My Dad

I suppose lots of little girls grow up thinking their dad is a hero.

I grew up watching promotional films of my dad's test flying for North American (which is now part of Boeing, I believe). Over and over again as a child I watched him take off in an F-100 with a solid fuel booster rocket strapped to the fuselage, and over and over I watched him punch out the one time the rocket didn't drop off but dangled below the landing gear. I thought every kid's dad bailed out of aircraft at work. I suppose a lot of people WISHED they had ejection seats at work . . . .

You can watch him take off from the "World's Shortest Runway" in a short video clip here and read an article about it in Air & Space Magazine.

There's also a video produced by Air & Space, called, like the article, "Runways of Fire," but it's hard to find now. I've got a copy, but it's in NTSC format--not much good to my British friends unless they have a multi-region video player.

While we're at it, I guess I should mention my dad's book Aces Wild on the race for Mach 1 (also known as breaking the sound barrier). Surprise, surprise--it wasn't necessarily Chuck Yeager who did it first. Oooo, I shouldn't spoil the plotline!

Next, I should do a tribute to my mom....