(My Family Squadron)

Visits to the squadron: !

Most of my family have been aviators of some sort at one time or another. It began with my maternal grandmother, who flew Jennys back in the Roaring Twenties. My mother learned to fly during the war years and attempted to join the WASPs ferrying bombers to Europe. Her fiancé (my dad) convinced her not to because the work was so dangerous--or so he says. My mom thinks he was worried that she'd meet a handsome pilot and fly away with him. (Then where would I be?)

My dad also began flying in the forties, but it wasn't until after the war that he finally earned his wings in sailplanes. He was a member of the Southern California Soarcerers, a partnership that owned a Pratt-Reed sailplane. The club flew out of El Mirage Dry Lake during the Fifties and Sixties. When we all moved to Africa, he joined the flying club at Afenya, Ghana, which had been founded by Hanna Reitsch, Hitler's personal pilot.

My brother Paul started flying six days before I resumed lessons. Neither of us knew the other had started flying. It was very weird! Paul actually got his license about a year before I did. He flew out of Watsonville, California, where the air traffic system is much simpler than San Diego, so I use that as my excuse for failing to keep up. He lives in Sweden now and doesn't get to fly as much. It is terribly expensive to fly there, so I've passed him in hours by a wide margin.

My sister Ramona is now taking flying lessons too. She has been an aviator longer than I, however. She is a skydiver. In fact, she married her jump instructor Steve. You could say they "fell" for each other (har har). Now they own a Cessna 180 and fly out of Gonzales Louisiana. Ramona's interest in skydiving sparked both her brothers' interest too. I got bored (ok--scared) after my eigth jump. Ramona, Steve and Paul kept on jumping and have several many hundreds of jumps between them.

Then there is my brother Marty. He is not a pilot, but he is the master of another fluid--the ocean. He has been surfing off Santa Cruz, California for thirty years.

My ex-father-in-law, Douglas, was training to be a fighter pilot during World War II. He got as far as ACM (air combat maneuvers) before getting cut. I really admired him; he was a real gentleman. We remained friends even after his daughter and I divorced.

My brother Paul's father-in-law, Rudolf, was a Stuka pilot during the war, mostly in Africa and Crete. He also flew the ME262, Germany's first operational jet. He doesn't say much about the war though.