Bill Watson
En-Route
Over TG we were staying in a medical center hotel. Wife went out for a rare smoke (family holidays can be stressful) and some guy invited her to sit in his car and enjoy the heat while they puffed. Turns out he was a pilot so she brought him in the lobby to meet her pilot husband. I don’t think I got 2 words in edgewise...
He started at 15 and has been flying the jagged edge of mostly legit flying since. No turbine time but everything from powered parachutes to B-17s. I could have written a book if I had taken notes.
There was a lot of crop dusting time though he may have swallowed as much toxic stuff as he sprayed. At that point I asked how many crashes? “...none up until 19xx then 7 in about a year, damn power lines. Usually you just pull ‘em off after you land and keep quiet but sometimes...”. And on and on. Fact is, it all held up. And I found out that the B-17 is a really docile plane given what it was.
He may not have known it, but we are the same age though he’s lived it a bit harder.
As we go through various family illnesses, I recognized that he was attending to his hospitalized wife and doing the best he could. I enjoyed the stories and hope it helped him with the anxiety, for a few minutes anyway.
Happy Holidays All
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
He started at 15 and has been flying the jagged edge of mostly legit flying since. No turbine time but everything from powered parachutes to B-17s. I could have written a book if I had taken notes.
There was a lot of crop dusting time though he may have swallowed as much toxic stuff as he sprayed. At that point I asked how many crashes? “...none up until 19xx then 7 in about a year, damn power lines. Usually you just pull ‘em off after you land and keep quiet but sometimes...”. And on and on. Fact is, it all held up. And I found out that the B-17 is a really docile plane given what it was.
He may not have known it, but we are the same age though he’s lived it a bit harder.
As we go through various family illnesses, I recognized that he was attending to his hospitalized wife and doing the best he could. I enjoyed the stories and hope it helped him with the anxiety, for a few minutes anyway.
Happy Holidays All
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro