So many facts; so little time

All right this is getting out of control. Most of my life has been spent around, reading about, or dreaming about airplanes. I'm not entirely a newcomer to the game. I'm comfortable with my knowledge. Or at least I was.

Increasingly, we'll be sifting through material to put in the next issue, and an airplane picture will fall out onto the desk. I'll stare at it and hear myself asking, "What's that?" Every single day, I'll be reading something and realize it's the first time I've read anything about the subject, or an entirely new slant is put on something I thought I understood but didn't. For a while, I thought I was losing my grasp on the subject. Now I know it's just that the subject of aviation keeps getting bigger.

The Davisson/Evans story on bush flying in this issue is a classic case in point. Like most other people in the industry, when I hear the term "bush pilot," I immediately picture a floatplane, a pristine lake, a log cabin and a string of freshly caught trout (could be bass; I'm not sure) lying across a glistening pontoon. Besides that and the image of a "Marlboro man" lookalike at the controls, I don't, or didn't, know very much about the subject. The unfortunate thing is that until I read the article and saw the pictures, I didn't realize how much I didn't know. Just reading those few words and staring at the pictures made me aware of the incredible gap that existed in my aeronautical knowledge.

Am I the only one who feels this way? Let's see a show of hands of those who had already seen an American Pilgrim, a Travel Air CW and a Fairchild Super 71.

Part of this feeling of an information shortfall is rooted in the fact that, like everyone at Flight Journal, I'm something of an information junkie. I like knowing things. I like picking up random pieces of the puzzle and watching them slowly knit themselves into a coherent picture. The longer I'm around aviation, the more random pieces find their way into my mental file cabinets. Some of them lie there for years waiting for another piece to dovetail with them and enlarge the picture. Roger Anderson's piece on the Pathfinders in this issue shoveled dozens of new pieces of information my way.

Through Anderson's words, I suddenly understood the incredible progress that was made in targeting radar in an amazingly short period of time. Also, it wasn't until the photos from MIT hit my desk that I realized I hadn't the foggiest idea what those early airborne radars even looked like.

I hope I'm not alone in my enthusiasm for new information and insights because to a very large extent, that's what Flight Journal is all about. In that respect, we want to sing the note that no one else is singing. We're looking for the unusual and the unexpected. But we're here to do it your way. So, drop us a letter or an email, and let us know how we're doing.

If you love information, this should be your kind of issue. Floyd Houdashell will tell you what it's like to sit behind the controls of a Heinkel He 111, and Adm. Paul Gillcrist and Bob Kress will spell out the pros and cons of variable sweep wings. Barrett Tillman gives you all the information you can possibly use about Grumman biplane fighters, while Joe Rychetnik shows us the lighter side of a night-fighter squadron and Peter Lert fills us in on bug bombers. Enjoy!

Copyright Air Age Publishing Jun 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved