which got scrubbed due
to weather over the target, I never shed a tear. Not one. And when I came home
from a mission without a scratch it was great. But tomorrow was another
mission. And tomorrow always came too soon.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: Any fliers?
From: (BUFDRVR)
Date: 5/18/04 3:21 PM Pacific Daylight Time

Fying is all fun games and a million laughs until the shooting starts.

I've experienced several "light" moments over "Injun country" and while I
might
not have laughed at the time, I certainly did so once we landed.


BUFDRVR


That takes care of today. But there is another mission tomorrow, and another
and another and another...forever. We all felt that the war had gone on
forever, We couldn't remember a time when there was no war, And it would go on
forever, never to end.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

(BUFDRVR) wrote:
Mike Marron wrote:

A kite is more akin to "flying" than is flogging a BUFF at FL 250.

Damn, that was good! I'd take it anyway....

For a mere $40K a premium kite like mine can be yours....

Let's overlook the last (unmentioned) criterion.

You wouldn't be referring to, uh, er, _____, would you?

vince norris

"Mike Marron" wrote

IIRC, the Luftwaffe also referred to their Me-262's as "kites."

And we seemingly menial modern groundcrew refer to the jet du jour
(-16, -15, -117, BUFF, whatever) as 'kites'.

As in, "Let's get these kites in the air"

Pete

Steve wrote:

On 16 May 2004 00:10:28 GMT, (Garamondextended)
wrote:

Any fliers on this NG? Any at all?

Cessna 152!

Beat that! :-)

--
Steve.

1956 model Cessna 172 - with my name on the registration.......

I realized one day that the fuel load in the biz jet ahead of me on the taxi
way was worth more than my airplane. But it was MY airplane, not my
uncle's.

Even Ed and BUFDRVR couldn't say that, in a fiscal sense!

Bob McKellar, who, at the time, mired in the folly of youth, actually
thought he was pretty much hot ****.

My German's not up to the task, but is there any possibility that that
they may be referring to teh airplanes as the predatory Hawks
(Accipitridae), characterized by a long tail and long, pointed wings
(Sounds kinda Me 262-ish),

Perhaps - but to them, the "Government sponsored name" of Schwalbe/Swallow (as
in the case of the "Fighting Falcon") was roundly ignored by the pilots, who
nearly always stuck with "Turbo" - its what set them apart from their fellows,
saddled with props.

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

An LZ is a place you want to land, not stay.