[Milsurplus] Re: [ARC5] (no subject)

[Richard Arland, W3OSS]

My uncle, Major Malcom Stuart, was the chief of maintenance at Fairchild 
AFB, near Spokane during his twilight tour.

Our Air Explorer post went to Fairchild every year I was in high school. One 
year, I talked to Uncle Mac and he arranged a tour of one of his shops. We 
even got a chance to check out the Buff sim....and you are absolutely 
correct, Shew...it is VERY clostrophobic inside that big old bird.

Thanks to Uncle Mac we were able to check out the bomb-nav and the tail 
guns....they had the rear end of a Buff that had crashed earlier that year 
on a test stand. I don't remember whether it had four  .50 cals or four 
20mm, but I do remember it looked extremely intimidating!!

That was a fun tour!

Uncle Mac came by our place in Wilkes-Barre a few years ago on a cross 
country trip. It was fun to reminise about Fairchild. That is when I found 
out that he flew just about everything that had wings during WWII and Korea. 
Man, I wish I could get his memories down on tape! That would be really 
priceless.

73 Rich Arland, W3OSS
MSgt, USAF, Ret.
Military Pro-sign: "Alpha Romeo"
USAF Tech Controller for 20 years!
Fuchu "Water Walker" 68-70/74-79
Lajes Field 70-73
3rd Herd 73-74
"Flintlock"/SOTFE 79-84
Langley AFB 84-87

----- Original Message ----- 
From: D C *Mac* Macdonald

And if you were over about 5'7" tall
you'd have to bend over to use the
relief tube to pee or you'd knock your
head on stuff.  100-150 feet off the
deck over the west Texas deserts in
August with a full bladder was  NOT
a fun thing!

Mac - K2GKK/5

----Original Message Follows----
From: KG4ERX at aol.com

EWO on Buffs' eh?  I had the opportunity to go inside a BUFF nose  section
which is on display at the Chanute Air Museum in Rantoul, IL.  For  such a
large
airplane, it's amazing how claustrophobic you can get inside  one...there
were spaces for crew chairs (barely), tight accessways, and the rest  was
room
for avionics, etc...it almost seemed like manning the airframe was a  second
thought in the design.

My hat's off to the guys who flew them in Nam...


Shew
KG4ERX