Warbird Information Exchange

I don't know? I Sponsered him at the gathering of Eagles 2006 and had him over to the house a few times and he was as nice as can be.. I hope to see him at the AOPA convention in Hartford this fall.. Maybe were just too peas in a pod.1? He likes his fishing and hunting! Best thing about him is that there is no B.S. . He tells you what's on his mind. .

I guess some people get along with others, and some don't. At anyrate this all falls back to what I said. I treat others how they treat me, and the Yeagers have been very nice to me. There is nothing that I have that Gen. Yeager wants. I would give you all that same chance as well.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

As a EAA member Mustang, You know how much he does for the young EAGLES. He was a insperation to me to become more involved in the Young Eagles program and EAA.. With his insperation I shined a little in 2007 at Oshkosh. I ball rolling and helped get the A/C units for the Vendor Break rooms / Vip Tents and the A/C for new Charlie Hillard .. AlL I can say is good things about the man. Straight shooter no B/S. I have bigger plans for next year.

One should be careful when writing or talking about what someone else did, and only say what we know or at least identlfy the source of the info we report. Do we really know it because we saw or heard it ourselves; did we get it from another source, or is it just a story we are passing on? I have met perhaps a dozen people that asked me if I sold my plane. When I told them, no, I did not have it for sale, they said they heard it was. Not one of them could come up with the source of their rumor. One morning at Oskosh, someone offered their sympathy at what happened to my plane. When I said that I didn't know what they were talking about, turns out the had heard I had run off in the ditch when taxiing in. The truth was there was a traffice jam, and to prevent overheating I parked out by the jets. To make room, I turned and swung around so the tailwheel was off into the grass. This got reported as taxiing into the ditch. Someone on Wix wrote that I was rude to a mentally retarded lineman at an airshow. I doubt if I have ever met the person posting that on Wix and doubt if he was there at this supposed incident. It sounds dubious, do airshows use mentally challenged people in responsible or dangerous positions like a lineman? It is almost worse to report something as fact, even it is only gossip you choose to believe, than a total fabrication. Even well intentioned people can get facts wrong. In the discussion about Gerry Beck's accident at Osh,different people reported that another plane in front of him landed on 27, others that it landed on 36, and another that it flew off to the south. So someone is mistaken. We have all heard stories about Yeager that don't compliment his manners; but how much has the writer actually seen himself? I have been around Yeager a few times and mostly have seen him present a good side. My only real personal contact with Pappy Boyington was to have dinner with him once at a show. He was polite and personable, but we have read or heard of other times.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

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My Family was very close to the Hulmans who own the Indianpolis 500 and we saw the drivers frequently all the time in Indianapolis.. AJ was very close to the Hulmans and frequently came to Terre Haute to see Tony. I never really thought to get his autograph as I seen him and the other drivers all the time and wasn't really interested in Auto racing... We went merly to the race as a social gathering.. Tony Hulman had a rather extensive collection of rare automobiles and has several warehouses in Terre Haute loaded with many rare and one of a kind items. He knew I liked airplanes and he showed me the Portable airfeild.. about 20 trunks full of airfield lights and wire .. Enough to do a whole airfield. Tony George now runs the show.. I really lost intrest when the strated installing restriter plates in the engines. I used to be like Gladiators on wheels now it puts me to sleep so I havn't been back to the race in a long time.

Bill's right, of course. Everyone has good days and bad ones. I'll stick to the facts concerning my one encounter with General Yeager.

Location: OSH. Time: 12 years ago (my 17-year-old was just a little guy).

My 5-year-old son Nathan and I were walking between some of the display hangars during Airventure. Those who have attended understand that the vehicle traffic moves very slowly--for safety's sake, of course. Which is why I was very much surprised to see a golf cart come tearing around a corner and come to a screeching, jumping halt 2-3 feet from running down Nate. The driver? Yup, you guessed it. I recall him muttering something unintelligible, but it definitely wasn't a "Whoa, sorry 'bout that." Who knows, maybe he was daydreaming about flying F-20's.

But just think: If he had hit Nate, all that autograph money would be coming my way! To this day, Nathan recalls General Yeager as "the crazy guy in the golfcart."

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

I'm not sure Chuck Yeager deserves all the condemnation he gets. He doesn't suffer fools, ass kissers, or liars very well. Am I supposed to be upset by this? I'm not exactly well polished myself, and am dont put up with snobs or idiots very well. I suspect we would quickly fal linto the officer NCO roles and be fine. But if you're a fool a fawner or a liar, you can bet he'll treat you like one.

And, like many Type A personalities I'm sure he throws the rules out when he decides they're dumb. whether they are or not

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

Yeager gave a talk at my university when I was a grad student. He announced right off that he does not bother to prepare for his talks and then gave a rambling - and short - talk that had no point and said very little. He was paid $20,000. There were a lot of things that he could have said that would have educated and informed the young college kids in his audience. Instead he just took the money and ran to catch an early flight. I heard that he did not bother to go anywhere on campus except the auditorium and did not talk and shake hands with anyone between stepping off the plane and getting onto the next flight a couple of hours later. That was 15 years ago and I will bet that the school still has not had another military man give a distinguished lecture.

Kevin

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Kevin McCartney

20K ? That's about the going rate. I go to alot of speaking engagements. Colin Powell get's 50K. If you want to listen to someone talk your going to pay.. I had a seat in a blue angels F-18 aircraft to give away to a celebrity and I would have to still pay'em to show up.. I could get Jimmy buffet but the Idea was shot down by the Navy

...and time runs out. The score? Tied, 3 to 3. Overtime? Up to the booth for further review.

Now for something completely different:

[img][img]http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l187/kep130/toughjob6.jpg[/img][/img][/quote]

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

$20K for Chuck? YGBSM!! Two years ago at Oshkosh I was moonlighting as a reservist coordinating the USAF Academy/ROTC recruiting booth in the big USAF paid-for pavilion. Somehow Chuck got a booth in there selling his wares (it's illegal to use a gov't facility for commercial purposes). There were several other USAF/ANG/Reserve recruiters and exhibits as well. When I was away from our booth, one of my recruiting buddies called to inform me he'd witnessed Chuck blowing a gasket on some young USAF enlisted recruiter. The short of it was after Chuck chewed out the Sgt, he came to my fellow officer in a tirade to bust a cap on the young NCO and the gist of Chuck's gripe was the young recruiter had no idea who he was and didn't kiss his ring and accord him proper courtesy. He asked if I wanted to do anything further about it and I said no, you handled it fine. My buddy's a former A-10 pilot and doesn't shy away from a challenge and he explained to the General very bluntly that not everyone knows aviation history, back off the young Sgt, he meant no disrespect, and by the way, you're lucky none of the brass from the pentagon here at Oshkosh has gotten wind of you using an Air Force facility to make money. He says Yeager stormed away cursing and muttering to himself. He also gave the young Sgt a short bio on Chuck and told him not to worry and to just avoid him. Glad I didn't have to deal with the mess.

To illustrate a contrast, I was recently part of a group that sponsored the attendance of 4 test pilots at an event in Arizona. All they asked for was to pay for their traveling expenses. It was no more than $2000 in the end (not each, but for ALL four) to get these distinguished pilots to attend. And while they weren't required to give a speech, but it turns out they WANTED to speak. Like Yeager, all of these pilots were in their 80s and could have come up with a million of reasons why not to attend this event. Yet, they all came happily and eagerly, and signed a tons of items for those in attendance with great big smiles and handshakes all around.

Personally, I have nothing but respect for those guys. I saw Gen. Yeager twice give a talk at the EAA museum during Airventure and he sounded like a true gentleman.

About his being "cocky" as someone else put it, have you ever met ANY fighter pilot who was not ???? Come on, it comes with the job ! Those who are not don't last very long in that line of work...

But all this is soooo suggestive anyway... I just love the fact that this fine gentleman is direct and colourful. Not a cleaned up, politically correct type that never says anything worth listenning to. We already have enough of those.

I can only hope to do this also one day with Mr. Yeager...


That would truly be an honour...

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Michel C
Thousands of a/c pics at Passion-Aviation

You better say Gen Yeager, Sir or else you might be on the receiving
end of something direct and colorful

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Don't touch my junk!!

Hehe...

I used the term "Mr" as in french, it is a mark of high respect. But you are probably right

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Michel C
Thousands of a/c pics at Passion-Aviation