Bob’s got his head in the clouds! He’s been like that for a long time, so it’s unlikely to change. That suits me just fine because his stories reawaken the kid in this ground-bound man.

He’s flown eight military jets, including a C-140 often used as a trainer for Space Shuttle landings, 27 civilian planes of various types, 20 experimental aircraft (including five he’s built from parts and plans), two gliders, “a bunch of ultralights like a Russian Aviatica, a Swedish Lark, and others with names I can’t pronounce.” During that time he also flew Phantoms in combat, trained new fighter pilots and became a military air traffic controller.

His logbook time totals “only” 6,000 hours in 45 years. He compares his flying time to a commercial pilot’s amassing that many hours in far fewer years:

“Some airline guys have 18,000 hours. A neighbor in Florida flies four times a month and logs 90 hours. But that’s eight hours to England and eight back, plus 30 minutes on departure and 30 minutes on descent when he actually manipulates the controls. The rest of that time he’s monitoring the airplane’s systems at 37,000 feet. A guy with 1,000 hours of fighter time has had 1,000 hours of hands-on work!”

His fighter plane tales catch my attention, especially one of an F-101 Voodoo, which he says “goes like a bat low down,” and the F-4 Phantom like one that startled our daughter out of a New River privy years ago. His favorite rides are the “wonderfully balanced” T-38 Talon flown by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds for eight years, and his newly-built Glasair III stunt and cruise plane. He describes both as “finely balanced carving knives that slice through the air with smooth grace and put the airplane wherever you want it to be.”

Bob’s a retired U.S. Air Force colonel. He and his wife have a vacation home just down the street from us. We overgrown kids log a lot of front porch time. Several of his experiences linger in this cluttered mind.

Once he was in a two-seater trainer high above the western desert. His pupil, a very bright and college educated trainee, banked the jet toward a ground target some distance ahead and below. Gaining speed and losing altitude every second, the plane streaked toward the stationary target. When the distance separating plane from earth approached the point of no return, Bob realized the man was totally focused (“boresighted”) on the target and unaware of their closeness to mother earth. When the student ignored his radio cautions, Bob took control of the plane. The student later washed out of the program.

Later, it was gunnery-practice time for a group of fighter pilots. Their target was a long sleeve towed far behind a manned F-100 fighter controlled by radio signals from an airbase trailer. One by one, the pilots strafed the sock with machine gun fire until their ammunition was gone, then the ground-based radio operator turned the F-100 back toward home. Unfortunately, he lost control of the plane during landing, and it headed straight for the trailer and radio operators!

When a controller in the tower sounded the trailer’s “bail out alarm,” the men inside scrambled to escape. Unable to steer or stop the plane conventionally, its fast-thinking on-board pilot retracted the landing gear, belly-flopping the plane to a skidding stop within feet of the trailer. The only injuries were to the three men piled up against the trailer’s unopened door.

In another incident, Bob was grilling steaks outside his home a short distance from the nearby Air Force base. An approaching T-38 trainer had flown through a flock of blackbirds, shutting down both engines and all controls. As it coasted directly overhead, he heard the familiar “Poomp!” Poomp!” firing of two ejection seats. After having glided for almost three miles, the empty plane soared through a wheat field, cleared a four-lane highway and tall chain link fence, then rolled to a right-side-up stop in a factory’s large front yard.

Air Force emergency vehicles followed the lead of a fire truck charging along the path left by the empty jet. Unlike the plane, however, the truck-led convoy went straight across the interstate, scattering cars like marbles and charged straight through the factory’s fence.

Amazingly, a local television station’s camera crew was in the area and filmed the whole thing to show on the evening news. The airplane’s parachuting trainee had landed in the back yard of an airbase house and was found sitting on the back porch, drinking tea with the family. Bob’s enormously talented and always a hoot to have around, though only a part-time neighbor.

Our wives stay inside or smile patiently and endure. But Joann hasn’t heard all the stories before.