Thanks, Bill.  It was an honor to serve our country with such men as are on that list – even in an unpopular conflict.

 

Yes, I knew six of them well.  Five went down and were lost when BAT 21 (book and Movie) was shot down by SAMs April 1972.  Another very close friend, George Sasser, was lost while attempting

a one engine landing at Korat AFB,  Thailand at night.  The remaining engine blew on an attempted go-a-round – notoriously unreliable engines.

 

Ed

 

 

Ed, Thank you for your service!

 

I found this list of fatalities from B-66 operations.  Did you know any of them?

 

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pmkc.com/B66/2_EB66s.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.pmkc.com/B66/Index.htm&h=480&w=600&sz=21&tbnid=-W1Ob586LsEH-M:&tbnh=108&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3DEB-66&hl=en&usg=__eolWk8d8LJv0HxjE_yty_2DQDO0=&ei=mrUDTPaDIMT38Abd-NWnDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image&ved=0CC8Q9QEwAw

 

Bill B

 

 

I was leaning that way in interpreting the facial expression, Al. {:>)

 

 

I flew over 2500 hours in the Military, mostly in B-52 Bombers and EB-66 escorts, I was not infrequently asked whether I had ever bailed out (Nope!) or whether I had any desire for the experience (Nope!).

 

Of course, in our case, Bail-out involved, jettison the ejection hatch during some dire emergency exposing you to the near vacuum and cold of 30,000- 40,000 + Feet, followed by a 20mm shell exploding under your butt, which compressed you down to 2/3 you normal sitting height as it blew you out of the aircraft into 400+Kt windsteam.  This exciting ejection event (even more exciting if you forgot to retract your limbs inside the safe ejection profile)  was  followed by being hit in the face by a barely sub-mach air stream which could (and did) break limbs, air blast your face, etc.  If you remembered to lower your face shield – most of that could be avoided and your oxygen mask provided some projection against your lungs being over inflated by this airstream

 

Then if everything went right and you had remember to activate you 2000 psi emergency oxygen bottle (which forced oxygen into your lungs at such a pressure and rate – you would swear you were going to blow up like a balloon because of the effort it took to exhale against this flow),  you fell for 20,000-30,000 ft hoping your parachute was packed by the best in the parachute shop until it forcible opened.  Then if you were lucky and avoided landing in mountain crags, tops or trees (or heaven forbid – water)  safely, you could wait hours or perhaps days to be picked up.

 

Fortunately, I missed that exciting event, but tales of those who had not, sort of colored my viewpoint about leaving a perfectly good aircraft.

 

So NO, never really interested {:>)

 

Ed

 

 

 

I generally glide WITH my airplane {:>) – Looks like you are either having the time of your life or scared sh…..s, can’t quite tell from the expression on your face {:>)

 

That is ‘wind augmentation’ of a smile.  Pictures snapped during the first couple seconds out of the plane look more like the ‘scared sh…..s’ variety.  I don’t recall feeling scared  – just feeling a hell of an adrenalin rush – or is that the same thingJ?

Al