by James H.
I had my
first aircraft flight in a Martin bomber. I was in the Naval Reserve as a
radioman on a two-week tour of duty at the Squantum Naval Air Station in the
summer of 1937. The plane was a biplane with canvas wings, two radial engines
and two tandem open cockpits (the crew wore Lindbergh style helmets) and a radio
operator cubicle inside on the starboard side with an isinglass porthole. The
antenna was on a hand-operated reel that I reeled out to the proper wavelength.
We flew for an hour around Cape Cod.
Decades
later, in 1960, I was employed at heritage companies Philco Western Development
Labs, Philco Ford, and Ford Aerospace as an electrical engineer in the ground
products division designing tracking station equipment. I retired in 1982.
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| The Martin P3M-2 was used to train pilots before World War II. |
