The Cup Runneth Over

I’ve often wondered how magical it would have been to take my Dad flying.  Pay him back for all the airplane stories he told me when I was a boy.  Sons secretly crave their fathers’ pride.  He is long gone, so I will never find out.
Or so I thought.
  
  
  
  
I’m am only son, third in a line of eldest sons.  [...]

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Reliving D-Day at Brecourt Manor

Today is the 65th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion at Normandy.
My son Julio and I toured Normandy last month.  His first visit to Normandy, my third.  We rented a car and drove 1,100 kilometers in 2 days.
We visited the airborne drop zones.  Walked Omaha and Utah beaches.  Toured the famous battlefields — Brecourt Manor (detailed in HBO’s Band of Brothers) and La [...]

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Our Beech B-25 Baron Bomber

Carlo’s first instrument flight.  At night.  In IMC.  In a multi-engine cockpit.  Left seat.  It doesn’t get more pressure-laden than that.
     
    
   
     
I’d had my turn.  Two runs.  It was time to give the other Captain a shot at it.
On the takeoff video, Meynard never stops teaching, even as Carlo accelerates to rotate speed.  Meynard [...]

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Aerobatics!

  
    
   
Aerobatics!! 
  
The World War II dogfights I read about in my youth were the ultimate competitive aerobatics.  The penalty for non-proficiency was death.  There is no second place in aerial combat.  Only the winner flies home.
I remember a book on WW2 flying.  The writer described watching Saburo Sakai, the famed Japanese ace, rolling his Zero fighter in a beautiful, curving firing pass against an American B-17 –  not an inch of slip or skid, perfectly coordinated, squeezing [...]

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My Secret Lives

    
I was a World War II pilot.  I flew P-40s with the Flying Tigers in China.  I survived bombing missions over Europe, in Avro Lancasters and B-17 Flying Fortresses.  I tangled with Zeros in Wildcats and Hellcats in the Pacific.
I also flew F-4s Phantoms over Hanoi and F-14s over the Med.  And biplanes, in World War I.
These were [...]

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The Great Raid

In January 1945 a company of 120 American Rangers and Alamo Scouts sneaked across the Central Luzon plain and slipped behind enemy lines for 48 hours.  
They attacked the Cabanatuan prison camp and liberated 511 American prisoners of war.  The prisoners were survivors of the Bataan and Corregidor siege in 1942, and had been beaten and starved for 3 years.
Only [...]

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My Dad And His Delicious Airplane Tales

My Dad was in High School during World War 2.  He lived in Paco.  He was shanghaied into working for the Japanese at Nielson airfield.  The runway at Nielson later became Paseo de Roxas Avenue.  The large ramp became Ayala Avenue.  You can see a history of Nielson Field here.
Dad was put to work helping overhaul Mitsubishi engines [...]

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