Good Old Days

I don't think the current guys have any understanding of the power and navigation problems we had in the old days. I flew H-21s in the heat at Nellis and in the cold and dark out of Eielson.  The navigation problem at night in Alaska was something else. Once out of the Fairbanks or Galena valley, no nav aids and no UHF com. One night I made a letdown and landing in 3000ft of fog based on the ADF needle and an approach I drew out on my pad. Picked up a critically injured father and son whose bush pilot had crashed that afternoon trying to get into the same strip. A couple of times at Thule and in Alaska I would have given my eyetooth for an H-3. We thought we were in hog heaven when we traded our H-21s for H-43s at Nellis and big time heaven when we traded our H-21s for Huey Fs at Elglin. Flew the last AF 21 to a museum from Eglin.

Bob Adams