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From: Francis Hamit
Date: 7/2/2002
Time: 11:03:27 AM
Remote Name: 209.86.219.251
Now that you mention it, yeah, I remember that. I never knew Maj. Munson very well. I got there in March and he was gone a few weeks later. He was pretty old, or at least looked that way. Major Miller, who was the next C.O., was a really great guy. All the men and pilots liked him. A lot of the pilots were fixed wing only and still learning the job (I recall a lot of IFR certifications and a shortage of IP's). Flying Beavers in formation was actually a pretty silly thing to do. Not to mention a little bit dangerous and against our own regulations. We didn't have that many that we could spare four of them if there had been an accident. For those of you not familiar with the craft, these were DeHavillands all made in 1944 or 45. The pilots were basically driving the bus for the intercept operators in the back. The pilots were officers and the ops were all E-4's and E-5's...but they were in charge of the missions. This was not atypical in the ASA where rank didn't matter as long as the job got done. Unfortunately, most of the pilots were Regular Army or Reserve, transferred in during the war to fill the slots. It created some problems. Pilots mostly wanted to fly, but they also had to do staff work, which they didn't like. Since we were short of clerks anyway, this attitude created more problems. The average mission was four hours and then they wanted to go back to the hotel, not do paperwork. Hell, ASA was a paperwork factory! The u-6 Beaver was a very durable, steady platform, but every once in awhile one of the pilots owuld get a wild hair up his ass. One tried to do an Ingleman turn over the airfield (can't be done in that aircraft without crashing it) and another, for some reason , decided he would try and land one upside down. (He was relieved on the spot and sent to Siagon for a psych evaluation.) Because of such dangerous stunts, the brass cracked down and there were no more formations flown, as far as I know.