I am a Thud pilot.

[Plawranc]

I do love me a good thud

[Shifty]

Not sure shifty; i could probably find out easy enough. I do know that he was not a thud pilot (which probably has a good deal to do with why he didn't like the F105)  In Vietnam my grandfather flew the C47 as both a pamphlet bomber and the gunship version.

Here he is with the pamphlet bomber


Later he continued to fly for the USAF in SAC.  One day while flying a training mission (I think), his radio squawked with instructions to divert to a new flight path in order to assist a Boeing PR team with an airborne photo shoot of the B47.  He did as instructed and the result was this:

This huge photo hung in the lobby of Boeing's HQ for years; then was gifted to my grandfather once Boeing no longer had a use for it. It sat over his piano in his living room long before I can remember and was there until he passed away. Now my father has it in his den sitting over the same piano.


I know I've posted these pictures before but this was the first time I posted some of the story with them. If you're still interested shifty, I'll see what I can dig up about his unit postings and actual timeline.

Very Cool! 

[Brooke]

Thanks for the link -- it was a great documentary. <S>

[Brooke]

I had heard that the F-105 was not a very good plane as evidenced by loss rate in Vietnam.  This documentary has the opposite point of view, so it was especially interesting to me.