I learned to fly here about 55 years ago when the runways were still 200 ft wide & the duster pilots conveniently used the taxiways. My HS science teacher taught a night PPL ground school. He had been a B-17 pilot in Europe. My flight instructor ran the KSWW FBO and had previously flown Hellcats off of carriers. I recall he could land that Cherokee 140 on the very end of the runway and turn off at the taxiway entrance right there. I had just begun in aviation but I knew then that I had a very rich learning experience. It is still burned into my brain that I hit right on the numbers. Those guys were my heroes. My own father who was a Flight Surgeon in the S Pacific and my uncle who flew C-47s in China, also for that matter.
My next door neighbor had been a flight instructor for the WASPs at Avenger Field. We flew together some 25 years after the war and he would show me the faint and grown over aux and emergency landing strips in the area. There was a map I recall seeing that had marked numerous local area crash sites of their students. These young ladies were legit heroes.
The WASP training was a secret operation & Walt Disney created the artwork for their mascot. The confused local Sweetwater residents had no way of knowing what to think when they observed the tearful goodbyes of parents coming to town and dropping off their young daughters at the Baker Hotel to begin their WASP class.
