Real Pilots?

[2ndsegment]

Before Nuclear non-proliferation had it's own office and South Africa and Israel were rumored to have homemade nuclear weapons I put on a brand new Bonanza Airlines DC-9-10 and flown to McCarren Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was my first jet flight ever and I was impressed how the pilot just sort of looked down among the mountains, sighted the airfield and descended to land smoothly like, in my mind, a carrier pilot. With me was Wing Commander Stanley Hubbard of the RAF (retired) a member of the American Helicopter Society, the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and undaunted I found out later by deep soup in the Carolina mountains. As we sought out the house of his contact, the Commander of the USAF Fighter Weapons School, we could look up and see the blinking beacons and after burner flames of Thunderchiefs taking off and headed West. The next day we checked in at the gate as visitors and soon were in the ward room with a bevy of F-100 and F-105 Wild Weasel pilots with one or two 100 mission patches on their shoulders. No Misteys here.