On 2/21/15 11:46 AM, Califbill wrote:
John H. wrote:
On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 22:04:40 -0600, Califbill wrote:
Wayne.B wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 2015 20:33:18 -0500, wrote:
I got the offer several times to go on a sight seeing
ride but we never got around to it. It wasn't really that high on my
bucket list.
===
There's nothing like it on a nice day. The views of the water and
beaches are just spectacular.
One of my great airplane rides was on a Douglas C-117 back in about 1966.
From Ogden, UT to the airbase in Novato, Ca. Is a DC-3 variant and we had
to stay below 10,000 feet and it cruised at maybe 200 knots. Beautiful
summer day. Could watch the skiers in the CAlif foothill lakes, and we
were maybe at 1000' AGL over Donner pass. We followed I-80 the whole way.
We flew home from Puerto Rico, in 1954, in a C-124. Great flight. I was ten years old
and got to ride in the cockpit almost the whole way back.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...emaster_II.jpg
When I first went to Travis AFB in 1965 our mobile communications squadron
unit shared a building I with the parachute riggers in the back and storage
of those big Rotary engines for the 124's. When I was at Hamilton, there
were still some 124's flying with the reserves and ang. That MATs plane
was probably out of Travis. That is the Marin end of the Golden Gate
Bridge. Going out toward Lands End there were coastal gun emplacements in
WW2. I fish salmon just north of there during the summer.
Back in the day when I was a reporter/feature writer for the KC Star, I
drew the assignment of going out to the AF Academy to write a series of
articles on KC-MO-KS students. The Star was very friendly with the
military establishment in those days. I was flown out in a two seat jet
trainer, a T30-something or other, and it was a cool and what thought
was a pretty fast flight. That plane was not available a week later, so
the AF flew me back on a DC-3. That was fun, too, but it took a lot
longer. Both planes were very noisy, and the DC-3 had lots of rattles.
--
Proud to be a Liberal.