My Flight Log - Back in the Cockpit at 80

GeoCities.us » Pentagon » Flight

My Flight Log
Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator, Republic P-47D

Home · My Flight Log · What I Remember

In the Army we logged every flight in a little book, and I still have mine. I have kept this one the same way, more or less. I don't write down every morning, only the flights worth remembering, good or bad.

How I grade my landings:

	A All three wheels at once, on the centerline, and you could have set a cup of coffee on the dashboard.
	B One small bounce, or a little off to the side. My crew chief wouldn't have said anything.
	C Down and safe, but not pretty. My crew chief would have said something.
	D Bounced more than once, or ran off into the grass. The airplane could fly again. I should maybe sit out a turn.
	F The airplane could not fly again.

Date	The flight	Landing
Dec. 26, 1998	Jason set up the computer. I tried three times and never got out of the menu. He says that counts as a flight. It does not.	none
Dec. 28	Found the Thunderbolt and got her onto the runway. Couldn't find the throttle on the keyboard. Taxied into the grass at idle and sat there.	none
Jan. 2, 1999	First takeoff! More than fifty years since the last one. I flew around for twenty minutes because I didn't know how to come back. Then I tried, and came down a quarter mile short of the runway.	F
Jan. 9	Takeoffs and landings, around and around the field, like primary training. Four tries.	F, F, D, D
Jan. 23	More of the same. Five tries. Getting the feel of the flare. Lost it on the last one and spun around on the ground.	D, C, D, C, F
Feb. 6	My first fight. One Focke-Wulf 190, set on the easiest level. He shot me down in about a minute and a half. I never saw him after the first pass.	none
Feb. 14	Valentine's Day. Genevieve pulled up a chair to watch. One 190 again. I kept my speed up, stayed above him, came down on him the way we were taught, and got him. Genevieve said "Well, good." Landed with her watching, which was harder than the fight.	C
Feb. 27	Two Messerschmitt 109s. Got one. The other one got me while I was admiring my work. A lesson I learned in 1944 too.	none
Mar. 13	Dive practice from high up. Pulled out too late on the third one and flew into a field. The computer was kinder about it than the Army would have been.	F
Mar. 27	My first real landing. All three wheels, right on the line. I called Genevieve in from the garden. She asked me to do it again, so I did, and it was nothing to write home about.	A, C
Apr. 10	Tried the Mustang, out of curiosity. She's a lighter, livelier airplane and she turns better than the Jug. The Mustang boys always told us so, and I suppose they were right. I didn't trust her. Went back to the Thunderbolt the next day.	B
May 1	Flew the Messerschmitt 109 to see the other fellow's side of it. A small, cramped cockpit. Landing gear set close together, and she wanted to swing on the ground. I felt like I was sitting in somebody else's chair in church.	D
May 29	A long, quiet flight over the south of England, looking for the place our field used to be. The program doesn't have it, which is no surprise. It was only ever a field. Landed at a big airfield instead.	B
June 6	Didn't fly. Church, then a long while out on the patio. Some days you don't.
June 19	Jason home for the summer and watching. Four 190s. I got two of them and came home with holes in the wings and my grandson hollering. Bounced it, but I'll take it.	C
July 4	Turned all the realism settings up as far as they go, for the first time. Much harder. Much more like it. Ran off into the grass on the landing.	D
July 24	Set the clock to late evening and flew a long one, coming home into the sunset. They draw a very pretty sunset. Down nicely.	B
Aug. 14	Jason set up a stiff crosswind before he went back to school, as a going-away present. Thank you, Jason. Wing down into the wind, opposite rudder, and still drifted.	C
Aug. 28	Three 109s at the hardest level. I lasted longer than I expected and less long than I hoped.	none
Sept. 11	My best day. One 190 at the hardest level. He was better than me in a turn, so I quit turning with him. Dove away, came back up with all that speed, and got him on the second pass. That is how we did it. That is how the Jug wanted to be flown. Then the best landing I've made.	A
Sept. 17	Landing practice, calm air. Four tries. Getting there.	B, B, A, C

The Totals

Landings in this log: 26.
A: 3 B: 5 C: 7 D: 6 F: 5

Enemy airplanes shot down: 5. Times shot down myself: 3, not counting the ones I was too embarrassed to write down.

Time in the computer Thunderbolt, by my own rough count: about 200 hours, nearly all of it before 9 o'clock in the morning.

Five F's out of twenty-six is not a record I'd have shown my flight instructor. But the last seven landings have all been C or better, and that is going in the right direction. At my age, that is all you can ask.

Home · What I Remember · Write to me
Last updated September 18, 1999