Originally Posted by SASless
Years ago landed in Houston. Off loaded our pax and a pilot from another airplane came over to ours. We talked for a while and I ended up hand carrying his resume to our company. He was hired a month later (course my doing part of his interview did not hurt!) and flew with us for 4 years. He is now a Captain at Southwest Airlines.
What blew me away on his resume (CV to you Europeans) was his flight time and types of aircraft. Just about every WW2 airplane there was and finally on the list was the P-38.
Turns out that he was Lefty Gardners step-son. Very nice guy and he could pretty much fly the box that the plane was shipped in. He grew up flying on Dads lap in just about every type WW2 airplane around. Course being a young kid and your Father being one of the co-founders of the Confederate Air Force, he was taken under everyone's wing and did things that we can only dream of.
Fast forward and Lefty's P-38 is not in very good shape now. Darren's brother Ladd, was flying the aircraft back from an airshow 4-5 years ago and the right engine turbo-supercharger let go in flight, and then caught fire. He landed the bird in a field and saved the plane but its in bad shape. Was trucked back to Texas and is currently undergoing restoration but its going to take a long time and lot of money.
More on his P-38 here:
http://p38whitelightnin.com/story/Ladd_Interview/
All this talk about Americans going undercover to the UK before WW2 brings back some very good memories. My instructor in the 70's and early 80's for my commercial pilots license was done by one of these gents who went to Canada, then onto England and was one of those pilots. I saw his logbook and some photos of the period. Very nice guy and sorry to say that he headed "West" a few years ago.