At Oshkosh several years ago, Jerry Janes went out to his P-51 “Cotton Mouth” and found a guy standing on the wing. Jerry, who is a pretty big man, proceeded to walk all over the hood and roof of the fellow’s car. Naturally this infuriated him and he started to tell Jerry how much the car cost and such. The obvious price comparison came up and the man got in his care and drove away.

You can spray paint COW on the backside of a MOOSE but it’s still a cow. It’s easily verified, if a few other people look at it and say “ya know…..I’m pretty sure that’s a moose”.

I’m not sure if this is on topic of not, but my great grandfather and great uncle both came home from WWI hating the Germans. Their dad (George Washington Pilgrim 1846-1926) hated the Yankees. His great grandfather (Thomas Elijah Pilgrim 1756-1850) most likely continued to hate the British since they are the ones that shot him during the war!

My grandfather (who invaded Okinawa and was waiting to invade mainland Japan when the war ended) went to his eternal reward, still hating the japs. Much like Dave said previously, my grandfather was one of the most gentle folks you can imagine. Until the japs were mentioned.

My great uncle Travis helped liberate Dachau and his hatred of the Germans followed him to the grave.

My Uncle Arden hates the Koreans with a passion. If they hadn’t locked him in a prison camp, beat and starved him for nearly two years, he’d probably be a little more tolerable of them.

My Dad, after 35 years, has no use or regard for the Vietnamese.

My brother and I have developed a slight dislike for the militant muslims over the last couple of years myself.

Sad family trait I guess. But at least we don’t generally dislike people without what we would consider “just cause”.

In the mid 90’s I was still flying on the Mighty Hercules. On the odd occasion we dropped the ashes of former aircrew and maintenance personel that had gone on to their great rewards. Just scattering them out the ramp didn’t work so well. It’s no fun having it all come back in with you. Usually they were put in a plastic bag with the end taped shut. We then tied a piece of parachute cord around the bag and tossed it out the open ramp. When it hit the slipstream the bag would rip open, the ashes scattered and you used the parachute cord to pull the bag back in. The other way I only saw used once, but it was my personal favorite! Up on the flight deck ceiling, directly behind the engineer’s chair is a sextant port. In the galley was a vacume hose that you stuck in the open sextant port and you could clean up the dirt on the flight deck while flying. There is an awful lot of vacume from the slipstream over the top of the plane. Anyhow, you opened up the container of ashes, stuck the hose down in it and it was all finished in a flash.

On a different subject: If the navigator or engineer had an open bag of pretzels, sunflower seeds or something like that, you could stick the vacume hose down in their bag when they looked away. Their contents would be gone before they knew what had happened.

Back to the subject of dropping ashes: I have some friends up in Washington that took a Harvard up to scatter some ashes. When the back seat passenger tried to throw them out the canopy, they blew right back in and just sort of circled around the cockpits. For the next two years, every time they did any maintenance they would find remains of their friend stuck in every little nook and cranny of the plane.

According to the SeaFury Propeller Equipment Overhaul Manual from Dowty Rotol that I have laying on my desk, the blades are machined from an aluminum alloy forging.

Sounds like the USAF guys at RAF Mildenhall need to send you an invite.

I know where I can get a C-17……..

[QUOTE=John Boyle][I]John Boyle, who’s getting political? The man himself admited he used to drink up to two bottles of bourbon a day from when he was in his 20’s through to his 50th birthday. I simply wonder about the type of Air Force that would put him into a fighter jet. Yikes!

Last word about Bush…we have to remember that in the old days, drinking was a pretty established part of the military…US and UK. Nobody cared how much you drank as long as you were sober when you strapped in the plane.
I wonder how many WWII heros were pretty heavy drinkers? Few, except Pappy Boyington have admitted it.

QUOTE]

I can tell you for a fact that drinking is still an established part of life for the military aviatiors in the Air Forces of several countries!

John,

Thanks for sharing all your pictures. I’ve been down to New Zealand several times over the years, flying back and forth to Antarctica. I’m now stationed at a base that doesn’t have that mission so there is no telling when I will get back down that way again. I hope it’s soon though. I do love C.D.beer!

I never did make it over to Wanaka and wasn’t down there at airshow time anyhow. I’ve been very lucky, and the list of things I want to do before I die is getting shorter. Seeing the Wanaka show is still something I hope to do. I have visited Ferrymead and Wigram on a couple of occasions. Both places are first rate. I think Wigram is one of the best I’ve ever seen. I really enjoyed it.

Thanks again for sharing the pictures.

Brad