MORE HEAVY JUNK.....ho hum

Wow!, very cool. Love the mil spec flipflops.

 

Man that P-38 is a killer.

 

That first shot is amazing! Maybe some day I'll get the chance to fly in something older other than a Stearman lol

 

Wonderful. Just amazing sights.

 

My father flew nearly all the USAAF piston-engine fighters during and after WW-II, went to war in the P-47D, and flew P-51Ds post war. He alway said his favorite was the P-38, however.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Taz, Jimmy Doolittle said that the P-38 was the best all around fighter of the war...bomber escort, strafer, bomber, dive bomber, fighter, and photo plane.I was good friends and flew around with an ace who flew the P-38 and he did some unbelievable things in the airplane, 5 of them. He shot down 5 FW-190's in ten minutes and would have done more if he hadn't running out of fuel. One of my frat brothers at Duke flew them in Italy and in a weird moment at Boeing one of the guys with whom I worked was a B-24 pilot and he and I were chatting with a guy at lunch about my friend Lew being escorted by a P-38 when they were badly shot up over Austria and trying to get back to Castellucio. It turned out that the escorting P-38 pilot was sitting in front of us. The next day they compared flight reports and photos that verified the incident. Just one of the serendipidous ( sp) incidents that I have experienced. One of the greatest P-38 shows that I ever saw was at Abottsford when Chuck Lyford went up to 10,000 in a P-38 and shut the engines off and came down in front of the crowd dead stick and proceeded to do a loop and then a roll and then turned east and cranked everything up and continued with a great show. Bob Hoover then did the same thing with the Shrike the next year. It was interesting to hear the P-38 rushing by with just the sound of the air flowing by the airframe.
Your dad was one of those who we wannabes always look up to.

 

Agree, Sparky, the P-38 has its own sound, kinda muffled from the turbos if they are still installed. I didn't mention that the kid that I knew in college was flying out of a feild near Cerrinola and had engine failure on take off. He hit a stone wall and broke his leg. After he was healed up and back to flying he had engine failure on take off, hit the same stone wall and...broke his leg. Had pix of both airplanes. I recalled the name of the escorting P-38 pilot as Don Huntsman. A really nice guy.

 

I know. We listened to a lot of war stories when I was at Duke and you soon learned to sort out the real accounts and ignore the rest. I had a room mate who casually mentioned a few things that happened to him when he was in the 9th Div. Turned out that he had 5 purple hearts and a cigar box stuffed with medals. He had the scars to back up all of his purple hearts and his " war stories". His regimental history book had his name on many pages. I flew a Stearman that was owned by an ex RAF-Eagle Squadron guy who was a business major and he never mentioned it until it sort of popped out one day. He and I often flew his little Culver Cadet that he said handled very much like a Spitfire. We came very near bellying in the Culver late one winter's day when the LG downlock failed to engage . We messed with it trying to get the pin in the hole until it was almost dark and the tanks were dry. Finally got it to work and landed at Raleigh-Durham at dark time. I went to school with a bunch of guys who could make you feel very insignificant when you found out who they were and what they did. It was funny as hell to see the response of these guys when the Dean of Freshman attempted to enforce on them the " Little Freshman Boy Rules of Behavior" and the need for them to be punctual blah, blah. He was talking to ex captains, Lt,s, Majors, and guys who had no time for deans. They gave him a quick education.
Man! I get to running off at the mouth. Must be some kinda' disease

 

WOW! cool stories and pics!! Must be cool to have a dad that can hook up flights like this!

 

I got to thinking about how different college was in 1946-50. Most of us freshmen were just out of the service and the attitudes and behavior will never be visited upon a university again. I was walking on the quadrangle going back to my dorm when I heard a familiar sound but VERY close. As I turned around i was face to face with a Corsair at tree top level buzzing the campus. He had dropped down at the north end of the north-south open stretch and really beat the place up. After all of us had calmed down somewhat and started to get on with our walking, here came a Hellcat doing the same thing. It was two of my fraternity bros who were still in the Naval Air Reserve at Norfolk. This happened a few times later on until I think that they cooled it.

 

I think that you should warn Allison that riding in those powerful warbirds like she has been doing is very dangerous for a young pretty girl. It can cause bouts of the Epizootic and attacks of the Dillpillyroo with complications of the Hygologin Flip. So, to protect her from these diseases I have gallantly volunteered to take her place. Even though I have a high time airframe I'm still alert and you know what they say, " We always need more lerts."
Switches

 

He invented the "Corn" in Corny.