Thursday, April 24, 2008

War and Planes

My father makes models (this is but one link), although he has not really done any modeling since moving to the new house. I had warned him when I was packing the boxes of unopened models that I was going to charge him a dollar for every one that wasn't done. I would be able to retire early. My father tends toward planes, although he has made soldiers, and has recently been in a boat mode. He even was doing commission work for a while.

As far as planes go, he prefers (well only) making non-jet planes. For my father, wartime aviation ends with World War II. He has made his fair share of World War I aircraft (the bi-plane, and the tri-plane) so I read with interest ADR's post of the other day about the 90th anniversary of the shooting down of the Red Baron. It was also his first post using the Britannica, which is making its resources available to bloggers who register with them. I am waiting to hear back from them, which could make my presidential series even more educational.

The other thing that ADR's post reminded me of was this article that I had starred in my Google Reader. It involved a German aviator who learned that during a dogfight in World War II, he wound up shooting down his favorite author of the day, Antoine de Saint Exupery. The German aviator stated he would have held his fire if he had only known. What is they say? C'est la guerre?

2 comments:

Lana Gramlich said...

I learned that when the Red Baron was shot down, he managed to land the plane safely before he died. That's some kind of focus!

Brave Astronaut said...

a gentleman to the last . . .