By Phil Rowe
One of the most exciting aspects of this aviator's career was definitely the opportunity to fly in the newest airplanes. It is a thrill to experience ever higher performance and greater capabilities in each wonderful machine. Faster, higher and more maneuverable new airplanes makes older, lesser ones seem staid and even old-fashioned. Onward and upward become the ingredients to the excitement that can be a kind of craving.
I've been among the lucky ones to have experienced that thrill more than once. But in this day of orbiting space stations and trips to the moon atop rockets and lunar landers, it may be that what thrilled me seems tame to those who've become jaded by today's rapid pace of change. What thrilled me would probably not impress the blase' modern generation that's come to take for granted what was once so awe-inspiring.
Never-the-less, I enjoyed the wonder and delight of moving from one airplane to the next. Each change brought challenges and excitement, a thrill that cannot be replaced. It happened when I moved from propeller-driven planes to jets, from trainers to bombers, and bombers to fighters. It even happened when I moved from planes with eight jet engines to saiplanes without an engine at all. Each change was exciting and challenging for me. Yes indeed, I was fortunate.
I've logged time in 33 types and models of military airplanes in a variety of capacities. That doesn't count the dozens of others that I've flown in, military and civil, as just a passenger. I've served as a navigator, radar operator, flight engineer, electronic countermeasures specialist and photo reconnaissance systems operator. I've piloted several officially and unofficially. And I've seen quite a bit of this world from low level to over 50,000 feet. From low speeds to over Mach 2 I've logged over 4000 hours and loved nearly every minute of it.
I do, of course, have some favorite airplanes as well as some that I am less enthusiastic about. Some really impressed me while others disappointed. A few scared the heck out of me and there were a few as comfortable as an old pair of slippers. A few rode smoothly but some were as rough as a buckboard wagon over a rocky trail.
I really liked the twin-jet RF-4C Phantom II, even though that was the only plane which I flew in actual combat where the "bad guys" were shooting real bullets at me. It was an exciting, high performance speedster that flew at over 500 knots at treetop level and also over Mach 2 at high altitude. But my very favorite aircraft was a four-engine wonder known as the Hustler.
The Hustler was the delta-winged B-58 supersonic bomber, operational in the 1960's and 70's. It was in its day the hottest flying machine in the sky. And it was the most challenging craft to fly safely and effectively. Its design was revolutionary, in appearance and construction. Every flight was a thrill and seldom without excitement or real danger. What a "high" that was.
At the other end of the spectrum for me was the T-33 single engine jet trainer. It was not only uncomfortable with seats as hard as a rock, I just didn't trust it. I also didn't much care for KC-135 jet tanker, probably because it was next to impossible to escape. Its bailout limitations were not at all reassuring for one accustomed to having an ejection seat handy.
Career aviators all feel quite differently about their airplanes. Few would disagree, I feel, that the challenges and excitement of each new one added spice and interest to the work they chose to follow. It certainly did for me.
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