Boise, ID

Being an old Air Force guy, and avid military enthusiast, I love all things with wings and/or hats. Spotting a pair of war birds parked nearby, I made a beeline towards them. As I reached the aircraft, I noticed an old man with a veterans ball cap. The lettering identified him as a Korean War vet.

Turned out the old fella’ worked at an operation field in Korea during the war. His main function was to identify enemy aircraft on the attack and call in reinforcements. The one thing I got out of the brief conversation, was that he was the only one in his outfit that could identify all 26 aircraft silhouettes’ of enemy aircraft! (And you wonder why we shot down some of our own guys)!

Since he had already looked over most of the displays, I thanked him for his service and we parted ways. I made my way down a line of small civilian aircraft. Two in particular caught my fancy. One was a yellow Piper Cub. I have fond memories of this aircraft, as my uncle was a back country pilot and my first ride in an airplane was in a cub. The second one was a small red Cessna 150-similar to my uncles second aircraft.

An interesting place located on the grounds of the Nampa Airport is the Warhawk Air Museum. I had always wanted to visit, but never found the time. Although it was closed during the air show, they had opened up the hangar doors and installed a rope line, so people could view what was inside. I have to say, I anticipate a visit real soon!

Next door to the museum was an old F-84 Sabre jet and a P-40 Warhawk. Behind the aircraft were a half dozen wheeled relics of World War II.

I completed my quick photographic tour of the static displays and headed back towards my wife. As I greeted her, I noticed a elderly gentleman-with a floppy hat, standing behind my lawn chair in the shade of the aforementioned wing.

The first part of the show was a display of model aircraft performing various stunts. Although some of them performed amazing tricks, I quickly lost interest. Even my wife, dove back into her book.

I laid down my camera and walked back towards the shade of the wing. As I did so, the elderly gentleman standing nearby, spoke up. “Interesting, but not the same as the real thing, huh?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I’m ready for the airshow.”

Shortly thereafter, he introduced himself as an old Air Force Mechanic during WWII. I informed him that my dad was a Navigator during the war, and that I myself had also been in the Air Force.

During various lulls in the show, he would tell me stories of different aircraft he worked on, the pros and cons of different power plants, etc. Since my dad flew bombers, we discussed the good and bad of early bombers such as the B-24 and B-29. At one point the told me that he had worked on fighters.

Informing him, that I had spotted a P-51 Mustang and a P-40 Warhawk on the flight line, naturally the conversation turned to those, and the problems encountered during their early years.

Stay tuned for Part 3!