Category Archives: Single Ship

Moms and Dads love telling stories on their kids, right? The cute things they said and did, the more embarrassing to the child as an adult, the better. On the occasion of my big Seven–O birthday, my wife Ann announced that she had a presentation to make and asked everyone to take a seat in the living room. She opened an envelope and immediately began to tear up as she tried to explain that my brother had found among our parents’ effects two small note cards upon which our father had written the most memorable (to our parents) sayings for … Continue reading →

We only experience any birthday once in a lifetime, but some obviously arrive with more significance than others. My 60th year was not a good time for me. I found myself looking back with regrets about what might have been and forward with pessimism about what the future might hold. The day in the middle representing current time therefore became prime territory for depression, a condition with sufficient history in my family to be of concern. Fortunately, the ill effects of that milestone didn’t continue. My brother is six years older, but for the 20 days between his birthday and … Continue reading →

If you have visited this logbook in the past and read any of the parts in the series “Beautiful Aviation Art,” you are probably aware that my sole purpose in posting the images is to pay tribute first to the airmen, and second to the artists who so wondrously capture single moments in the time of a world conflict almost beyond imagination. In Part Four, I mentioned that the originator of the slide show with these images stumbled upon my website during an online search on a totally unrelated topic, and realized that we had flown Phantoms together in the … Continue reading →

We continue with the six-part series to showcase some of the finest examples of art depicting events of the WWII air war. I discovered the original images in a gorgeous slide show created by a good friend and fellow fighter pilot, Yago F. de Bobadilla, who rose to the rank of Major General in the Spanish Air Force. Hauptmann Hans-Joachim Marseille, better known as the Star of Africa, was probably the most formidable opponent the British ever encountered in the air. He was victorious in 158 aerial combats against the Royal Air Force, 154 of which were fighter aircraft. Marseille … Continue reading →

In Part One of “Beautiful Aviation Art,” I introduced the planned six-part series by speculating that I knew the author. At the time, conjecture was my only option because I had not been able to confirm that he was in fact the same, the one and only, Yago F. de Bobadilla, a captain in the Spanish Air Force on an exchange-officer assignment with the United States Air Force at Luke AFB, Arizona, during my tour of duty there as an instructor pilot in the F-4 Phantom II. But on May 14, 2012 I received the following email: My dear friend … Continue reading →

Note: If you are looking at the Home Page Fighter Pilot Header, click on the post title to view its dedicated page and Featured Image Header. Have you ever wondered why no one ever uses the term “handywoman?” Well, now you need ponder that question no longer, because here’s photographic evidence of male practical ingenuity at work designing solutions for a wide variety of problems that can make everyday life troublesome. Don’t have a spoon? I can fix that! Seatbelt broken? I can fix that! TV too large for the old cabinet? I can fix that! Electrical problem? I can … Continue reading →