MUSTANG SALLY

THE VISTA PRESS ^ | MAY 2018 | THOMAS CALABRESE

[Thank You Rush]

Sally Connors had been working at the Carlsbad Airport for three years and even though she was only fourteen years old, she knew more about flying than pilots much older than herself. She had been taking flight training lessons since she was thirteen and planned on flying solo when she turned sixteen and getting her pilot’s license when she became eligible on her seventeenth birthday. Sally first saw an airplane up close on her fifth birthday at the San Diego Airport and has consumed by anything aeronautical ever since. She read everything she could find about female pilots which included; Amelia Earhart, Harriet Quimbey, Pancho Barnes, Bessie Coleman, Amy Johnson, Jacqueline Cochran and Willa Brown among others.

[Hieronymus]

I hate to have to thank you, but facing reality is far more important than having good feelings.

Thanks for your work on this.

[higgmeister]

General Jimmy Stewart was such an all around great man that the story was almost believable, until the Sally Connor character was such an overachiever it reached the realm of myth.   The truth is actually better than fiction in this case also.   When Jimmy Stewart sold his P-51, Thunderbird, to Jackie Cochran, it was for “$1.00 and other consideration.”.   She sold it back to him the same way.

On 1 September 1954, Jimmy Stewart sold N5528N to Joe De Bona for $1.00 plus a $7,500.00 Chattel Mortgage.   That was more than likely for the cost of a new engine.

I'll never forget one day in USAF Basic Training, our Flight was marched into a classroom and a film was played.   It happened to be General Stewart in uniform telling us of our duty that we had to uphold in the US Air Force.   It was a great way to reinforce and elevate patriotism, right at the close of Viet Nam.   Saigon fell half way through our training.

[TXnMA]

Thanks for posting this amazing story!

Shared with my P-51 and A-10 buff friends...

[TXnMA]

After reading all other comments, I revise mine to "amazing-- but fanciful -- story"...

[Thank You Rush]

I just sent a PM to you but missed seeing this reply first.

We’re entitled to some “fanciful” after all the nonsense we are put through on a daily basis, I think.