Wednesday, June 26, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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I thoroughly enjoyed your June 23 article “World War II planes can still fly, but who will keep them flying?” The people who can keep them flying are still out there, ready and willing to teach the next few generations how to do it.
The problem with training new people is twofold. First is that those of us with the hands-on experience are rapidly dying off. For example,I spent four years in the Air Force servicing aircraft. But I am 88 years old and, while mentally competent to perform tasks learned in 1950, am physically unable to climb around the planes.
Which brings us to the second problem: How do we disseminate our knowledge? I was lucky in that regard twice — once by being hired as an expert witness, thereby getting boxes of aircraft-related material to keep myself updated for the court case; and by having several aircraft-related books published. Most veterans do not have these opportunities.
There is a world of difference between the reciprocating engines of the WW II planes and the jets and turbojets of today’s Air Force, and we are losing the history of those earlier planes and engines rapidly. The airplane I gave three years of my life to — the B-29 — required considerable coddling, but where are the coddlers going to come from?
