Karacticus said:
First time I sat by my best friend in school was in detention where he was studiously drawing enormous dicks on every horse picture in his history textbook.
Wally (Forum Supporter) said:
I lost my dad to cancer in high school, and he never had the opportunity to teach me basic electrical or plumbing details; so each week on Thursday my stepdad and I hang out and we help each other with projects like moving furniture, him teaching me how to do plumbing fixes or how to do electrical work.
I keep accidentally calling him dad.
NickD said:
Jack Woolams, the Bell test pilot, was assigned to Muroc to flight test the P-59. Some P-38 pilots were also stationed at Muroc at the other end of the field. They were quite curious about the secret project and the civvie pilots. Contrary to regulations, pilots talk, especially to other pilots, especially at bars, and soon the Bell pilots knocking back a few at a Rosamond watering hole were boasting that they were testing an airplane that could fly without a propeller. The army flyboys maintained that such a thing was impossible and that the Bell pilots were a bunch of liars.
Jack Woolams made a trip into Hollywood, visited a costume supply house and rented a gorilla suit. One day he took off in the P-59 dressed in his gorilla suit and sought out a lone P-38. He pulled alongside the P-38 and waved. So the army pilot saw not only an airplane without a propeller flying along just as nice as you please, but also one being flown by a gorilla!
That evening at the Rosamond watering hole, Woolams asked the gathered army pilots if they'd heard that a gorilla had escaped from a nearby traveling circus and was seen near Muroc. A couple of the army pilots looked at each other, but all denied knowing anything about a gorilla. And they also stopped calling the civilian pilots liars.
As Woolams said, "Fun is always better than a fight."
An aside, I am happy that people have made the effort to save old USENET posts from the 80s and 90s. There are posts from people recounting their first person accounts of what they did and saw in WWII, in Korea, in Vietnam. What they thought about the P38, the P47, the P51. What it was like to live on an airfield in the PTO vs ETO. Bombing raids over Rabaul. Flying Wild Weasel over North Vietnam.
...but they never do. They just bring hell with them.
In reply to NickD :
Of note is that a YP59 (pre production model) is being restored to flying condition in Chino, CA. It is reported to be 75% complete. It will be the only flyable one and the oldest flying jet when completed.
https://planesoffame.org/aircraft/plane-YP-59A
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