WE WERE A COCKY BUNCH OF YOUNG NAVAL AVIATORS, AND MAYBE even a bit more so than our predecessors since we had the extra distinction of being jet fighter pilots, something relatively new to the U.S. Navy in 1952. Like every other Pensacola fledgling back then, I learned the fundamentals in radial-powered SNJs, and then tried catching the three-wire on the old USS Cabot, steaming in the Gulf. After making the fighter track, I was suddenly screaming across the flat, pine-covered landscape, first in F6F Hellcats and then in early F9F Panther jets.
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