When I was in the gunner's bubble of a B25 bomber, taking off from an aircraft carrier 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, I remember saying to myself how amazing it was to get the chance to do that.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was a child of World War Two . I saw films of pilots taking off from aircraft carriers and decided that was the only thing I wanted to do. And it had to be flying from sea carriers. Airfields were not enough.
I've had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride.
I flew aeroplanes, parachuted, walked on my own across the Himalayas - you name it; if it was dangerous, I did it.
I remember the first time that I flew on an airplane overseas, it was about when I was seven; it was 1969.
Later, I realized that the mission had to end in a let-down because the real barrier wasn't in the sky but in our knowledge and experience of supersonic flight.
I've been as a pilot involved in the Gulf War. And then, in the No-Fly Zone.
With all the knowledge and skill acquired in thousands of flights in the last ten years, I would hardly think today of making my first flight on a strange machine in a twenty-seven mile wind, even if I knew that the machine had already been flown and was safe.
I had to jump out of a plane! The shoot was for an editorial for a magazine; and it called for skydiving.
I jump out of perfectly good airplanes, and it's a great thrill and it allows me to share in the dangers that our great men and women in uniform share in on a regular basis.
When I was a kid it was big news when someone flew around the world in a little aeroplane, but nobody cared when I did it. Then, to rub salt into my wounds, the customs people ripped my aeroplane to pieces, looking for stuff.