An American legend in his own time....the Rossi of the skys....heavy brass spheres in the shorts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Olds
I was born 2 generations too late. What I would have given to fly the Cosair in the Blacksheep squadron..... A guy at the local airport I learned to fly was in the squadron. His stories were legendary. Wish I paid more attention to him back in the day. Being a snot nosed teenager, I didn't fully appreciate what he was telling me until much later in my life after he passed.
I was the operations officer of the Blacksheep squadron for awhile, flying AV-8Bs. It was fucking awesome. The FNGs would come to my office and stand at attention in front of my desk. "Son, do you have a motorcycle?" "No, sir!" "Well, that's very disappointing. You're dismissed." By the time I was done 15 out of the 20 pilots had bikes. We'd go on week-long trips with ten bikes.
One of my favorite stories from his book: He was on the far left flank of a huge flight of P-38's during WWII. His wingman spotted a huge gaggle of ME-109s far off to the left. When the wingman began to transmit over the radio "hey there's 100 ME-109s on the left" Olds jammed his finger on the mic switch thus blocking the transmission. He wanted his flight to get them first. Balls, aggression, and confidence. Man would have been one hell of a motorcycle racer.
