>>I was there to sit in the planes and dream, which I will bet they understood.<<
I have an uncle (still living) who turned 18 near the end of WW II and who loved airplanes - he enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was always in trouble when he was going through flight training in San Antonio, TX... Seems every time he was standing in a formation and a plane would take off or land, his head instinctively followed it - getting him in trouble... The penalty - double-time around the airfield..
He spent many hours running...
Troop - Do you like watching airplanes?
Yes Sir!
Take a lap around the airfield...
Yes Sir!
When he would get back it was:
Troop - Do you still like to watch airplanes?
Yes Sir!
Take another lap...
He was never one to bend the truth for anything or anybody, and his love of watching planes never waned.
What would you expect - he was half Wright...
Seems every time he was standing in a formation and a plane would take off or land, his head instinctively followed it - getting him in trouble... The penalty - double-time around the airfield..<<<
That I can understand, for I still do the same, can’t resist at least a glimpse of its running lights at night.
The Mercy flight copter goes over my mobile, the full length, when it is on a real emergency flight, you can hear the extra strain and at times, I really fear it is too overloaded to clear the mountain.
Imagine how boring I find this area of Arizona, the airport is 25 miles east of me, so very seldom see a plane.
At Wellton, Az, my property line was across the street from the Yuma Proving Grounds test range and they all flew over my place to reach it, even the Space Ship.
I once told Bill that I had gotten out the door in time to see a medium sized airplane, make a sharp right hand turn, he said no, planes did not do that, I must have seen a helicopter.
I knew what I saw for it was too low and I looked at the bottom of the plane as it went over.
That weekend, it was on the news, a test plane from England with a Rolls Royce engine, that could make turns.
This was about 1974.
We even had spies show up in 1970, but then we did not know what they were talking about, for we knew nothing of what flew on the range, they had gone for a 5 mile walk and all of a sudden were looking in our window and asking questions, a middle aged foreign type of couple.
Bill being the nice guy that he was, took them back to town, for it was 10 or 11 pm and not the time to walk in our neighborhood, lots of rattlesnakes.
They said they were staying at the motel.
The next morning, after we had decided they did not add up, Bill went to town “to see if they were OK?”, they had lied and had not stayed at the motel, this was in 1970 or early in 71.
Bill bought the Sunday paper and there it was, the new Jet Helicopter had been tested on our range. And we missed it or did not know it existed so had no idea what it was.
By the time the space ship tests came, Bill worked for a man, who had been in the Air Force with one of its pilots and I worked at the Court, so we knew all about the s. ships and I watched them most week nights, while I milked my goats. 1973 era and later, lots of years of testing and the base was in the Wellton district.