POSTFLIGHT

Yes, son, most of our present day interplanetary space leaders come from old 57 Century class. Of course in those days we were part of the old Air Force.

It all began in 1955, at Lackland Air Force Base, which was situated in the old state of Texas. Of course we have since given Texas back to the Mexicans. We stayed there either one or three months depending on whether we were gentlemen by an Act of Congress or striving to reach that goal.

We were assigned to three primary bases; Spence and Bainbridge had only recently been taken away from the Confederate Air Force, and Bartow, an all-gentlemen base, subsidized by the Florida Chamber of Commerce. The civilians who operated these bases took an inordinate amount of care of their airplanes; consequently flying them was very dull. We did however have a few interesting moments. Once a student declared an emergency due to structural malfunction. He was cleared to land immediately and relieve himself; they had the relief tube fixed within the hour.

By Thanksgiving, most of us had convinced our instructors that we knew the ground was hard and the airplane only aluminum and so they got out and let us solo. We felt pretty good until Christmas when we came to realize that unless we could say yes when our friends asked if we flew jets that we just couldn't impress them at all. So we stuck it out until May and went back to Texas, this time to "live" and study at hell—oops, Laughlin.

Since many of the names in the locale were Spanish, many of us would go over to Ciudad Acuna, to learn to speak the language. Acuna was a big beautiful Mexican metropolis with many fine night schools that had many interesting courses. As these were the only night schools near, we didn't mind commuting or the higher tuition rates to foreigners.

We spent the first month at Laughlin scaring our instructors in an attempt to solo the airplane with the hole in its fanny. After the first month our instructors scared us with close formation flying. When we had developed confidence in our instructor's flying ability, we allowed them to ride in the front seat while we practiced instruments. We found out that our confidence had been premature and we were scared to death of those landings. After twenty-five hours of instrument time most of the instructors had become proficient in landing from the front seat.

On rare occasions we were allowed to go on solo flights. It was rare to see a solo T-bird go all the way from the ramp to the take-off position without cocking its nose wheel. Students were required to land with 120 gallons of fuel so that they would have enough to cock their nose wheels, and still make it back to the ramp without flaming out. These solo rides were always more exciting and we could tell if an instructor was brave or not by whether he flew on the days solo was released or played it smart and taught link that day.

By the time we had eighty hours in the T-33, we were all very confident of our flying ability. Once, I remember, a guy's engine flamed out. He was a cool fellow: He touched his mike button and without a quiver in his voice called, ,Laughlin tower, this is Air Force Jet 1805, my engine 'just flamed out, please advise." The tower operator that day must have been a pretty sharp fellow because he said in a similarly collected and dispassionate voice, "Roger, AF Jet 1805, take ~AF Jet 1806, its parked right next to you."

As we got further along our Spanish lessons ceased long enough for us to fly nights and weekend cross-country flights. We spent that last few weeks learning to taxi and then it was all over. With these obstacles out of the way we knew that the program was knocked. The nonexistent leaves fell from the nonexistent trees of the garden spot of the Rio Grande, and all of the class became pilots, gentlemen, and lieutenants.

That son is how it was back in the days before the nuclear engine and before the members of class 57-C conquered space.