Remembering those days make tears come to my eyes.

My High School buddy Wolfgang Braun, the son of a 'Operation Paperclip'
scientist, and I would put on our CAP uniforms and present ourselves at the
front gate of Holloman AFB requesting to "watch operations". ("Operations"
at the Air Force Missile Test Center could be exciting.) Shortly, an Air
Force staff car would arrive, sometimes with Brig.Gen Davis's star on it,
and drive us to the operations shack on the flight line.

An officer or Staff Sgt. would then escort us around. I got to climb into
the cockpits of whatever was there. The monsterous 10 engine B36's
enthralled me. Sometimes we hitched rides on USAF aircraft. I got to sit in
the copilots seat of an old C47 and make lazy turns over the New Mexico
desert.

One day a couple of civilians showed up with some 16mm film of gliders to
show the staff - we got invited. It was Larry Edgar and, Joachim Kuettner
doing a show-and-tell about their wave flights in the Sierras.

To a high school sophmore, that was life changing. Don't tell me youth
recruiting doesn't work.

Bill Daniels


"Ralph Jones" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:18:36 -0600, "Bill Daniels"
bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:

I caught this photo on the Soaring Wikipedia. As it happened, I knew then
Capt. Kittinger during these tests. I thought him to be a very friendly
and
enthusiastic aviator though seemingly determined to 'push the envelope'
whenever he had the chance. He was a real "Jet Jocky" and a small boy's
hero.

You will notice, if you look carefully, that his right glove has detached
from his pressure suit exposing bare skin to virtual space conditions at
102,000 feet. The only result was a swollen hand that was painful for a
few
days.

It is not true that the unnamed "Air Force Empolyee" given credit for the
photo was a lowly GS3 wearing shorts and T-shirt while riding in the open
gondola as a contemporary Mad Magazine suggested. The unmanned camera was
triggered by the lanyard seen in the photo.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kittinger-jump.jpg

Where are today's heros?

Bill Daniels

Kittinger is still around in the GA biz...last I heard he was an
active balloonist and managing an airshow operation in Florida.

rj