Blogengeezer

My Heart On The Line

blogengeezer — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:51:49 +0000

My Heart on the Line By Frank Schaeffer of The Washington Post

Before my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was defending me. Now when I read of the war on terrorism or the coming conflict in Iraq , it cuts to my heart. When I see a picture of a member of our military who has been killed, I read his or her name very carefully. Sometimes I cry.

In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress blues and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way. John was headstrong, and he seemed to understand these stern, clean men with straight backs and flawless uniforms. I did not. I live in the Volvo-driving, higher education- worshiping North Shore of Boston . I write novels for a living. I have never served in the military.

It had been hard enough sending my two older children off to Georgetown and New York University . John’s enlisting was unexpected, so deeply unsettling. I did not relish the prospect of answering the question, ‘So where is John going to college?’ from the parents who were itching to tell me all about how their son or daughter was going to Harvard. At the private high school John attended, no other students were going into the military.

‘But aren’t the Marines terribly Southern?’ asked one perplexed mother while standing next to me at the brunch following graduation. ‘What a waste, he was such a good student,’ said another parent. One parent (a professor at a nearby and rather famous university) spoke up at a school meeting and suggested that the school should ‘carefully evaluate what went wrong.’

When John graduated from three months of boot camp on Parris Island , 3,000 parents and friends were on the parade deck stands. We parents and our Marines not only were of many races but also were representative of many economic classes. Many were poor. Some arrived crammed in the backs of pickups, others by bus. John told me that a lot of parents could not afford the trip.

We in the audience were white and Native American. We were Hispanic, Arab and African American and Asian. We were former Marines wearing the scars of battle, or at least baseball caps emblazoned with battles’ names. We were Southern whites from Nashville and skinheads from New Jersey , black kids from Cleveland wearing ghetto rags and white ex-cons with ham-hock forearms defaced by jailhouse tattoos. We would not have been mistaken for the educated and well-heeled parents gathered on the lawns of John’s private school a half-year before.

After graduation one new Marine told John, ‘Before I was a Marine, if I had ever seen you on my block I would’ve probably killed you just because you were standing there.’ This was a serious statement from one of John’s good friends, an African American ex-gang member from Detroit who, as John said, ‘would die for me now, just like I’d die for him.’

My son has connected me to my country in a way that I was too selfish and insular to experience before. I feel closer to the waitress at our local diner than to some of my oldest friends. She has two sons in the Corps. They are facing the same dangers as my boy. When the guy who fixes my car asks me how John is doing, I know he means it. His younger brother is in the Navy.

Why were I and the other parents at my son’s private school so surprised by his choice? During World War II, the sons and daughters of the most powerful and educated families did their bit. If the idea of the immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason those lucky enough to go to college dodged the draft, why did we not encourage our children to volunteer for military service once that war was done?

Have we wealthy and educated Americans all become pacifists? Is the world a safe place? Or have we just gotten used to having somebody else defend us? What is the future of our democracy when the sons and daughters of the janitors at our elite universities are far more likely to be put in harm’s way than are any of the students whose dorms their parents clean?

I feel shame because it took my son’s joining the Marine Corps to make me take notice of who is defending me. I feel hope because perhaps my son is part of a future ‘greatest generation.’ As the storm clouds of war gather, at least I know that I can look the men and women in uniform in the eye. My son is one of them. He is the best I have to offer. He is my heart.

Frank Schaeffer

The Mighty Eighth Air Force

blogengeezer — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:18:05 +0000

The total story of the 8th Air Force assembly for a mission

THE MIGHTY EIGHTH
Leslie A. Lennox
LCol USAF (Ret)

Of all the stories that have been written, and movies that have been shown, about the 8th Air Force, very little attention has been given to what was involved in assembling 1200 B-17’s and B-24’s each day, to get them in formation to carry out a strike against Germany.

Certainly showing bombers under attack by fighters, or encountering heavy flak, was a reality, and are interesting to watch. Also, stories about some of the rougher missions make interesting reading. But what was going on over England, each morning, could get just as scary to the crews as the time spent over some of the targets.

The planning, and coordination, that had to be accomplished during the night, by the operations planners of each Group, so that the crews could be briefed, was unbelievable. If the planners had failed to do their jobs properly, there would have been a free for all among Bomb Groups, in the skies over England.

     The rendezvous points, altitude, and times had to be precise, and known by all of the crews, before the Eighth Air Force could get in formation. The success of the planners, in accomplishing their mission, enabled the Eighth Air Force to become the most powerful air armada ever assembled. In my view, how this was accomplished is one of the major untold stories of the war.

     I was a pilot in the 95th Bomb Group, in late 1944 and early 1945, and what follows is a typical mission, as I remember it, from a crew member’s perspective.

     Early in the evening, our Squadron Operations would post the names of the crews that were scheduled to fly the following day. There were two ways we could be notified if the Group had been alerted to fly. One was by means of lights on the front of the orderly room, and the other with raising of colored flags.

If a green light was on, the Group was alerted, if a red light was on we would fly, and if a white light was on, the Group would stand down. The light was monitored frequently throughout the evening to learn our status and, normally, we would know before going to bed if we would be flying the next day.

On the morning of a mission, the CQ (charge of quarters) would awaken the crews about four or five o’clock, depending on takeoff time. The questions we always asked were, “What is the fuel load?” and, “What is the bomb load?” If his answer was, “full Tokyo tanks,” we knew we would be going deep into Germany. Shortly after being awakened, “6-by” trucks would start shuttling us to the mess hall.

We always had all the fresh eggs we could eat, when flying a mission. After breakfast, the trucks carried us to the briefing room. All of the crew members attended the main briefing, and then the Navigators, Bombardiers and Radio operators went to a specialized briefing.

At the main briefing, in addition to the target information–anti-aircraft guns, fighter escort and route in–we received a sheet showing our location in the formation, the call signs for the day and all the information we would need to assemble our Group and get into the bomber stream.

     After briefing, we got into our flight gear, drew our parachutes and loaded onto the trucks for a ride to our plane. We were now guided by the time on our daily briefing sheet. We started engines at a given time and watched for the airplane we would be flying in formation with to taxi past, and then we would taxi behind him. We were following strict radio silence.

        We were now parked, nose to tail around the perimeter, on both sides of the active runway, and extremely vulnerable to a fighter strafing attack. At the designated takeoff time, a green flare would be fired and takeoff would begin. Every thirty seconds an airplane started takeoff roll. We were lined up on the perimeter so that the 12 airplanes of the high squadron would take off first, followed by the lead and then the low squadron.

      Each Group had a pattern for the airplanes to fly during climb to assembly altitude. Some would fly a triangle, some a rectangle and our Group flew a circle, using a “Buncher” (a low frequency radio station) which was located on our station. The patterns for each Group fit together like a jig saw puzzle. Unfortunately, strong winds aloft would destroy the integrity of the patterns, and there would be considerable over running of each other’s patterns.

      Many of our takeoffs were made before daylight, during the winter of ‘44 and ‘45, when I was there, so it was not uncommon to climb through several thousand feet of cloud overcast. Also it was not uncommon to experience one or two near misses while climbing through the clouds, although you would never see the other airplane.

You knew you had just had a near miss, when suddenly the airplane would shake violently as it hit the prop wash of another plane. It was a wonderful feeling to break out on top, so you could watch for other planes, to keep from running into each other.

To add to the congestion we were creating, the Royal Air Force Lancasters, Halifaxes, and Wimpys would be returning from their night missions, and flying through our formations. Needless to say, pilots had to keep their heads on a swivel and their eyes out of the cockpit.

After take off, the squadron lead would fire a flare every 30 seconds, so that we could keep him located and enable us to get into formation quicker. The color of our Group flare was red-green. The first thing you would see, when breaking out of the clouds, was a sky filled with pyrotechnics, so you had to search the sky for the Group flare, which would identify the lead airplane of your Squadron.

Once you had it located, you could adjust your pattern to climb more quickly into formation with him. As each airplane pulled into formation, they would also fire a flare, with the lead plane, making it much easier for the following aircraft to keep him in sight. I think most crew members would probably agree that the pyrotechnic show, in the skies over England, in the morning when the Eighth was assembling, was a rare sight to behold.

The order of progression for assembling the Eighth Air Force was to first assemble the Flight elements, the Squadrons, the Groups, the Combat wings, the Divisions and, finally, the Air Force.

As soon as the four Squadron elements were formed, the high, low and second elements would take up their positions on the lead element, to form a Squadron. When the three Squadrons had completed assembly, it was necessary to get into Group formation.

This was accomplished by having the three Squadrons arrive over a pre-selected fix at a precise time and heading. The high and low Squadrons were separated from the lead Squadron by 1000 feet and, after getting into Group formation, they would maintain their positions by following the lead Squadron.

Then it was necessary to get into the Combat Wing formation. We were in the 13th Combat Wing, which consisted of three Bomb Groups: the 95th, the 100th and the 390th. Whichever Group was leading the Wing that day, would arrive over a pre-selected point, at a precise time and heading.

      Thirty seconds later, the second Group would pass that fix, followed by the third Group, thirty seconds later. We were then in Combat Wing formation. The navigators in the lead airplanes had a tremendous responsibility, to ensure that the rendezvous times were strictly adhered to.

       There were three Divisions in the Eighth, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The 1st and 3rd Divisions consisted of B-17s only, and the 2nd Division was B-24s. The B-24s were faster than the B-17s, but the B-17s could fly higher, therefore, the two were not compatible in formation. As a result the 1st and 3rd Divisions would fly together and the 2nd Division would fly separately.

       Now that the Groups were flying in Combat Wing formation, it was necessary to assemble the Divisions. This was usually accomplished at the “coast out”–a city on the coast, selected as the departure point “fix.”

The Group leader in each Combat Wing knew his assigned position in the Division, and the precise time that he should arrive at the coast out departure point, to assume that position in the Division formation.

The lead Group in the Division, which had been selected to lead the Eighth on the mission, would be first over the departure fix. Thirty seconds after the last Group in the first Wing passed that point, the second Wing would fall in trail, and so on, until all Combat Wings were flying in trail and the Division would be formed.

One minute later, the lead Group in the other Division would fly over that point, and the Combat Wings in that Division would follow the same procedure to get into formation.

When all of its Combat Wings were in trail, the Eighth Air Force B-17 strike force was formed and on its way to the target. At the same time the 2nd Division B-24s were assembling in a similar manner and also departing to their target.

Meanwhile, as the bombers were assembling for their mission, pilots from the Fighter Groups were being briefed on their day’s mission. Normally, 600 to 800 P-38’s, P-47’s, and P-51’s would accompany the bombers to provide protection against enemy fighter attacks. Fighter cover was not needed by the bombers until they were penetrating enemy territory, therefore to help conserve fuel.

Fighter takeoffs were planned to give them enough time to quickly assemble after takeoff, and climb on course up the bomber stream to the groups they would be covering. The combined strength of the fighters and bombers brought the total number of aircraft participating in a mission to approximately two thousand.

A major problem that presented itself, on each mission, was that the bomber stream was getting too stretched out. It was not uncommon for the headlines in stateside newspapers–in trying to show the strength of our Air Force–to state that the first Group of bombers was bombing Berlin, while the last Group was still over the English Channel.

It made great headlines but was a very undesirable situation. It meant that the Groups were out of position, and not keeping the proper separation. Furthermore, it was almost impossible for them to catch up and get back into the desired formation. This made the entire bomber stream more vulnerable to fighter attacks.

Finally, our planners figured out what we were doing wrong. When the first Group departed the coast out fix, it started its climb to what would be the bombing altitude.

Then, as each succeeding Group departed that fix, it, too, would start climbing. The problem with this procedure was that, as soon as the first Group started its climb, its true airspeed would start to increase, and it would encounter different wind velocities.

Now it would start to pull away from the Group in back of it, and the “stretch-out” of the bomber stream would begin. By the time the last Group had reached the coast out, to start its climb, the first Group would be leveled off, with a true airspeed approaching 250 miles per hour, and the bomber stream would be really stretching out.

The solution to this problem that had been frustrating the Bomber crews for so long was pretty simple. We would no longer start climbing at the coast out, but instead, at a designated time, all Groups would start climbing, irrespective of position.

This meant that we all would have similar true airspeeds and would be influenced by the same winds aloft. That took care of the problem. It was still possible for a Group to be out of position, because of poor timing, but the entire bomber stream wouldn’t get all stretched out.

When you consider the way our Air Traffic Control system operates today, and all the facilities at their disposal to guide each individual airplane through the sky to ensure its safety, it’s almost unbelievable that we were able to do what we did.

To think of launching hundreds of airplanes, in a small airspace, many times in total darkness, loaded with bombs, with complete radio silence, and no control from the ground, and do it successfully day after day, with young air crews, with minimum experience, is absolutely mind boggling.

The accomplishments of the Eighth Air Force have been and will be reviewed by historians from World War II on. There never will be another air armada to compare to it. I feel confident that they will never cease to be amazed by our ability to assemble hundreds of heavy Bombers, under the conditions we were confronting, into the devastating strike force we now fondly refer to as, “The Mighty Eighth.”

Leslie A. Lennox

LCol USAF (Ret)

Parachute Jump sets a record

blogengeezer — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:52:31 +0000

Whew! What a Parachute Jump!

Also see this site - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger

That first step out was - WOW! Joe Kittinger is not a household aviation name like Neil Armstrong or Chuck Yeager. But what he did for the U. S. space program is comparable.

On Aug. 16, 1960, as research for the then-fledgling U. S. space program, Air Force Captain Joseph Kittinger rode a helium balloon to the edge of space, 102,800 feet above the earth, a feat in itself. Then, wearing just a thin pressure suit and breathing supplemental oxygen, he leaned over the cramped confines of his gondola and jumped–into the 110-degree-below-zero, near-vacuum of space.

Within seconds his body accelerated to 714mph in the thin air, breaking the sound barrier. After free-falling for more than four and a half minutes, slowed finally by friction from the heavier air below, he felt his parachute open at 14,000 feet, and he coasted gently down to the New Mexico desert floor.

Kittinger’s feat showed scientists that astronauts could survive the harshness of space with just a pressure suit and that man could eject from aircraft at extreme altitudes and survive. Upon Kittinger’s return to base, a congratulatory telegram was waiting from the Mercury Seven astronauts–including Alan Shepard and John Glenn.

More than four decades later Kittinger’s two world records–the highest parachute jump, and the only man to break the sound barrier without a craft and live, still stand. We decided to visit the retired Colonel and Aviation Hall of Famer, now 75, at his home in Altamonte Springs, Florida, to recall his historic jump.

FORBES GLOBAL: Take us back to New Mexico and Aug. 16, 1960.

Joe Kittinger: We got up at 2 a. m. to start filling the helium balloon. At sea level, it was 35 to 40 feet wide and 200 feet high; at altitude, due to the low air pressure, it expanded to 25 stories in width, and still was 20 stories high!

At 4 a. m. I began breathing pure oxygen for two hours. That’s how long it takes to remove all the nitrogen from your blood so you don’t get the bends going so high so fast. Then it was a lengthy dress procedure layering warm clothing under my pressure suit. They kept me in air- conditioning until it was time to launch because we were in the desert and I wasn’t supposed to sweat. If I did, my clothes would freeze on the way up.

How was your ascent?

It took an hour and a half to get to altitude. It was cold. At 40,000 feet, the glove on my right hand hadn’t inflated. I knew that if I radioed my doctor, he would abort the flight. If that happened, I knew I might never get another chance because there were lots of people who didn’t want this test to happen. I took a calculated risk, that I might lose use of my right hand. It quickly swelled up, and I did lose it’s use for the duration of the flight. But the rest of the pressure suit worked. When I reached 102,800 feet, maximum altitude, I wasn’t quite over the target. The winds were out of the East, so I drifted for 11 minutes.

What’s it look like from so high up?

You can see about 400 miles in every direction. The formula is 1.25 x the sq. root of the altitude in thousands of feet. (The square root of 102,000 ft is 319 X 1.25 = 399 miles) The most fascinating thing is that it’s just black overhead, the transition from normal blue to black is very stark. You can’t see stars because there’s a lot of glare from the sun, so your pupils are too small. I was struck with the beauty of it. But I was also struck by how hostile it is: more than 100 degrees below zero, no air. If my protection suit failed, I would be dead in a few seconds. Blood actually boils above 62,000 feet.

I went through my 46-step checklist, disconnected from the balloon’s power supply and lost all communication with the ground. I was totally under power from the kit on my back. When everything was done, I stood up, turned around to the door, took one final look out and said a silent prayer: “Lord, take care of me now.” Then I just jumped over the side.

What were you thinking as you took that step?

It’s the beginning of a test. I had gone through simulations many times, more than 100. I rolled over and looked up, and there was the balloon just roaring into space. I realized that the balloon wasn’t roaring into space; I was going down at a fantastic rate! At about 90,000 feet, I reached 714mph. The altimeter on my wrist was unwinding very rapidly. But there was no sense of speed.

Where you determine speed is visual, if you see something go flashing by. But nothing flashes by 20 miles up, there are no signposts there, and you are way above any clouds. When the chute opened, the rest of the jump was anticlimactic because everything had worked perfectly. I landed 12 or 13 minutes later, and there was my crew waiting.

We were elated?

How about your right hand?

It hurt, there was quite a bit of swelling and the blood pressure in my arm was high. But that went away in a few days, and I regained full use of my hand.

What about attempts to break your record?

We did it for air crews and astronauts–for the learning, not to set a record. They will be going up as skydivers. Somebody will beat it someday. Records are made to be busted. And I’ll be elated. But I’ll also be concerned that they’re properly trained. If they’re not, they’re taking a heck of a risk.

WWII B-17 Hero, Glenn Rojohn

blogengeezer — Thu, 01 May 2008 04:18:22 +0000

Unbelievable WWII story

Piggyback Hero
by Ralph Kenney Bennett

Tomorrow they will lay the remains of Glenn Rojohn to rest in the Peace Lutheran Cemetery in the little town of Greenock, Pa., just southeast of Pittsburgh. He was 81, and had been in the air conditioning and plumbing business in nearby McKeesport. If you had seen him on the street he would probably have looked to you like so many other graying, bespectacled old World War II veterans whose names appear so often now on obituary pages.

But like so many of them, though he seldom talked about it, he could have told you one hell of a story. He won the Air Medal, the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart all in one fell swoop in the skies over Germany on December 31, 1944. Fell swoop indeed.

When they were jumped by German fighters at 22,000 feet, The Messerschmitt Me-109s pressed their attack so closely that Capt. Rojohn could see the faces of the German pilots. He and other pilots fought to remain in formation so they could use each other’s guns to defend the group. Rojohn saw a B-17 ahead of him burst into flames and slide sickeningly toward the earth. He gunned his ship forward to fill in the gap.

He felt a huge impact. The big bomber shuddered, felt suddenly very heavy and began losing altitude. Rojohn grasped almost immediately that he had collided with another plane. A B-17 below him, piloted by Lt. William G. McNab, had slammed the top of its fuselage into the bottom of Rojohn’s.

The top turret gun of McNab’s plane was now locked in the belly of Rojohn’s plane and the ball turret in the belly of Rojohn’s had smashed through the top of McNab’s.

The two bombers were almost perfectly aligned — the tail of the lower plane was slightly to the left of Rojohn’s tailpiece. They were stuck together, as a crewman later recalled, ‘like mating dragon flies.’

Three of the engines on the bottom plane were still running, as were all four of Rojohn’s. The fourth engine on the lower bomber was on fire and the flames were spreading to the rest of the aircraft. The two were losing altitude quickly. Rojohn tried several times to gun his engines and break free of the other plane. The two were inextricably locked together.

Fearing a fire, Rojohn cut his engines and rang the bailout bell. For his crew to have any chance of parachuting, he had to keep the plane under control somehow..

The ball turret, hanging below the belly of the B-17, was considered by many to be a death trap — the worst station on the bomber. In this case, both ball turrets figured in a swift and terrible drama of life and death. Staff Sgt. Edward L. Woodall, Jr., in the ball turret of the lower bomber had felt the impact of the collision above him and saw shards of metal drop past him. Worse, he realized both electrical and hydraulic power was gone.

Remembering escape drills, he grabbed the handcrank, released the clutch and cranked the turret and its guns until they were straight down, then turned and climbed out the back of the turret up into the fuselage. Once inside the plane’s belly Woodall saw a chilling sight, the ball turret of the other bomber protruding through the top of the fuselage. In that turret, hopelessly trapped, was Staff Sgt. Joseph Russo. Several crew members of Rojohn’s plane tried frantically to crank Russo’s turret around so he could escape, but, jammed into the fuselage of the lower plane, it would not budge.

Perhaps unaware that his voice was going out over the intercom of his plane, Sgt. Russo began reciting his Hail Marys.

Up in the cockpit, Capt.. Rojohn and his co-pilot 2nd Lt. William G. Leek, Jr., had propped their feet against the instrument panel so they could pull back on their controls with all their strength, trying to prevent their plane from going into a spinning dive that would prevent the crew from jumping out. Capt.

Rojohn motion left and the two managed to wheel the huge, collision-born hybrid of a plane back toward the German coast. Leek felt like he was intruding on Sgt. Russo as his prayers crackled over the radio, so he pulled off his flying helmet with its earphones.

Rojohn, immediately grasping that crew could not exit from the bottom of his plane, ordered his top turret gunner and his radio operator, Tech Sgts. Orville Elkin and Edward G. Neuhaus to make their way to the back of the fuselage and out the waist door on the left behind the wing. Then he got his navigator, 2nd Lt. Robert Washington, and his bombardier, Sgt. James Shirley to follow them. As Rojohn and Leek somehow held the plane steady, these four men, as well as waist gunner, Sgt. Roy Little, and tail gunner, Staff Sgt. Francis Chase, were able to bail out.

Now the plane locked below them was aflame. Fire poured over Rojohn’s left wing. He could feel the heat from the plane below and hear the sound of 50 cal. machinegun ammunition ‘cooking off’ in the flames. Capt. Rojohn ordered Lieut. Leek to bail out. Leek knew that without him helping keep the controls back, the plane would drop in a flaming spiral and the centrifugal force would prevent Rojohn from bailing. He refused the order.

Meanwhile, German soldiers and civilians on the ground that afternoon looked up in wonder.. Some of them thought they were seeing a new Allied secret weapon — a strange eight-engined double bomber. But anti-aircraft gunners on the North Sea coastal island of Wangerooge had seen the collision. A German battery captain wrote in his logbook at 12:47 p.m.

‘Two fortresses collided in a formation in the NE. The planes flew hooked together and flew 20 miles south. The two planes were unable to fight anymore. The crash could be awaited so I stopped the firing at these two planes.’

Suspended in his parachute in the cold December sky, Bob Washington watched with deadly fascination as the mated bombers, trailing black smoke, fell to earth about three miles away, their downward trip ending in an ugly boiling blossom of fire.

In the cockpit, Rojohn and Leek held grimly to the controls trying to ride a falling rock. Leek tersely recalled, ‘The ground came up faster and faster. Praying was allowed.

We gave it one last effort and slammed into the ground.’ The McNab plane on the bottom exploded, vaulting the other B-17 upward and forward. It slammed back to the ground, sliding along until its left wing slammed through a wooden building and the smoldering mess came to a stop. Rojohn and Leek were still seated in their cockpit. The nose of the plane was relatively intact, but everything from the B-17’s massive wings back was destroyed. They looked at each other incredulously. Neither was badly injured.

Movies have nothing on reality. Still perhaps in shock, Leek crawled out through a huge hole behind the cockpit, felt for the familiar pack in his uniform pocket pulled out a cigarette. He placed it in his mouth and was about to light it. Then he noticed a young German soldier pointing a rifle at him. The soldier looked scared and annoyed. He grabbed the cigarette out of Leak’s mouth and pointed down to the gasoline pouring out over the wing from a ruptured fuel tank.

Two of the six men who parachuted from Rojohn’s plane did not survive the jump. But the other four and, amazingly, four men from the other bomber, including ball turret gunner Woodall, survived. All were taken prisoner. Several of them were interrogated at length by the Germans until they were satisfied that what had crashed was not a new American secret weapon.

Rojohn, typically, didn’t talk much about his Distinguished Flying Cross. Of Leek, he said, ‘in all fairness to my co-pilot, he’s the reason I’m alive today.’

Like so many veterans, Rojohn got unsentimentally back to life after the war, marrying and raising a son and daughter. For many years, though, he tried to link back up with Leek, going through government records to try to track him down. It took him 40 years, but in 1986, he found the number of Leeks’ mother, in Washington State. Yes, her son Bill was visiting from California. Would Rojohn like to speak with him?

Some things are better left unsaid. One can imagine that first conversation between the two men who had shared that wild ride in the cockpit of a B-17. A year later, the two were re-united at a reunion of the 100th Bomb Group in Long Beach, Calif.

Bill Leek died the following year.

Glenn Rojohn was the last survivor of the remarkable piggyback flight. He was like thousands upon thousands of men, soda jerks and lumberjacks, teachers and dentists, students and lawyers and service station attendants and store clerks and farm boys who in the prime of their lives went to war.

He died last Saturday after a long siege of sickness. But he apparently faced that final battle with the same grim aplomb he displayed that remarkable day over Germany so long ago. Let us be thankful for such men.

Ace Fighter Pilot, Bruce Carr

blogengeezer — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:08:07 +0000

Evading With A Dead Chicken Tied Around His Neck,

Bruce Carr, a 20-year-old American Fighter pilot in WWII, still hadn’t
decided how to cook it without the Germans catching him. After carrying it
for several days, and being as hungry as he was, he couldn’t bring himself
to eat it. In his mind, no meat was better than raw meat, so he threw it
away.

Resigning himself to what appeared to be his unavoidable fate; he turned in
the direction of the nearest German airfield. Even POW’s get to eat
sometimes. And they aren’t constantly dodging from tree to tree, ditch to
culvert. And he was exhausted.

He was tired of trying to find cover where there was none. Carr hadn’t
realized that Czechoslovakian forests had no underbrush until, at the edge
of the farm field, struggling out of his parachute he dragged it into the
woods. During the times he had been screaming along at tree top level in his http://www.mustangsmustangs.net/p-51/p51.shtml
P-51 “Angels Playmate” the forests and fields had been nothing more than a
green blur behind the Messerschmitt, Focke-Wulfs, trains and trucks he had
in his sights. He never expected to find himself a pedestrian far behind
enemy lines. The instant antiaircraft shrapnel ripped into the engine, he
knew he was in trouble. Serious trouble.

Clouds of coolant steam hissing through jagged holes in the cowling told
Carr he was about to ride the silk elevator down to a long walk back to his
squadron. A very long walk. This had not been part of the mission plan.

Several years before, when 18-year-old Bruce Carr enlisted in the Army, in
no way could he have imagined himself taking a walking tour of rural
Czechoslovakia with Germans everywhere around him. When he enlisted, all he
had just focused on flying airplanes - fighter airplanes.

By the time he had joined the military, Carr already knew how to fly. He had
been flying as a private pilot since 1939, soloing in a $25 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_J-3_Cub Piper Cub his
father had bought from a disgusted pilot who had left it lodged securely in
the top of a tree. His instructor had been an Auburn, NY , native by the
name of Johnny Bruns.

“In 1942, after I enlisted, “as Bruce Carr remembers it, “we went to meet
our instructors. I was the last cadet left in the assignment room and was
nervous. Then the door opened and out stepped the man who was to be my
military flight instructor - It was Johnny Bruns!

We took a http://www.warbirdalley.com/pt17.htm Stearman to an outlying field, doing aerobatics all the way; then
he got out and soloed me. That was my first flight in the military.”

“The guy I had in advanced training in the http://www.westhoustonsqdn.org/at6_pg.html AT-6 had just graduated himself
and didn’t know a bit more than I did,” Carr can’t help but smile, as he
remembers, which meant neither one of us knew anything. Zilch! After three
or four hours in the AT-6, they took me and a few others aside, told us we
were going to fly http://www.warbirdalley.com/p40.htm P-40s and we left for Tipton , Georgia .”

“We got to Tipton, and a lieutenant just back from North Africa kneeled on
the P-40’s wing, showed me where all the levers were, made sure I knew how
everything worked, then said ‘ If you can get it started, go fly it’ - just
like that! I was 19 years old and thought I knew every thing. I didn’t know
enough to be scared. They didn’t tell us what to do. They just said ‘Go
fly,’ so I buzzed every cow in that part of the state. Nineteen years old
and with 1100 horsepower, what did they expect? Then we went overseas.”

By today’s standards, Carr and that first contingent of pilots shipped to
England were painfully short of experience. They had so little flight time
that today they would barely have their civilian pilot’s license. Flight
training eventually became more formal, but in those early days, their
training had a hint of fatalistic Darwinism to it: if they learned fast
enough to survive, they were ready to move on to the next step. Including
his 40 hours in the P-40 terrorizing Georgia, Carr had less than 160 hours
total flight time when he arrived in England .

His group in England was to be the pioneering group that would take the
Mustang into combat, and he clearly remembers his introduction to the
airplane. “I thought I was an old P-40 pilot and the P-51B would be no big
deal But I was wrong! I was truly impressed with the airplane. REALLY
impressed! It flew like an airplane. I FLEW a P-40, but in the P-51 - I WAS
PART OF the airplane and it was part of me. There was a world of
difference.”

When he first arrived in England the instructions were, “This is a P-51. Go
fly it”. Soon, we’ll have to form a unit, so fly.’ A lot of English cows
were buzzed. On my first long-range mission, we just kept climbing, and I’d
never had an airplane above about 10,000 feet before. Then we were at 30,000
feet and I couldn’t believe it! I’d gone to church as a kid, and I knew
that’s where the angels were and that’s when I named my airplane “Angels
Playmate.”

Then a bunch of Germans roared down through us, and my leader immediately
dropped tanks and turned hard for home. But I’m not that smart. I’m 19 years
old and this SOB shoots at me, and I’m not going to let him get away with
it. We went round and round, and I’m really mad because he shot at me.
Childish emotions, in retrospect. He couldn’t shake me but I couldn’t get on
his tail to get any hits either. “Before long, we’re right down in the
trees. I’m shooting, but I’m not hitting. I am, however, scaring the hell
out of him. I’m at least as excited as he is. Then I tell myself to c-a-l-m
d-o-w-n.”

“We’re roaring around within a few feet of the ground, and he pulls up to go
over some trees, so I just pull the trigger and keep it down. The gun;
barrels burned out and one bullet - a tracer - came tumbling out and made a
great huge arc. It came down and hit him on the left wing about where the
aileron was.

He pulled up, off came the canopy, and he jumped out, but too low for the
chute to open and the airplane crashed. I didn’t shoot him down; I scared
him to death with one bullet hole in his left wing. My first victory wasn’t
a kill - it was more of a suicide.”

The rest of Carr’s 14 victories were much more conclusive. Being a red-hot
fighter pilot, however, was absolutely no use to him as he lay shivering in
the Czechoslovakian forest. He knew he would die if he didn’t get some food
and shelter soon.

“I knew where the German field was because I’d flown over it, so I headed in
that direction to surrender. I intended to walk in the main gate, but it was
late afternoon and, for some reason I had second thoughts and decided to
wait in the woods until morning.”

“While I was lying there, I saw a crew working on an http://www.aviation-history.com/focke-wulf/fw190.html FW 190 right at the
edge of the woods. When they were done, I assumed, just like you assume in
America, that the thing was all finished. The cowling’s on. The engine has
been run. The fuel truck has been there. It’s ready to go. Maybe a dumb
assumption for a young fellow, but I assumed so. “

Carr got in the airplane and spent the night all hunkered down in the
cockpit.

“Before dawn, it got light and I started studying the cockpit. I can’t read
German, so I couldn’t decipher dials and I couldn’t find the normal switches
like there were in American airplanes. I kept looking and on the right side
was a smooth panel. Under this was a compartment with something I would
classify as circuit breakers. They didn’t look like ours, but they weren’t
regular switches either.”

“I began to think that the Germans were probably no different from the
Americans - that they would turn off all the switches when finished with the
airplane. I had no earthly idea what those circuit breakers or switches did
but I reversed every one of them. If they were off, that would turn them on.
When I did that the gauges showed there was electricity on the airplane.”

“I’d seen this metal T-handle on the right side of the cockpit that had a
word on it that looked enough like “starter” for me to think that’s what it
was. But when I pulled it - nothing happened. Nothing.”

But if pulling doesn’t work, you push. And when I did, an inertia starter
started winding up. I let it go for a while, then pulled on the handle and
the engine started.

The sun had yet to make it over the far trees and the air base was just
waking up, getting ready to go to war. The FW 190 was one of many dispersed
throughout the woods, and at that time of the morning, the sound of the
engine must have been heard by many Germans not far away on the main base.
But even if they heard it, there was no reason for alarm. The last thing
they expected was one of their fighters taxiing out with a weary Mustang
pilot at the controls. Carr, however, wanted to take no chances.

“The taxiway came out of the woods and turned right towards where I knew the
airfield was because I’d watched them land and take off while I was in the
trees. On the left side of the taxiway, there was a shallow ditch and a
space where there had been two hangars. The slabs were there, but the
hangars were gone, and the area around them had been cleaned of all debris.”

“I didn’t want to go to the airfield, so I plowed down through the ditch,
and when the airplane started up the other side, I shoved the throttle
forward and took off right between where the two hangars had been.”

At that point, Bruce Carr had no time to look around to see what effect the
sight of a Focke-Wulf ERUPTING FROM THE TREES had on the Germans.
Undoubtedly, they were confused, but not unduly concerned. After all, it was
probably just one of their maverick pilots doing something against the
rules. They didn’t know it was one of our own maverick pilot doing something
against the rules.

Carr had problems more immediate than a bunch of confused Germans. He had
just pulled off the perfect plane-jacking; but he knew nothing about the
airplane, couldn’t read the placards and had
200 miles of enemy territory to cross. At home, there would be hundreds of
his friends and fellow warriors, all of whom were, at that moment, preparing
their guns to shoot at airplanes marked with swastikas and crosses-airplanes
identical to the one Bruce Carr was at that moment flying. But Carr wasn’t
thinking that far ahead. First, he had to get there. And that meant learning
how to fly the German fighter.

“There were two buttons behind the throttle and three buttons behind those
two. I wasn’t sure what to push so I pushed one button and nothing happened.
I pushed the other and the gear started up. As soon as I felt it coming up
and I cleared the fence at the edge of the German field, then I took it down
little lower and headed for home. All I wanted to do was clear the ground by
about six inches. And there was only one throttle position for me FULL
FORWARD!! “

As I headed for home, I pushed one of the other three buttons, and the flaps
came part way down. I pushed the button next to it, and they came up again.
So I knew how to get the flaps down. But that was all I knew.

I can’t make heads or tails out of any of the instruments. None. And I can’t
even figure how to change the prop pitch. But I don’t sweat that, because
props are full forward when you shut down anyway, and it was running fine.

This time, it was German cows that were buzzed, although, as he streaked
cross fields and through the trees only a few feet off the ground, that was
not his intent. At something over 350 miles an hour below tree-top level, he
was trying to be a difficult target. However, as he crossed the lines he
wasn’t difficult enough.

“There was no doubt when I crossed the lines because every SOB and his
brother who had a .50-caliber machine gun shot at me. It was all over the
place, and I had no idea which way to go. I didn’t do much dodging because I
was just as likely to fly into bullets as around them.”

When he hopped over the last row of trees and found himself crossing his own
airfield, he pulled up hard to set up for landing. His mind was on flying
the airplane. “I pitched up, pulled the throttle back and punched the
buttons I knew would put the gear and flaps down. I felt the flaps come
down, but the gear wasn’t doing anything. I came around and pitched up
again, still punching the button. Nothing was happening and I was really
frustrated.”

He had been so intent on figuring out his airplane problems, he forgot he
was putting on a very tempting show for the ground personnel. “As I started
up the last time, I saw the air defense guys ripping the tarps off the
quad.50s that ringed the field. I hadn’t noticed the machine guns before,
but I was sure noticing them right then.”

“I roared around in as tight a pattern as I could fly and chopped the
throttle. I slid to a halt on the runway and it was a nice belly job, if I
say so myself.”

His antics over the runway had drawn quite a crowd, and the airplane had
barely stopped sliding before there were MPs up on the wings trying to drag
him out of the airplane by his arms. What they didn’t realize was that he
was still strapped in.

I started throwing some good Anglo-Saxon swear words at them, and they let
loose while I tried to get the seat belt undone, but my hands wouldn’t work
and I couldn’t do it. Then they started pulling on me again because they
still weren’t convinced I was an American.

“I was yelling and hollering; then, suddenly, they let go. A face drops down
into the cockpit in front of mine. It was my Group Commander, George R.
Bickel. “Bickel said, ‘Carr, where in the hell have you been and what have
you been doing now?’

Bruce Carr was home and entered the record books as the only pilot known to
leave on a mission flying a Mustang and return flying a Focke-Wulf.

For several days after the ordeal, he had trouble eating and sleeping, but
when things again fell into place, he took some of the other pilots out to
show them the airplane and how it worked. One of them pointed out a small
handle under the glare shield that he hadn’t noticed before. When he pulled
it, the landing gear unlocked and fell out. The handle was a separate,
mechanical uplock. At least, he had figured out the really important things.

Carr finished the war with 14 aerial victories after flying
172 missions, which included three bailouts because of ground fire. He
stayed in the service, eventually flying 51 missions in Korea in http://www.warbirdalley.com/f86.htm F-86s and
286 in Vietnam, flying http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-100_Super_Sabre F-100s. That’s an amazing
509 combat missions and doesn’t include many others during Viet Nam in other
aircraft types.

Bruce Carr continued to actively fly and routinely showed up at air shows in
a P-51D painted up exactly like’ Angel’s Playmate’. The original ‘Angel’s
Playmate’ was put on display in a museum in Paris, France right after the
war.

There is no such thing as an ex-fighter pilot. They never cease being what
they once were, whether they are in the cockpit or not. There is a profile
in to which almost every one of the breed fits, and it is the charter within
that profile that makes the pilot a fighter pilot-not the other way around.

And make no mistake about it, Col. Bruce Carr was definitely a fighter
pilot.

Blackbird SR-71

blogengeezer — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:45:02 +0000

Absolutely breath taking !! Sent from a friend.

Op Facts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAV1pIsWe-E

Pictures http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/image2~1.htm

SR-71 was retired in the early 1990s due to reportedly high operating costs and defense budget cuts. There was, and is, speculation that a follow-on replacement to the Blackbird, dubbed the Aurora (SR-91),

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_aircraft

has been filling in the reconnaissance mission vacated by the SR-71. Aviation buffs will enjoy this very well written piece.

In 1986, following an attack on American soldiers in a Berlin disco, President Reagan ordered the bombing of Muammar Qaddafi’s terrorist camps in Libya. My duty was to fly over Libya and take photos recording the damage our F-111s had inflicted. Qaddafi had established a ‘line of death,’ a territorial marking across the Gulf of Sidra, swearing to shoot down any intruder that crossed the boundary. On the morning of April 15, I rocketed past the line at 2,125 mph.

I was piloting the SR-71 spy plane, the world’s fastest jet, accompanied by
Maj. Walter Watson, the aircraft’s reconnaissance systems officer (RSO).

We had crossed into Libya and were approaching our final turn over the bleak desert landscape when Walter informed me that he was receiving missile launch signals.

I quickly increased our speed, calculating the time it would take for the weapons, most likely SA-2 and SA-4 surface-to-air missiles capable of Mach 5, to reach our altitude. I estimated that we could beat the rocket-powered missiles to the turn and stayed our course, betting our lives on the plane’s performance. After several agonizingly long seconds, we made the turn and blasted toward the Mediterranean.

‘You might want to pull it back,’ Walter suggested. It was then
that I noticed I still had the throttles full forward. The plane was flying a
mile every 1.6 seconds, well above our Mach 3.2 limit. It was the fastest we would ever fly. I pulled the throttles to idle just south of Sicily, but we
still overran the refueling tanker awaiting us over Gibraltar.

Scores of significant aircraft have been produced in the 100 years of flight, following the achievements of the Wright brothers, which we celebrate in December. Aircraft such as the Boeing 707, the F-86 Sabre Jet, and the P-51 Mustang are among the important machines that have flown our skies.

But the SR-71, also known as the Blackbird, stands alone as a significant contributor to Cold War victory and as the fastest plane ever, and only 93 Air Force pilots ever steered the ’sled,’ as we called our aircraft.

As inconceivable as it may sound, I once discarded the plane. Literally. My first encounter with the SR-71 came when I was 10 years old in the form of molded black plastic in a Revell kit. Cementing together the long fuselage parts proved tricky, and my finished product looked less than menacing. Glue,oozing from the seams, discolored the black plastic. It seemed ungainly alongside the fighter planes in my collection, and I threw it away.

Twenty-nine years later, I stood awe-struck in a Beale Air Force Base
hangar, staring at the very real SR-71 before me.

I had applied to fly the world’s fastest jet and was receiving my first walk-around of our nation’s most prestigious aircraft. In my previous 13 years as an Air Force fighter pilot, I had never seen an aircraft with such presence. At 107 feet long, it appeared big, but far from ungainly.

Ironically, the plane was dripping, much like the misshapen model I had
assembled in my youth. Fuel was seeping through the joints, raining down on the hangar floor.

At Mach 3, the plane would expand several inches because of the
severe temperature, which could heat the leading edge of the wing to 1,100 degrees. To prevent cracking, expansion joints had been built into the plane. Sealant resembling rubber glue covered the seams, but when the plane was subsonic, fuel would leak through the joints.

The SR-71 was the brainchild of Kelly Johnson, the famed Lockheed designer who created the P-38, the F-104 Starfighter, and the U-2.

After the Soviets shot down Gary Powers’ U-2 in 1960, Johnson began to develop an aircraft that would fly three miles higher and five times faster than the spy plane-and still be capable of photographing your license plate. However, flying at 2,000 mph would create intense heat on the aircraft’s skin.

Lockheed engineers used a titanium alloy to construct more than 90 percent of the SR-71, creating special tools and manufacturing procedures to hand-build each of the 40 planes. Special heat-resistant fuel, oil, and hydraulic fluids that would function at 85,000 feet and higher also had to be developed.

In 1962, the first Blackbird successfully flew, and in 1966, the same year I
graduated from high school, the Air Force began flying operational SR-71
missions. I came to the program in 1983 with a sterling record and a
recommendation from my commander, completing the weeklong interview and meeting Walter, my partner for the next four years.

He would ride four feet behind me, working all the cameras, radios, and electronic jamming equipment. I joked that if we were ever captured, he was the spy and I was just the driver. He told me to keep the pointy end forward.

We trained for a year, flying out of Beale AFB in California, Kadena Airbase in Okinawa, and RAF Mildenhall in England. On a typical training mission, we would take off near Sacramento, refuel over Nevada, accelerate into Montana, obtain high Mach over Colorado, turn right over New Mexico, speed across the Los Angeles Basin, run up the West Coast, turn right at Seattle, then return to Beale. Total flight time: two hours and 40 minutes.

One day, high above Arizona, we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic
controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,’ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,’ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check.

I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was. ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,’ ATC responded.

The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by
asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace.

In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.’ We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

The Blackbird always showed us something new, each aircraft possessing its own unique personality. In time, we realized we were flying a national treasure. When we taxied out of our revetments for takeoff, people took notice.

Traffic congregated near the airfield fences, because everyone wanted to see and hear the mighty SR-71. You could not be a part of this program and not come to love the airplane. Slowly, she revealed her secrets to us as we earned her trust.

One moonless night, while flying a routine training mission over the Pacific, I wondered what the sky would look like from 84,000 feet if the cockpit lighting were dark. While heading home on a straight course, I slowly turned down all of the lighting, reducing the glare and revealing the night sky.

Within seconds, I turned the lights back up, fearful that the jet would know and somehow punish me. But my desire to see the sky overruled my caution, I dimmed the lighting
again.

To my amazement, I saw a bright light outside my window. As my eyes adjusted to the view, I realized that the brilliance was the broad expanse of the Milky Way, now a gleaming stripe across the sky.Where dark spaces in the sky had usually existed, there were now dense clusters of sparkling stars. Shooting stars flashed across the canvas every few seconds. It was like a fireworks display with no sound.

I knew I had to get my eyes back on the instruments, and reluctantly I brought my attention back inside. To my surprise, with the cockpit lighting still off, I could see every gauge, lit by starlight. In the plane’s mirrors, I could see the eerie shine of my gold spacesuit incandescently illuminated in a celestial glow.
I stole one last glance out the window. Despite our speed, we seemed still before the heavens, humbled in the radiance of a much greater power. For those few moments, I felt a part of something far more significant than anything we were doing in the plane. The sharp sound of Walt’s voice on the radio brought me back to the tasks at hand as I prepared for our descent.

The SR-71 was an expensive aircraft to operate. The most significant cost
was tanker support, and in 1990, confronted with budget cutbacks, the Air Force retired the SR-71.

The Blackbird had outrun nearly 4,000 missiles, not once
taking a scratch from enemy fire. On her final flight, the Blackbird, destined for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, sped from Los Angeles to Washington in 64 minutes, averaging 2,145 mph and setting four speed records.

The SR-71 served six presidents, protecting America for a quarter of a
century. Un beknownst to most of the country, the plane flew over North
Vietnam, Red China, North Korea, the Middle East, South Africa, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, Libya, and the Falkland Islands.

On a weekly basis, the SR-71 kept watch over every Soviet nuclear submarine and mobile missile site, and all of their troop movements. It was a key factor in winning the Cold War.
I am proud to say I flew about 500 hours in this aircraft. I knew her well.
She gave way to no plane, proudly dragging her sonic boom through enemy backyards with great impunity. She defeated every missile, outran every MiG, and always brought us home. In the first 100 years of manned flight, no aircraft was more remarkable.

With the Libyan coast fast approaching now, Walt asks me for the third time, if I think the jet will get to the speed and altitude we want in time. I tell him yes. I know he is concerned. He is dealing with the data; that’s what engineers do, and I am glad he is.

But I have my hands on the stick and throttles and can feel the heart of a thoroughbred, running now with the power and perfection she was designed to possess. I also talk to her. Like the combat veteran she is, the jet senses the target area and seems to prepare herself.

For the first time in two days, the inlet door closes flush and all vibration
is gone. We’ve become so used to the constant buzzing that the jet sounds quiet now in comparison. The Mach correspondingly increases slightly and the jet is flying in that confidently smooth and steady style we have so often seen at these speeds.

We reach our target altitude and speed, with five miles to spare.
Entering the target area, in response to the jet’s new-found vitality, Walt
says, ‘That’s amazing’ and with my left hand pushing two throttles farther forward, I think to myself that there is much they don’t teach in engineering school.

Out my left window, Libya looks like one huge sandbox. A featureless brown terrain stretches all the way to the horizon.

There is no sign of any activity.
Then Walt tells me that he is getting lots of electronic signals, and they are not the friendly kind. The jet is performing perfectly now, flying better than she has in weeks. She seems to know where she is.

She likes the high Mach, as we penetrate deeper into Libyan airspace. Leaving the footprint of our sonic boom across Benghazi, I sit motionless, with stilled hands on throttles and the pitch control, my eyes glued to the gauges.

Only the Mach indicator is moving, steadily increasing in hundredths, in a rhythmic consistency similar to the long distance runner wh o has caught his second wind and picked up the pace.

The jet was made for this kind of performance and she wasn’t about to let an errant inlet door make her miss the show. With the power of forty locomotives, we puncture the quiet African sky and continue farther south across a bleak landscape.

Walt continues to update me with numerous reactions he sees on the DEF panel. He is receiving missile tracking signals. With each mile we traverse, every two seconds, I become more uncomfortable driving deeper into this barren and hostile land.

I am glad the DEF panel is not in the front seat. It would be a big
distraction now, seeing the lights flashing. In contrast, my cockpit is
‘quiet’ as the jet purrs and relishes her new-found strength, continuing to slowly accelerate.

The spikes are full aft now, tucked twenty-six inches deep into the nacelles. With all inlet doors tightly shut, at 3.24 Mach, the J-58s are more like ramjets now, gulping 100,000 cubic feet of air per second.

We are a roaring express now, and as we roll through the enemy’s backyard, I hope our speed continues to defeat the missile radars below. We are approaching a turn, and this is good. It will only make it more difficult for any launched missile to solve the solution for hitting our aircraft.

I push the speed up at Walt’s request. The jet does not skip a beat, nothing fluctuates, and the cameras have a rock steady platform. Walt received missile launch signals. Before he can say anything else, my left hand instinctively moves the throttles yet farther forward.

My eyes are glued to temperature gauges now, as I know the jet will willingly go to speeds that can harm her. The temps are relatively cool and from all the warm temps we’ve encountered thus far, this surprises me but then, it really doesn’t surprise me. Mach 3.31 and Walt is quiet for the moment.

I move my gloved finder across the small silver wheel on the autopilot panel which controls the aircraft’s pitch.

With the deft feel known to Swiss watchmakers, surgeons, and ‘dinosaurs’ (old-time pilots who not only fly an airplane but ‘feel it’), I rotate the pitch wheel somewhere between one-sixteenth and one-eighth inch location, a position which yields the 500-foot-per-minute climb I desire.

The jet raises her nose one-sixth of a degree and knows, I’ll push her higher as she goes faster. The Mach continues to rise, but during this segment of our route, I am in no mood to pull throttles back.

Walt’s voice pierces the quiet of my cockpit with the news of more missile
launch signals. The gravity of Walter’s voice tells me that he believes the
signals to be a more valid threat than the others. Within seconds he tells me to ‘push it up’ and I firmly press both throttles against their stops. For the next few seconds, I will let the jet go as fast as she wants.

A final turn is coming up and we both know that if we can hit that turn at this speed, we most likely will defeat any missiles. We are not there yet, though, and I’m wondering if Walt will call for a defensive turn off our course.

With no words spoken, I sense Walter is thinking in concert with me about maintaining our programmed course.

To keep from worrying, I glance outside, wondering if I’ll be able to visually pick up a missile aimed at us. Odd are the thoughts that wander through one’s mind in times like these. I found myself recalling the words of former SR-71 pilots who were fired upon while flying
missions over North Vietnam.

They said the few errant missile detonations they were able to observe from the cockpit looked like implosions rather than explosions. This was due to the great speed at which the jet was hurling away from the exploding missile.

I see nothing outside except the endless expanse of a steel blue sky and the broad patch of tan earth far below. I have only had my eyes out of the cockpit for seconds, but it seems like many minutes since I have last checked the gauges inside.

Returning my attention inward, I glance first at the miles counter
telling me how many more to go, until we can start our turn. Then I note the Mach, and passing beyond 3.45, I realize that Walter and I have attained new personal records. The Mach continues to increase.

The ride is incredibly smooth. There seems to be a confirmed trust now, between me and the jet; she will not hesitate to deliver whatever speed we need, and I can count on no problems with the inlets.

Walt and I are ultimately depending on the jet now - more so than
normal - and she seems to know it. The cooler outside temperatures have
awakened the spirit born into her years ago, when men dedicated to excellence took the time and care to build her well.

With spikes and doors as tight as they can get,
we are racing against the time it could take a missile to reach our altitude. It is a race this jet will not let us lose. The Mach eases to 3.5 as we crest 80,000 feet. We are a bullet now - except faster.

We hit the turn, and I feel some relief as our nose swings away from a country we have seen quite enough of. Screaming past Tripoli, our phenomenal speed continues to rise, and the screaming Sled pummels the enemy one more time, laying down a parting sonic boom.

In seconds, we can see nothing but the expansive blue of the
Mediterranean. I realize that I still have my left hand full-forward and we’re continuing to rocket along in maximum afterburner.

The TDI now shows us Mach numbers, not only new to our experience but flat out scary. Walt says the DEF panel is now quiet, and I know it is time to reduce our incredible speed. I pull the throttles to the min ‘burner range and the jet still doesn’t want to slow down.

Normally the Mach would be affected immediately, when making such a large throttle movement. But for just a few moments old 960 just sat out there at the high Mach, she seemed to love, and like the proud Sled she was, only began to slow when we were well out of danger. I
loved that jet.

Global Warming, like this?

blogengeezer — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 22:51:18 +0000

Previous ‘Blogengeezer’ material is now (03 Sep 2007) moved over to http://cretaceous.wordpress.com/ to make room for more ‘revelations from Earth’s History’. Also check out http://interglacial.wordpress.com/ If it is after midnight and you simply can not sleep, check out the weekly adventures of ‘Blogengeezer’ on http://daflikkers.blogspot.com/

If I understand the ‘Newthink’, the beautiful, fascinating Wind turbines, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine

the well known solar collectors.

Never forget the massive Generators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_generator

powered by Coal, Gas, Oil and Mega-Hydro electric Dams, used to generate over 95% of the US electrical power applied to our fantastic, beautifully engineered power grid, The Batteries to store the power in emergencies, to retain the memory of the brilliantly engineered ‘Silicon’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon

based processors that control all of these marvels, Let alone the massive amounts of Silicon used in Solar Panels, are all somehow just brought into existance with out expending any fossil fueled or Hydro-electric power?

How does the copper for wire wound armatures, get converted to wire? Let alone get refined from the suposedly evil earth mining process?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smelting

Iron for the armature core? Steel for the millions of precision bearings that allow the high tensile shafts to spin in the slightest breeze. Scientists, Chemists and Engineers understand the mining and machining processes for each of these modern Scientific wonders to materialize. Each single 75 foot long precision machined and precisely balanced blade for the massive wind turbines, made from hi-tensile alloys, just magically happen?

The transportation of these components and raw materials is done by what force? Do you have even the slightest idea what it takes to build a Modern Tractor and the machinery to farm the corn, let alone the energy and technology to convert it to ethanol?

To say nothing of the unappreciated, bountiful, safe and econonomical food supply that we in the USA take for granted. Engineers, of which, we in the USA are in short supply, understand each of these processes extremely well, where the consuming, and always critical public has absolutely no idea how the infrastructure of society functions.

The, taken for granted in the USA, safe water supply treated with an amazing chemical, ‘Chlorine’ produced by a modern, high technology, refinery designed by Engineers, has produced the ability to turn on a tap in your home and drink the water that flows from it. Try that in most countries of the world. I will only mention the Sewage treatment and disposal for 300 million citizens. Believe me, all of this takes massive amounts of energy, and Mega Hydro, Coal, and even the ‘Media’ dreaded, ‘Thermo Nuclear’ (power of the sun) has ‘economy of scale’ to prove it’s value. Understand that all of this water and sewage has to be pumped through an amazing infrastructure that was designed by the dedicated Engineers in our society.

Unless you and everyone else in the USA are absolutely ready to cut your electrical indulgence by over 95%, check out this information. http://www.getenergyactive.org/fuel/mix.htm

Stay in school, forego the courses in ‘Humanities specialist’, we have as a costly parasitic drag, far more of them than neccessary. The fastest growing economies in the world, India and China, are NOT graduating thousands of Lawyers per year. Study the ‘Hard Sciences’, Math, Chemistry, Engineering, then go to work and improve our society.

Be a real climatologist like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr5O1HsTVgA Watch the entire 5 part series. The future needs you.

Mid Cretaceous (100 Mil yrs ago) looking North from Albuquerque New Mexicos East Mountain area, Santa Fe on horizon

blogengeezer — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 03:54:36 +0000

Check Blogengeezer’s home blog over at http://daflikkers.blogspot.com/ ‘Global Warming’ is a fact. A large percentage of world scientists, totally agree that it’s getting warm and that it’s most likely going to get warmer. For a few Historical references how this Earth handled things in the past, also check out http://interglacial.wordpress.com/ (Cool Earth) and of course http://cretaceous.wordpress.com/ (Warm Earth)

Example; I love to throw in a few ’Galactic Spin’ variables to make people do some research. Everybody is in panic mode over the Climate change with 0.6 C temperature change. How about just a few thousand years back (A wink in Earths History) when it changed up to 6 C within about ten years. Now wouldn’t that cause the Media to come totally ‘Nano-molecular’. (lots of little bitty pieces)

That’s what this life is for isn’t it? Get to know all you can before you leave it, to learn the full meaning later. ‘Socrates’ taught ‘Plato’ who taught ‘Aristotle’ who taught ‘Alexander the Great’. Then ’Aristotle’ left the ‘Lyceum’ school to ‘Theophrastus’. Once Ol ‘Rastus’ got a’holt of it, the whole history of mankind was on track to become ‘Rednecks’. Now see, You learn’t sump’tin a’wredy. Come back again for more words of wisdom. Be sure to leave some of your own. I don’t take kindly to the words that indicate a lower IQ than the ‘Marianas Trench’. I’ll just delete ‘em along with your real intelligent stuff, so there.