This post started as a comment on the Earthbound Misfit blog about the restoration and last flight to a museum of a Globemaster in 1983.

As a ‘mosquito wing’ PFC (Private 1st Class) in the US Regular Army Field Artillery in 1970 I flew as ‘space A’ from Texas to Travis AFB in Nothern California in a C-124.

Just skinny me feeling fake in a new, hot, khaki soldier suit surrounded by tons of cocooned radial engines, generators, and unidentified parts.

It was NOISY back in that fuselage that seemed like a hangar, sitting sideways on those uncomfortable folding canvas bench seats.

No oxygen needed because we flew all the way at 10,000 feet (3048M). It was fun but gruelling and makes you appreciate jet airliners.

I couldn’t stop thinking a forced landing would roll a Pratt & Whitney R-4360 on top of me turning me into strawberry jam.

But I made it to Travis, and further west to Vietnam-but in a 707, not in a C-124 Globemaster.

Thanks for the memory, comrade.

 

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