Page 6 - Twin and Turbine September 2017

Airmail
CAF Red Tail Squadron is Back in the Air
For the record, the U.S. Air Force of Historical Research list the Red Tails as first participating in the air campaign in May of 1943 and started escorting bombers in July of
1944 in the European theater.
Two Tuskegee airmen shot down four to five enemy aircraft and many of the other Red Tails shot down one or two enemy aircraft, but there were also many losses of Tuskegee airmen. Overall, good pilots but not better than anyone else, and certainly not “possibly better than many of the white pilots of the day.” Everyone of every color did their job!
In July of 1944 the Tuskegee airmen began escorting the bombers, and, once again, according to the Air Force office of Historical Research, 22 bombers were lost due to enemy action while being escorted by the Red Tails.
Michael Dacey
TAltered States, Altered Minds
hanks for Kevin Dingman’s August article “Altered States.” fight” for a few minutes, and then noticed that the STUPID light Because of his ability to synthesize cogent and entertaining inside my head had begun to glow. For the first time in my 14 articles from eclectic information, From the Flight Deck is years of flying, I made a “normal procedural decision” to commit
always my “first read” in Twin & Turbine, but his guidance on an ugly descending 180-degree turn in moderate turbulence,
fatigue hit particularly close to home.
As an engineering consultant who f lies his company’s plane on business trips, I’m always trying to become a better pilot. Last April I found myself flying home tired late-at-night over the lonely eastern deserts of California, and entering the Owens Valley during strong “Sierra Wave” conditions. I fought the “good
make a brief call to Joshua Approach and a diversion to KIYK to land short and “get a room.”
Murphy’s Law makes everything harder when you’re fatigued: the best runway for winds was closed for resurfacing, and blowing sand, four-foot tumbleweeds, and a suicidal jackrabbit all crossed the runway in my lights during an uncomfortably firm “caveman” crosswind landing.
Because I had written to Mr. Dingman in 2014, asking him to write about fatigue after some experiences that I had survived, it would have been ironic for me to succumb to a poor decision to continue flight beyond my fatigued “Neanderthal” abilities. But that correspondence kept the subject of fatigue fresh in mymind,sothelifethatKevin’swri•tingsavedthatnightwas mine – even though he had yet to write “Altered States.”
The work done by Twin & Turbine, its editors, and authors, is specifically relevant to our safety as pilots, and can be profound in the lives of those its pages reach. T&T
Gratefully,
Michael House Bishop, CA
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