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June 2018 58 Disponible en línea en español.
I’m an “airplane nut: I’ve loved airplanes ever
since I can remember. I like to see them sailing through the sky, read
about them (I have a LOT of books) and look at pictures of them, and
go to air shows to look at and take pictures of them (An interesting
aside: I once took a flying lesson in a small light plane, probably a
Cessna. I expected to love it, but did not like it at all: go figure.).
I went through a “train thing”—Lionel, HO gauge, real trains—for a
while, but that has faded. And, as a teen-ager, with my first driver’s
license, I became a “car nut”. I still am— I’ve never owned a “cookie-
cutter” “plain jane” car—my cars, from the get-go, have all been
“special” in one way or the other: from a dual four-barrel carburetor
Plymouth Fury (110 miles-per-hour in second gear through the drag
strip traps) to a 56.5 miles-per-gallon made-by-Mercedes Smart Car
with trick after-market stainless steel dual pipes.
Back to airplanes: in all my readings, and personal encounters,
anyone who joins the US Air Force and wants to fly—surprise,
surprise—wants to fly fighters, be they P-51 Mustangs back in the
day, or F-100 Super Sabres, or F-22’s. But, everybody, for a lot of
reasons, isn’t qualified to fly fighters. So, in all my readings, and
personal encounters, many of these folks end up in the next best
thing: in the left seat (or right seat) of bombers, lumbering along,
while the spiffy fighters do S-turns up above.
I don’t think I’ve ever read of anyone, or heard anyone say, that they
always wanted to fly cargo/transport planes. “Boy, I’ve always wanted
to fly a C-82 Flying Box Car...”
And, how many C-82 Flying Box Cars have you ever seen at an
air show, or in a War Birds book?????? But...fighter planes are
glamorous, bombers do what has to be done to win wars, but if it
wasn’t for the unsung workhorse transport planes, back there behind
the scenes, none of the bullets, bombs, or beans get flown to where
they have to be.
Over the past several years we’ve passed Dover Air Force Base in
Delaware many many times on our way to Maryland and back. For a
long time there were lines of huge, grey C-5A’s parked on the tarmac.
They’ve been replaced by huge, grey C-17’s. And, at the southern
end of the base there’s a big collection of older cargo/transport
planes parked outside a big Air Mobility Command Museum hangar.
I do have a bit of a history with modern-day transports: Kath and
I once flew to Quantico in a LOUD Marine Corps KC-130 Hercules
(gotta love those Herks!), and I once sat in the radio operator’s seat
in a Stewart Air Force Base 105th Airlift Wing C-5A, heading for
“I’ve
Always
Wanted
To Fly A
Flying
Box
Car”
Get in touch with Ralph at:
by Ralph J. Ferrusi