Charles Faulkner Professor of Patholog! 10,000 feet in a single wing

It now seems anachronistic to the point of embarrassment, but in the pre-energy-crisis era it was a tremendously exciting experience.

As a child during World War II, I was fascinated by the world of military aviation and saucer-eyed at the exploits of the pilots in the war movies. In the mid '60s my interest in flying took fire again and kindled rapidly. My flyer brother and I talked a lot first, and then gradually we became unable to resist the allure of trying out one of the World War II fighter planes. Living at the time in Rochester, New York, I found the thought of traveling to the family roost in southern New Hampshire in 45 minutes of breath-taking appeal - especially in contrast to a six or seven-hour drive.

We found a previously civilianized P-51 Mustang, and it proved to be everything we thought it would in speed and efficiency (can you beat five-plus miles per gallon at 320 mph?), and it provided the kind of man-machine relationship unobtainable in any other way - though I suppose the racing driver must experience something similar in a much more tense and hurried atmosphere. There were problems, to be sure, but memories of a late night high above a solid deck of cotton, reading a map by brilliant moonlight, of wonderful aerobatic gyrations 10,000 feet over the Interstate still get my pulse rate up.

Unfortunately, my wife was terrified of it. Then we moved to Hanover, and suddenly we were already here, with much less call for those tremendous speed/distance capabilities. So, after six years, an unusually long span of ownership for a Mustang, we sold the plane to a Rutland, Vermont, man. But we do have stimulating memories.