EH>->   One of our guys used to smoke Pall Malls while flying
EH>-> his F-102. There was a crevice in the canopy frame that
EH>Whew!  I don't think I'd have the stones to smoke in one of Uncle
EH>Sugar's shoot'em up airplanes!  Too many things in there that the
EH>nicotine would gunk up.  I've opened up gyro intruments where the
EH>impeller was so covered with gunge I'm surprised it could turn.
    When I started flying the T-28 during USAF pilot
training, I discovered the thing had an ashtray, just
like a car ashtray. Unbelievable. The instructors
would light up right after takeoff.
EH>How'd you like the 102 anyway?
    No ashtrays.  Unless you count the crevice in
    the canopy, that is. 
    It was the easiest airplane to fly that I have
    ever flown. Very forgiving, too. Making a radar
    intercept was very similar to some of the flight
    simulators, particularly JetFighter 1 and II.
    I've often thought that if someone was pretty good
    on Space Invaders, they could do a good intercept
    in the F-102.
    Actually, none of the fighters were particularly
    difficult to fly. They all had their own little
    idiosyncrasies. The tough part was getting the
    engine started, and you could get the crew chief
    to do that for you. 
    Just about anybody could fly one of these things,
    the tricky part was the landing. 
    The A-7 had something really neat - a PMDS, which
    means Projected Map Display System, which was a
    35 millimeter filmstrip of the Aeronautical Charts,
    which was projected on to a screen about 6 or 8 inches
    in diameter. The strip would move as the position of
    the aircraft changed, and the aircraft position was
    always dead center on the screen. Pretty handy, kept
    one from having to have a cockpit full of maps. 
    We had a guy in our outfit that didn't like the
    Aeronautical Charts - he carried a Texaco road
    map.
..
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 * SLMR 2.1a * - Once you've made all the mistakes, you're an expert.
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