Jim:
All I can say is I am humbled by your post. I know that I was just so FULL of myself over getting a construction article in the magazine! I still get wrapped up in myself too often... but that is another story...
Will
You smoooooth talker. ALL RIGHT I'll buy your new book too! Again I am selfish. I'll buy it because I genuinely enjoyed your last book, "Lonely are the Hunted". (shameless plug!)
Milt:
Gene Schaeffer is the maybe the only guy I ever watched where I'd come back and think, I don't know how to do that. Imagine my awe years later, Gene told me that he thought Bob Hunt and I came closer to duplicating his style than anyone else out there. Whew....
So many CLPA heroes - to name 10 is to leave out 100 others. Yet I am struck not just by their modeling excellence but by their humanity and the examples and life lessons they delivered. Here's a few from the past that pop into mind, in no particular order:
George Aldrich: Our first NATs, in Willow Grove in 1965: GMA assuming the role of "official timer" for a bunch of kids holding an impromptu 6" glider contest in the hanger - at 1:30 in the morning. That's the kind of thing that heroes do.
Jim Kostecky: Always a tough competitor who managed to also remind us all to have some fun and not take ourselves so seriously. Set the standards for design-styling excellence; and for displaying Playboy Magazines under the canopy.
Lew McFarland: never a bigger combination of TOUGH competitor and consummate southern gentleman. Lost count of how many times I saw him do this: he'd go out and fly a so-so good first round flight. People would start thinking "Hey we can get Lew today." Only Lew would go off and fly typically 3 practice flights. Come the second round: he'd take off, his head would kinda lean over to one side... and he'd set the air on fire.
Bob Gialdini: another of those gentleman competitors who took CL Precision Aerobatics and raised the bar to CL Performance Art. Taught me that the flight begins when you pick up your airplane in the pits, and ends when you replace it there.
Don Bambrick, Dave Gierke, Leroy Gunther, Jerry Worth: among a select few who routinely demonstrated how to create pure art forms in balsa, tissue and dope. No spray on auto-shine here, these guys did the real thing using media that HAD to be worked to deliver perfection.
Jack Sheeks: way back people would pick on Jack for the many designs he had published. Yet now. HOW MANY people acknowledge that getting the
latest FM with the latest Sheeks bird was their highlight of the month! Reading Jack's old articles even now energizes me and makes me want to
run into the workshop and get busy!
Bob Gieseke: soft spoken, no frills, no show off. THoroughly prepared and practiced. Just let his work do the talking. And to paraphrase, what he DID shouted so loud you could not hear what everyone else was saying...
Billy Werwage. Always knew (knows!) what to do, never got intimidated by anyone or anything. Flexible and adaptive when flying conditions turned bad. Even when he lost, he never accepted defeat as anything but a temporary setback. Always nice to people he met no matter what their experience.
there have been so many others....