I always try to read your column when my Manning Times arrives and, recently, it provided me with an enjoyable and nostalgic reminder of my first flight in a T-6 aircraft - or for that matter, in any aircraft.
On a beautiful sunny spring day in 1948, as a very recently recruited private i the New York Air National Guard, I was fueling a T-6 on the flight line when a rosy-cheeked, newly minted 2nd lieutenant rolled up in a “tug” and announced that he was going to take up that aircraft to satisfy his monthly required flight hours and, quite offhandedly, added, “Would you like to take a ride?”
Without either hesitation or thought, I uttered my best adolescent “Yes sir,” invisibly ignorant of our requirements for gaining authorization for me to accompany him or for him to revise his flight plan to include me.
Nevertheless, off we went into the “wild blue yonder” and what a day it was; I’ll never forget it and the adventure that it was for two young guys cutting loose in the sky on a georgeous day in May without a care in the world. Wonderful.
JIM WALSH
Manning
