A Citizen Soldier in the Air - a B-24 Liberator pilot's story.

Click to go to the home page of MiGMan's Flight Sim Museum - www.migman.com

A Citizen Soldier in the Air.

Advanced Training

"Now the AT-6 was a hell of a nice airplane - extremely quick and easy to fly, as close as you could get in a trainer to an actual fighter plane."

AT-6 Texan trainers in formation.

This training was at Fosters Field in Victoria, Texas, right on the Gulf Coast. "There were some islands off shore where we did gunnery practice, air to ground, strafing." They also practiced air-to-air gunnery in the AT-6, shooting at a fabric target towed on a long cable by a pilot who everyone agreed had to be crazy.

Was that part fun?

"It was all right, until you’d get back down and not find any holes in your target!"

Dog fighting was the most fun. "We called it rat-racing, and it was great. We’d play follow the leader, twisting and turning until someone fell out of line. We’d zoom around the beautiful cumulus clouds, aiming for a little gap which might close up, then you’d be flying blind on instruments for a little bit."

Charlie even took pictures on some of these flights!

As you might expect, they also pulled off a few "crazy stunts."

Charlie recalls, "I flew the AT-6 under a bridge one time - they yelled at me, said never to do that again, but it wasn’t a big deal - they needed pilots badly, so they weren’t going to wash you out for something like that."

A 'rat-racing' tail-chase in the AT-6 (Charlie photo, 1942).

Charlie completed his advanced training and received his wings and commission as a second lieutenant on April 29, 1942.

READ ON

Back to "A Citizen Soldier in the Air"

Back to Aircraft in Action