P.O. Box 330279  Fort Worth, TX  76163-0729

To begin with, I’d like to clarify a bit of the English language. ANNUAL means once per year; BIANNUAL means twice per year; BIENNIAL once every two years. We normally have biennial reunions.

We spent between $8,000 and $10,000 more than we take in for each reunion. This extra expense goes for freebies, band, busses, beer and meal subsidies. No problem. We had the excess funds in our treasury. These extra funds were a result of having biennial reunions and the $10 dues during off years refilling the gap. That "mini reunion" in 2002 took away that gap.

Our membership has gone from 855 in 1999 to 688 in 2003. Banquet attendance has gone from 524 in 1999 (748 in 1987) to 319 in 2003. Last Flight accounts for much of it but old age also plays a part.

Since our By Laws call for dissolution by 1 July 2010, the plan is to spend all our treasury on us members so we don’t have to give any left-over to some "deserving" organization. To meet that end, one step was to reduce dues to $5 per year from $10 and Life Membership to $50 from $100. As a result, a more frugal look at our finances is in order. To begin with, we had a total of $21,778.53 on 30 September in Checking account, CD’s and Money Market funds. Now, let’s make it last until 2010.

It was decided to continue Biennial reunions, 2005, 2007 and 2009. Also, the quarterly staff meetings and issuance of the SCANNER was changed to three times per year from four times per year.. Staff meetings to occur on January, May and September with the SCANNER issued the following month, February, June and October. By the way, all members are welcome at the staff meetings. Only provision is they must keep their mouth shut until after the meetings are over, at least we hope they do. However, they are encouraged to send anything they want to the SCANNER for publication, if there is room. And there usually is.  In Summary, here is our estimated annual income based on 688 total members of which 338 are Life Members and 350 are annual dues payers at $5 per year:

$ 1750 Dues income (350 x $5) CHECK YOUR ADDRESS LABEL. If it says 2003 or less

$   150    Interest on CD’s and Money Market now is the time to send in dues for 2004!

$ 1900    Total annual income

Here are the estimated annual expenses:

$ 150     PO Box. This is where we get all our mail and is your point of contact with the Association.

    250    Non-Profit mail, that little stamp that goes in place of a stamp.

    520    Storage, air conditioned, for our memorabilia. You’d be surprised how much there is.

    825    SCANNER, 700 copies 3 X/ year (was 24 Cents/cy in ’94 and 42 cents/cy in 2002)

    255    Postage for SCANNER. (13 cents/cy in ’98 and 16cents/cy in 2003)

    850    Directory. ($1700 per issue but only one issue each two years, $1.70 cents/ cy)

    750    Misc, (Stamps, address labels, etc. It costs about $75 per year for returned SCANNERS)

    $3600 Total annual expenses (keep your address current!!!)

From the above numbers, we go in the hole about $1700-2000 per year (about $10,000 for 2004 thru 2009) so it looks like we could end up with about $11,000 in 2010, ($21,000 - $10,000). At three reunions to go, that’s about $3-4,000 per reunion, about half what we have been spending in the past so no more freebies and meal subsidies but lots of fun left to go. It looks like the free beer will still be around. MORAL OF THE STORY: HANG IN THERE AND LIVE IT UP IN 2005, 2007 AND 2009!!!

GOLF

In my hand I hold a ball – White and dimpled, rather small.

Oh, how bland it does appear – This harmless looking little sphere.

By its size I could not guess – The awesome strength it does possess.

But since I fell beneath its spell – I’ve wandered through the fires of hell.

My life has not been quite the same – Since I chose to play this stupid game.

It rules my mind for hours on end – A fortune it has made me spend.

It has made me swear and yell and cry – I hate myself and want to die.

It promises a thing called par – If I can hit it straight and far.

To master such a tiny ball – Should not be very hard at all.

But my desires the ball refuses – And does exactly as it chooses.

It hooks and slices, dribbles and dies – And even disappears before my eyes.

Often it will take a whim – To hit a tree or take a swim.

With miles of grass on which to land – It finds a tiny patch of sand.

Then has me offering up my soul – If only it would find the hole.

It’s made me whimper like a pup – And swear that I will give it up.

And take a drink to ease my sorrow – But the ball knows I’ll be back tomorrow.

RECIPROCATING ENGINES

Got a fine bit from STANLEY SOLMONSON the other day. He sent a copy of the retiree newsletter from McChord AFB about engines. Here it is:

ARE TURBINES RUINING AVIATION?

OR

GONE ARE THE DAYS OF RECIPROCATING ENGINES

We gotta get rid of these turbine engines, they are ruining aviation. We need to go back to big round engines. Anybody can start a turbine. You just need to move a switch from "OFF" to "START" and then

remember to move it back to "ON" after a while. My PC is harder to start.

Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse and style. On some planes, such as a C-124 (and B-36), the pilots aren’t even allowed to do it.

Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a small lady-like poot and start whining louder.

Round engines give a satisfying rattler-rattle, click-click, BANG, a big blast or two, more clicks, a lot of smoke and finally a serious low-pitched roar.

We like that. It’s a guy thing. When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate on the flight ahead. Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan; useful, but hardly exciting.

Turbines don’t break often enough, leading to aircrew boredom, complacency and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it’s going to blow at any minute.

This helps concentrate the mind.

Turbines don’t have enough control levers to keep a pilot’s attention.

There’s nothing to fiddle with on long flights.

Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman lanterns. Round-engined planes smell like God intended flying machines to smell.

I think I hear the nurse coming down the hall. I gotta go.

-Ex-round Engine Driver

STAN also sent a 1941 menu from the BLACK CAT CAFÉ in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1941. Some items are listed below. Too bad DENNY"S doesn’t have this menu.

24-Hour Specials Steaks, Chops and Other Meals

Breaded Veal Cutlet…… .35     Porterhouse & Mushrooms…….. 1.00

Roast Turkey with Dressing… .50 T-Bone………………………….. .60

½ Fried Chicken with Bacon... .60         Rib Steak……………………… .40

Roast Pork and Apple Sauce… .40 Hamburger..30, with onions…….. .35

Swiss Steak & Brown Gravy... .25 Liver & Onions .30, with bacon… .35

LIFE MEMBERS

It has been the policy to transfer funds from the Life Member Escrow account each year to the Member’s Equity Account in the sum of $10 per Lifer, and then $5 currently. In 2003 the Escrow account (really, a bookkeeping item) had $8,082. At the rate of $5 per Life Member (350) for 5 years, the account would be depleted in 2008. To simplify bookkeeping, all accounts are now considered one equity and the above Count-Down to 2010 applies.

Since we are in the LIFE MEMBER mood, it seems like a good time to publish a couple more Life Member bios. It’s been a long time since a bio has been printed and it seems prudent to get with the program while many of us can still see well enough to read the words. The first one is by B.J. BROWN. He says writing his bio is akin to reading his obituary – except he gets to read it!!!

"I went from college into the USAF Aviation Cadet program in July 1952. I was commissioned in December 1953, at Ellington AFB, TX and received my wings in July 1954 as a Flight Engineer. I reported to the 436th BS, 7th BW, Carswell AFB, TX and my first assignment was as a 2^nd Flight Engineer. I soon upgraded to 1^st Engineer and spent more than a few hours being pulled (pushed?) all over the world in the B-36.

"I left Carswell in November 1957, and went to Mather AFB, CA for navigator upgrading (???) Following flight training in the B-47 I was sent to Dyess AFB, TX as a radar bomb/nav. There I spent more than a few hours in the cramped, busy, cold front end of a B-47 trying to get us where we were supposed to be going – and making a jillion simulated bomb runs along the way.

"In 1962, I was selected for the B-58 Hustler program. I went to Grissom AFB, IN in January 1963. My 5 years in that program as a Radar Bomb/Nav were the highlights of my career. I again was on a "Select" crew and was able to attend "Bootstrap" at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and finally got off crew duty. In 1968, I moved into an Avionics Maintenance Squadron as Maintenance Supervisor.

"I was transferred to Kadena AB, Okinawa in August 1969.  In January 1970 I took over as Commander of the 376th Avionics Maintenance Squadron. We were awarded the "Best Avionics Maintenance Squadron" in the Strategic Air Command in 1971. I retired in August 1972, as a Lt Col, after spending 20 great years in SAC.

"Following retirement I worked in the computer field as a computer operator, programmer, systems analyst and data processing manager. I again retired in 1992 and now spend my time playing golf, fishing, traveling and piddling with my computer.

THE SECRET TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE IS THREE LITTLE WORDS, "LET’S EAT OUT."

And then ED LINDBERG sent in a doozy. Course that was over two years ago but ED, all things comes to he who waits. Look me up and I’ll pop for a big orange at the next reunion. Anyway, here’s how it went.

"Upon Graduation from high school, my father threatened to give me a cow. This obviously required drastic and immediate action: I enlisted in the Air Force.

"For a seventeen year old Minnesota farm boy of that era, San Antonio was as exotic and fascinating as Cairo, although the administration at Lackland AFB conspired to make our visits to town brief and infrequent.

"After basic, several of us supposedly mechanical types were loaded aboard a train for Miami with a stop at New Orleans. Life in the Air Force was good! We attended the Embry Riddle School of Aviation at Opa Locka to study aircraft maintenance fundamentals. After graduation we were ordered to Nellis AFB at Las Vegas. Air Force life was getting even better!!

"After a few hours servicing F-80s, the maintenance officer decided that our experience with BT-13s, a T-6, a B-18, and a Ford Trimotor at Embry Riddle hadn’t adequately prepared us for the Jet Age. Off to Chanute Field for specialist training.

"At Chanute Field we were repeatedly scheduled for various specialist schools only to be preempted by SAC personnel who, we were told, had absolute priority on everything in the Air Force. Classed as Casuals, we were detailed to fire the barracks’ furnaces and water heaters with coal that consisted of 20 lb. chunks and dust.

"I reconciled myself to the thought that my contribution to winning the Cold War would be maintaining the Pittsburgh-like sky line at Chanute when the administration, faced with the approach of spring and the need to find us other menial tasks, decreed that we would enter the next available schools, SAC be damned!

"Mine turned out to be propeller school, which wouldn’t have been my first choice. After graduation I opted for duty in Germany and was soon on my way to Korea and a winter of tenting and maintaining B-26s outdoors in a climate not unlike Minnesota.

"At the completion of my tour I chose MATS as my stateside assignment and soon was on my way to Fort Worth. At the Carswell gate I presented my orders to the AP who asked to see my ID photo card. I told him I hadn’t been issued one due to my somewhat unusual assignments over the past 2 years. He called the O.D.

"The Provost Marshall said things would go better for me if I told them what actually happened to my ID card. I think they thought I was too young and stupid to be a real spy, and that I was probably testing SAC’s vaunted security system. I reminded anyone who would listen that I was ordered to report to 7th Field Maintenance that day. Eventually I was sent on my way with the dire threat that any additional misconduct on my part would result in more severe punishment.

INSIDE EVERY OLD PERSON IS A YOUNG PERSON WONDERING

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

"The 7th orderly room supplied me with an emergency pass so I could get on the flight line and go to work. Unfortunately the pass did not get me into the chow hall so I subsisted for the next three days on junk food from the little convenience store on the corner near barracks 112. I finally told the NCOIC that I thought that the Air Force’s refusal to supply rations had negated my responsibility to repair for duty. I don’t think my argument was legally tenable, but it did get me a chow pass.

"You may be familiar with the Prop Shop. It was not all sledge hammers as some may believe. Keeping the rpms within the tolerance was fairly complicated and kept us active. The props, by the way, were responsible for the distinctive, perhaps ominous, sound of the B-36. The props were 19’6" tip to tip and the tips had to be kept subsonic, so the relatively low rpms and the wide blades created that sound. I eventually took my discharge, went to college and have, for the last forty years or so, worked as a real estate appraiser at MnDot.

"About seven (now nine) years ago my family and I were returning from south Texas and passing through Fort Worth. At about where I thought Inspiration Point would be I turned off. I pulled up to an apartment complex and, by dumb luck, there below us and across Lake Worth was Carswell. In place of the B-36s were a bunch of weird looking airplanes that, like their parent McNamara, did not seem to be sure of their role in life. I think they were 111s. As I was pointing out to my son that I had worked on the noble B-36s at that very spot, as a lady at poolside said, "It’s a good thing you’re showing it to him now. They’re shutting it down next year. I thought I was watching Jimmy Stewart filming a scene from "Strategic Air Command" as I worked on an aircraft parked next to the one they were using in the movie. I look for that scene whenever the film is on late TV. For the first time I wondered what happened to "Mother Fletcher’s B-36s" as they were sometimes affectionately referred to. I saw a reference to the B-36 Association in the Legion Magazine and got Richard George’s phone number off the internet. I signed up as a Life Member and hope that there is enough time remaining in that Life membership to allow me to attend the next reunion. I may see someone I recognize, maybe even that AP at the gate. (Ed Note: I see you made 2003, set your sights on 2005.)

"My, how I do run on. If you have gotten this far remember, as they said on the old TV show, "You asked for it."

THANKSGIVING

TWAS THE NIGHT OF THANKSGIVING, BUT I JUST COULDN’T SLEEP

I TRIED COUNTING BACKWARDS, I TRIED COUNTING SHEEP.

THE LEFTOVERS BECKONED, THE DARK MEAT AND WHITE,

BUT I FOUGHT THE TEMPTATION WITH ALL OF MY MIGHT.

TOSSING AND TURNING WITH ANTICIPATION,

THE THOUGHT OF A SNACK BECAME INFATUATION.

SO I RACED TO THE KITCHEN, FLUNG OPEN THE DOOR

AND GAZED AT THE FRIDGE, FULL OF GOODIES GALOR.

I GOBBLED UP TURKEY AND BUTTERED POTATOES,

PICKLES AND CARROTS, BEANS AND TOMATOES.

I FELT MYSELF SWELLING SO PLUMP AND SO ROUND,

‘TIL ALL OF A SUDDEN I ROSE OFF THE GROUND.

I CRASHED THROUGH THE CEILING, FLOATING INTO THE SKY,

WITH A MOUTHFUL OF PUDDING AND A HANDFULL OF PIE.

BUT I MANAGED TO YELL AS I SOARED PAST THE TREES,

HAPPY EATING TO ALL, PASS THE CRANBERRIES PLEASE.

MAY YOUR STUFFING BE TASTY, MAY YOUR TURKEY BE PLUMP.

MAY YOUR POTATOES ‘N GRAVY HAVE NARY A LUMP.

MAY YOUR YAMS BE DELICIOUS, MAY YOUR PIES TAKE THE PRIZE,

MAY YOUR THANKSGIVING DINNER STAY OFF OR YOUR THIGHS

IF WE’RE PUT ON EARTH TO HELP OTHERS, WHAT ARE THE OTHERS HERE FOR?

BILL MINELLI

We are still engaged with the enemy in Iraq and we are still having troops giving of their lives on a daily basis. I know that the Pentagon is working on this problem and eventually they will solve the situation so we can stop the loss of life once and for all.

We at home can help by praying to our Almighty Father to protect our troops who are living in harms way.

These prayers will be answered and the families at home can feel that they will not have to worry about their sons and daughters over there.

Tell your priest and ministers to have their members of their congregations to pray for the safety of our troops overseas.

Let us not forget the power of prayer. He willhear our prayers and intercede to help our troops in harms way, and our intentions will be satisfied.

We ask for these blessings through Christ our Lord,

Amen

LAST FLIGHT

God looked around his garden and he found an empty space.

He then looked down upon the earth, and saw your tired face.

He put His arms around you and lifted you to rest.

God’s garden must be beautiful, He always takes the best..

He knew that you were suffering, He knew you were in pain.

He knew that you would never get well on earth again.

He saw the road was getting rough and the hills were hard to climb.

So He closed your weary eyelids and whispered, "Peace be thine."

It broke our hearts to lose you but you didn’t go alone,

For part of us went with you the day God called you home.

He has called:

MSG CYRIL V MARTIN
MSG JACK W RIVERS
LTC PAUL "BUGS" WARNER

We mourn for those in Last Flight and remember their time with us. Among those is one who served the 7th Bomb Wing B-36 Association since its inception, LTC BUGS WARNER. He was the Treasurer from the very beginning and served us well. He has passed the work he has done for us into the capable hands of DOUG WOOD.

It is hard to forget all that BUGS has done for us. It may also be a surprise to know that because of his excellent care, almost 20% of the income that supported our reunions came from his efforts to obtain for us outstanding interest on our funds. While it is a fact that in the recent past decades we have enjoyed outstanding interest rates, BUGS made sure we got in on it. He also was quick to obtain the most economical services for our reunions. Perhaps his accomplishments for our organization need not be mentioned but what’s wrong with singing a song for an unsung hero?

WHAT YOU ARE IS GOD’S GIFT TO YOU.

WHAT YOU MAKE OF YOURSELF IS YOUR GIFT TO GOD.

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