CAF

I have wanted to fly airplanes all my life. Growing up on a Dutch island in the Caribbean helped to foster the romance of flight with trips back and forth to the US on KLM and riding on other airlines when we arrived back in the States. I wanted to be an airline pilot and deliver passengers to foreign destinations. That was the golden age of air travel (to me).

But, I ended up wearing glasses in the mid-1950s and though I started flying at an early age, the airlines pretty much put the nix on any airline flying for me with their 20/20 or better uncorrected vision requirement.

I still enjoyed flying; I have paid for all of my flight hours myself. No airline or military flying has subsidized my time in the air. I hold a Commercial ticket though I do not fly passengers for hire. It was a rating that I always wanted to have, and it made my airplane insurance rates go down.

I have had an airplane mistress now since 1974. I have enjoyed faster airplanes and ones with a lot of character. The airplane mistress that I have now is an elderly 1956 Cessna 172. I joke that with a daughter in college it is as cheap as I can go and still have something that gives me a reasonable cross-country capability. The 172 is about as dirt simple as any airplane can be short of a Cub or a Champ. Maintenance is not excessive, every mechanic knows how to work on it, the fuel burn is not high, and I can still soar into the blue when my heart needs to.

But, I always wanted to fly heavy iron. A friend of mine who I was in the USMC with talked me into joining the CAF. (This organization is dedicated to preserving the military aviation part of our country's history from WW2 through Vietnam and was originally called the Confederate Air Force, meaning not a real air force. Some yahoo objected, and it was renamed the Commemorative Air Force to be politically correct. It still says CAF on my wings, though.) I had thought about joining many years ago, but never did it.... until now.

I am a Colonel (we all are) in the CAF, and am in the B-29/B-24 squadron. We have one aircraft of each (Fifi is the B-29 and Ol' 927 is the B-24). Fifi is still being re-engined at great expense; hopefully she will be ready for attending more air shows across the country in 2010. Ol' 927 is actively flying, and I am now part of the aircrew for this historic aircraft. She is 68 years old, born before Pearl Harbor. She is a lady and needs constant attention and care to keep flying.

She is a part of this country's aviation history. 18,482 B-24 Liberators were built; there are now TWO left flying in this country. Ol' 927 is the older of the two remaining.

She is treated with kid gloves. The command pilots are all current or ex-airline captains with thousands of flight hours. We have a flight engineer who monitors every engine function regularly and used to be an Air Force maintenance chief. He is exceptional in his attention and care for this aircraft.

Me, I am an occasional autopilot for this plane. When we are on a trip I get to sit in the right seat, maintain course and altitude and marvel at this beast thundering through the 21st Century. We are in a time warp. Planes like this used to be commonplace in the early 40s, and were flown by 20 to 22 year old Lieutenants with many less flight hours than I have. They went to war in these planes and a great many never returned. They had brass balls.

I feel honored to be able to sit in the right seat, my hand on the yoke, feeling the vibrations and sniffing the scents of a piece of aviation history. My view over the nose and of the engines throbbing away just off my right shoulder take me away to another time.... until Center calls us on the radio again.

I fly with another group of Brothers... dedicated to keeping the old ones flying so that we can show the younger generations what others did so that we could still be free.

Freedom is not free.