Great gift idea!

For me, that is.

IMing with frequent reader Brandon, he sent me a link to this web site that sells prints commemorating various Air Force units. I wasn’t able to find my second assignment working RF-4Cs with 51st at Osan AB, South Korea or my post active duty National Guard years with the 178th at Springfield Ohio ANG, but they did have my first and third assignments:

Those are pretty darn nice! Only a few months until my birthday….

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F me??? Well, FU too, buddy!

Have you ever wondered about the misanthropic ‘FU’ emblazoned proudly on PapaGolf’s flanks? Judging by the number of people that have asked me about it, chances are good that you have. Heck, I asked too when I first went to “take a look,” which is my code for “pretend to look for a reason not to buy this plane.”

Well, as it turns out, Papa comes by his easy-to-misconstrue tattoos honourably. The simple explanation is that the US Air Force numbered F-86s with the ‘FU-‘ followed by a three-digit integer, as can be plainly seen here:

“Sure,” you say, “but what has that to do with an RV-6?” Well, the backstory there is that the builder of PapaGolf was an F-86 pilot stationed in Europe back in the ’50s. He flew in the 417th Fighter Bomber Squadron under the umbrella of the 50th Fighter Bomber Wing. His squadron commander was a fella you’ve probably heard of, Gen. Chuck Yeager. On the tail of this plane, you can see the unit emblem that Papa has painted on his tail as well:

This the unit patch that was worn on their uniforms:

Here are a couple more photos of 417th birds that I was able to find via the Google Oracle:

Papa is missing the big yellow stripe show on this 417th F-86:

That’s a bit of a shame. It’s purty.

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New filler material

AvGas is approaching $5 a gallon, so this may not be much of a year for flying. I’ve already curtailed my evening canters – pretty much looking for weekend trips only this year. We’ll see.

Anyway, I’ve got to fill space on the blog somehow, and if I continue down the slippery slope of “anger blogging,” all the fun is going to go out of it. So, for the first time ever, I’m introducing “Old Airplane Picture Day.” The beauty of really old pictures of really old airplanes is twofold: I like them (as you may have noticed with my insistance on using those dreary sepia-toned pix of PapaGolf in the banner), and they are typically unencumbered with those ever-annoying copyright issues.

So, short story already made too long, here’s the first. I’m too lazy to do even rudimentary research to determine what kind of plane this is, or any of its storied history. As is my wont, I will fill in the vast gaps left by my slothful nature and just make stuff up.

Here we have an example of a depression era float plane. By living a life of bleak subsistance which eroded their bodies to mere husks of their former sizes, the Turner brothers were able to devote enough of their limited resources to the design and building of the Turner WH-1 (‘WH’ having been agreed to by the ever-cheerful boys as a reminder of their constant lament that “We’re Hungry”).

The design of the plane reflected their decreased wealth, both in its meager wingspan and barely suitable three cylinder engine:

The story, unfortunately, doesn’t have a happy ending. The design showed tremendous promise and caught the eye of a wealthy investor. Having been fronted a few thousand dollars to advance the design, the boys quite understandably leapt at the opportunity to engorge themselves at the local buffet. What they failed to consider was the effect this would have on their weight, and both perished in a tragic accident after an ensuing test flight proved the WH-1 to be incapable of flight with the additional load.

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