Past Captain’s Corner Entry
Posted on Saturday, March 13, 2010
Our Thursday dinner meeting was both active and informing. We had 17 guests...WOW!!! an array of general officers, a smattering of former flight captains, a superb guest speaker, and one induction.
Our February guest speaker, Col Michael E. "Hahns" Gantt, 53rd Wing Commander, is an '88 AFA graduate and Life Member of Daedalians. He clearly walked us through the many facets of the mission of the 53rd to that of Consumer Reports. If an aircraft shoots bullets or rockets or missiles, or fires a weapon, or drops a bomb, or releases anything that goes BOOM!, as Commander of the 53rd, he owns it, and he operates it, and he tests it. If you missed Col Gantt's presentation, we who were there will probably need to have him explain to us again the many tasks of the 53rd. Many thanks, "Hahns."
Our orator, Frank Roberts, then inducted Lt Col Joe Scott Roberts, USAF, (Ret), former F-4 pilot. ; come to think of it, all F-4 pilots are former F-4 pilots. Frank welcomed him aboard weaving the Hurlburt Field Air Park in with the history of the Daedalians. He described the early situation of air power piror to and including WWI. Interesting stats rolled off his lips like magic concerning aircraft numbers and pilot numbers. Did you know that there were 2,000 Navy and Marine pilots then?
And besides all that we had so many pilots in "bags" that you could literally smell the sweat, or at least you thought you could. Ah, and what a grand odor it was. Perhaps it was only a memory of JP-4 after all.
The Sheriff was away on Business, so our Vice Captain, Bob Buhrow, led us sthrough the trenches.
