Roost Air Lounge => Aviation related topics => Topic started by: airtac on April 07, 2008, 06:48:53 AM
Title: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: airtac on April 07, 2008, 06:48:53 AM
Had a wonderful lunch date today with 2 retired captains and was entertained with some fantastic aviation stories. My friend Bob Gordon was a career Flying Tigers captain, starting with converted C-46s in the late 50s going on to retire out of 747s with 23,000 hours in the 90s. ::bow:: The other captain was Roger Sherron who started with Pan American Airways in the 30s as a radio operator (think morse code) in a Boeing 314 flying boat and retiring out of a 747 in 1977 with 31,000 hours. ::bow:: |:)\ ::bow::
While Bob's experiences are both amusing and extremely interesting, Roger has the most wonderful and fantastic stories of flying that rival some of St Exupery's tales in "Wind, Sand, and Stars". At age 90, Roger has the alert mind and clear memories of a man 40 years his junior and a sense of humor that makes your sides hurt.
He recounted flying passengers in a B-314 on the European-African-South American routes during WWII using dead reckoning and flying low altitude VFR up coastlines looking for landmarks to guide them to a destination. He recounted a time they were forced to land off Portugal's coast (I think--my memory's not as sharp as his) not knowing if the coastal defenses were friendly---how they had to spend the night moored in the bay but the flight officers getting invited to the local commandant's home for supper because St Exupery (who's book Roger was reading at the time) had made friends with the commandant a few years earlier.
He also recalled times like when he was training Cuban pilots in the DC-3 and requested permission to check out in a Ford tri-motor owned by the Cubans. The Cuban chief pilot told him to show up next wearing a uniform and tie, so Roger shows up as requested to find out he's checking himself out in the airplane on a revenue flight with a co-pilot who spoke no English and had no experience in a Tri-motor either while the chief pilot sat in the back with the passengers! Roger quit flying at age 86, sold his C172 and donated his Tiger Moth to a museum in Texas. This is a man who flew some of the most wonderful airplanes through some of the most wonderful times on some the most wonderful adventures---I was in the presence of greatness today and I am grateful for the experience.
Title: Re: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: TheSoccerMom on April 07, 2008, 07:07:49 PM
Wow, what a neat time you had. Those are the guys who somehow pulled it all off.... no fancy gizmos, no weather info, nobody holding their hands...
I wish we could capture all those stories... know a guy who said the way they found the coastline out in the Aleutians, in horrid weather, was to aim their radar down at the ocean, with luck pick up a ship's return signal, then drop down to the ship, in the soup the whole time... said if you were "good" then you had to worry about hitting the ship's masts... CRIKEYS!! ::eek::
That's neat you had such a fun time, Airtac.. thanks for sharing it with the rest of us. ::bow::
|:)\
Title: Re: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: Baradium on April 08, 2008, 01:22:10 AM
I can only imagine what that was like...
Since we're talking about clippers, I again started delving into what remains...
http://www.rbogash.com/B314.html
I hope they find something. Apparently there is a reproduction (non flyable of course) in Ireland. Might be worth a trip some day just to get a good idea of the pure size of them...
Apparently there's also a conspiracy theory about a clipper being hijacked in the early days of WWII by Japanese agents, but I didn't see any other reference but one on my short search. http://www.hawaiiclipper.com/
Title: Re: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: Oddball on April 08, 2008, 10:11:03 AM
aye you can walk in to it bara flypast magazine did a recent article about it. Its at a old site the clippers used when they did their atlantic runs i think its a a place called casement though im not sure about that, if i find out more ill let you know.
Title: Re: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: Bruce on April 08, 2008, 01:08:20 PM
Wow, what a neat time you had. Those are the guys who somehow pulled it all off.... no fancy gizmos, no weather info, nobody holding their hands...
I wish we could capture all those stories... know a guy who said the way they found the coastline out in the Aleutians, in horrid weather, was to aim their radar down at the ocean, with luck pick up a ship's return signal, then drop down to the ship, in the soup the whole time... said if you were "good" then you had to worry about hitting the ship's masts... CRIKEYS!! ::eek::
That's neat you had such a fun time, Airtac.. thanks for sharing it with the rest of us. ::bow::
|:)\
Agree! Today, I know people that need their GPS to hop over to the nearest Sunday morning pancake fly-in. Lucky they can find their way home from the airport (Oh, yes, they use the GPS for that too!).
Title: Re: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: Oddball on April 08, 2008, 02:43:08 PM
GPS? still a map and compass man well at least for hillwalking and ski-ing lol
Title: Re: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: airtac on April 08, 2008, 03:13:58 PM
GPS? still a map and compass man well at least for hillwalking and ski-ing lol
That's the advantage of living in Kalifornia---fly for a while with the ocean on your left and you're in Oregon---mountains on your left---you're in Mexico--don't need no steenking GPS here |:)\
Title: Re: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: G-man on April 08, 2008, 03:57:40 PM
That's the advantage of living in Kalifornia---fly for a while with the ocean on your left and you're in Oregon---mountains on your left---you're in Mexico--don't need no steenking GPS here |:)\
Same with Hawaii--when I flew on Kauai--you would fly keeping the blue on the left, green on the right till you come up on the HUGE intesecting roads with no cars on them and land.. ::whistle:: ::whistle::
Title: Re: HUMBLING AND HUMOUROUS DAY
Post by: TheSoccerMom on April 08, 2008, 07:38:15 PM
Yeah.. it was pretty FREAKY the first time I flew into the Midwest as a green little pilot.. where the hell did all the MOUNTAINS go?!? ::eek:: It was terribly disorienting to me.. I was so used to having all those landmarks around me..... ::loony::
