homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Battle of Britain + Battle of Britain II Here's what happened (Continued)

Folks,

PV1:
Fascinating. Yup, rockets are already verboten and soon balloons will be restricted as well. After that little fiasco with the small boy who was supposed to be tumbling about the sky in a helium filled gas bag a few years ago; I'm surprised that didn't put a halt to amateur balloon flights anywhere above the tree tops already. We all know what happened to Icarus (the myth not the balloon flight).

Remember those manned high altitude balloon flights of years ago? Reaching the Stratosphere with balloon or rocket was far beyond my wildest dreams when I was in school. When I was in school none of the teachers were able or interested in helping young rocketeers. I was very interested as a kid and looked for a mentor but found none. I did my own research about Robert Goddard and early rocket pioneers etc. I read magazine articles. I wrote off for plans and materials. I studied and I built small rockets and even made some talks in various classes at my school. No doubt many kids across the country did the same thing in the 50's and 60's.

When I was in Junior high I built solid fuel rockets from plans and materials I sent off to Wisconsin of all places for. No altitude records using those. Much later Estes came out with a nice line of simple solid fuel rocket model kits. A friend and I built some of the multi stage rockets. Later on my son and I fired a multi stage rocket with a small camera attached. We estimated the apogee using a small computer program I wrote in gutter basic. Those simple Estes kits are still around today.

As a kid I made small hot air balloons using a candle for the heat. We sent a small flashlight up tied to a helium balloon at night once. A neighbor's little girl reported a UFO that night. Of course this was way back in the mid 50s. The first Sputnik was in all the papers and on TV and soon we would all dream of being astronauts. The subject of my senior theme in HS was on the first seven astronauts. We could not get enough of NASA in those exciting days.

Somewhere along the way with budget cuts, manned flights curtailed and Lunar landings a distant memory; we've seemed to take it all for granted and lost the wonder of exploration until 'Curiosity' that is. This seems to have rekindled the sense of wonder and excitement in the general public.

Dux:

I'm getting my ticket punched and I'm clearly on the fast track now. I've been promoted to captain after a successful F86F mission escorting B29s. I distinguished myself by staying with the bombers until they made their runs and were safely returning home. Then returning to base my wingman and I were bounced by seven MiG 15 "Fagots". We got two and sent the others high tailing it back across the Yalu. I have some camera footage that I may make into a sim film one day but not anytime soon.

I am currently reading an interesting account of the F105s in Vietnam titled "Thud Ridge". We are having some very pleasant early fall-like weather this week. No rain, low humidity and dew points with plenty of sunshine. Today was a perfect day for an hour sitting in the warm sun out on the patio reading with several of the neighbor's black cats sprawled about me swatting at bugs or taking cat naps. C51's weather is much the same as the Jet Stream has brought our pleasant weather right down to us from those generous Canadians.