Upon returning to the barracks, other students asked why he paid the fine when he had indeed not been the guilty party. His reply was that he had actually been out buzzing sailboats on Lake Michigan going low enough that he was turning them over. Gen James continued that he thought the price of the dead minks was going to be much less than the boats!

Cheers, Dale Nail 49

From: "millers" <tickety-boo@cruzers.net> Subject: Re: Re: The Tweety Bird's Colors <NOFAC>

The stripper story reminded me of one of my own. We had three Special Forces camps at Plekiu while I was there (1966/67), Plei Me, Ple Jurange (sp), and Duc Co. Each of our sector FAC's had one camp to get familiar with, etc. Mine was Duc Co. However I got the duty to take a independent "donut dolly" out to enertain the troops at Plei Me. She was, I think, an aussie - nice looking. I dropped her off one afternoon and came back the next day and one of the SF guys came out to the strip and told me to come back tomorrow. I did, and brought her back to Pleiku. Later I found out she had "enertained" each of the SF guys personally and upclose. Needless to say we really got a great return on our "gift" - steaks, beer, and a new jeep (ours had only the front wheel drive working. I hate to think what my job title was for that journey. Cagey 10

To be best of my knowledge, we had 16 Tweets painted in various paint schemes--some as you mentioned and then some other variations. One, in particular, was white with orange tips like the USN trainers such as at NAS Kingsville. What I did enjoy was that we flew them to all the USAF UPT bases for "show and tell" time. As a Tweet IP, ATCM 51-37 went out the window. We learned how to fly 16 ship-- 4 diamond 4 and echelon.This was GREAT!! 16 tweets(+/-) on initial and no one going around on short final. The biggest story of this was when we went to Del Rio (Laughlin AFB). We drove a local stripper up there and partied like hell in the O' Club. The wives of the OWC (better known as OBC- Officer's Bitches Club) were absolutely not impressed. Once again, I believe LeRoy J. Swenson was involved in this "planned" activity. I have photos of some of the formation flying at home in my archives! What was a real concern for maintenance, was the weight of the paint on the Tweet vs. acft performance. Guess this was resolved! Take care. Hope this helps ya. It really was a Flying circus!!
OX Snoopy 50

Where in the world did you ever find strippers at Laredo? <G> Was Del Rio so straitlaced they had none there?

Gary, not sure about Del Rio but across the bridge in Pedras Negras they had plenty of them - lots of thieves too. I remember a hand coming up from behind a nightstand and feeling around for a wallet. Jumped off the rack, grabbed his wrist, and yanked as hard as I could. He went Slam Bang against the opposite side of the wall and I got the heck out of there with a cheesed off senorita in hot pursuit :-)

Tangerine 31

when I was an instructor at Greenville AFB 1955-57(t-33's and t-28's) every time we had a graduation flight party at one of the local bars we were never allowed back. we then had a party at the club. the room we were in was about 4 steps above the level of the rest of the club. we were pouring beer on several tables put together and sliding face down to see who could go the furtherest. soon beer was pouring down the stairs. that was our last time in the club. our next graduation was by the pool. cagey 10

Subject: Re: A-1 ejection seat <NOFAC>

In a message dated 06/04/2005 11:52:48 AM Central Daylight Time, stump@seas.upenn.edu writes: This was George's second successful ejection. As I recall he landed gear up on his ordnance at night and ejected on the runway at NKP. George is very lucky to be alive because the ejection seat in the A-1 in 1970 was very unreliable. Anyone in contact with George? Tom,

Don't know where George is now and whether one of his ejections was the one I remember at 90 deg of bank and about 30 ft AGL. When I was an IP at Laredo in the early 70s we had several A-1 pilots there: George, Dave Kantrud, Bill Kile, and Jimmy Doolittle are the ones I can immediately think of. Doolittle had arrived about six months before me, and was my senior buddy IP. We once went on a X-country to Mather together and I got the chance to meet his grandfather. AS I remember, the A-1 pilots at Laredo spoke highly of the Yankee Extraction Syetem, but that was also a long time ago, and I may remember only the succes stories such as George's.

When I look back, Laredo had a very interesting environment in the early 70s. Almost all the IPs were SEA returnees, and ATC hadn't yet started the program of returning many recent UPT graduates to be IPs. (The infamous FAIP program -- First Assignment IPs.)

At that time, the T-38 squadron had loads of FACs, and F-100 pilots, and many F-4 and F-105 pilots wearing their River Rat and 100 mission patches. We also had F-102 pilots, B-58 pilots, and A-26 pilots in the squadron. Plus we had several Canadian IPs who had come from RCAF CF-101 and CF-104 squadrons. There was a lot of experience in that T-38 squadron, and also many pilots who didn't completely accept the "ATC way." (Perhaps that is one reason ATC started to use more FAIPs -- they were much more malleable and could be taught to do things the ATC way.)

I had a run-in on the "ATC way" my very first flight with a real student. There was a nav checkpoint about 30 nm north of Laredo where you were supposed to get an IFR pickup from Laredo Approach and fly in to Laredo IFR. My student checked in and RAPCON told him he was number six for recovery and to hold. I breezily told him, "Oh, we don't need to do that, cancel IFR and we'll go in VFR." (The WX was no ceiling was about 50 miles vis.) He canceled, and we followed the interstate south to Laredo entering the VFR traffic pattern, getting in ahead of all the other T-38s holding at the recovery point.

Unfortunately, one of the other T-38s holding for recovery was the Chief of Stan/Eval, and he didn't like it that I had beaten all of them into the pattern by going VFR.

After hanging up my parachute and walking out of the PE room, I was met by the squadron ops officer, who invited me into his office for a little lecture on the "ATC way." After just finishing my FAC tour, it seemed perfectly appropriate to cancel and go VFR rather than to hold for several minutes waiting for an IFR clearance. Wrong! Not in ATC.

Cheers,

Gary Dikkers "Mike 57"

Never, ever, the complete truth. At best, the useful truth, or interesting speculation.

Along those lines, I have to relate what the jokers at the Tech Division section (I won't reveal which section, but their initials are Auto Body) did when a bunch of killer bees camped out in their lab area. The campus police marked the area off with police tape and told everyone to leave the whole Tech Division area until the bees could be removed. They left too. Of course, everyone didn't get the message, so dozens of students and faculty kept asking the auto body guys (who hadn't left yet) what was going on. Instead of answering endless questioners, they ran in and got some masking tape to mark the outline of one who lay, playing dead, in plain sight of the gate. They then hid in the shop as many more came up to the gate to see why the police tape was there, only to leave, wondering who had been killed there. It wasn't long before the police started to get calls from everyone (some say, including news media) inquiring about the "killing" on campus. The police quickly reappeared to have the guilty parties remove the tape and delivered a tongue lashing that left them severely chastised. I got a feeling of just how chastised when one of them told the other, "I told you we should have put the head a few feet to the side, if we were going to get in that much trouble anyway."

Is it fun to encourage speculation or what?

Jim Young