Took my father to the eye doc today. When we got there, the receptionist asked for his insurance card, which meant I had to plow through his wallet looking for it. I eventually found it, but among other thing I also ran across a card from the FAA.
His Air Transport Pilot rating card.
I did not even know such things were issued. When I was training, I only got a 4x6 cardstock thing with PP-SEL printed on it, along with some dates and vital statistics.
Curious poke-nose that I am, I flipped it over. On the back was a list of the aircraft he was rated for (back in 1988 when it was issued). CV-880. CV-990. CV-340. DC-8. Lear-24. ... and so on and so forth. Most of the other interesting stuff he flew either did not require a FAA rating (e.g. pre-certification Concorde) or had expired.
But, way down at the bottom, the last item was: DC-3.
Wow. I don't think there's been a DC-3 at NASA Ames since the mid-60's. What the heck was it doing on the currency list?
Ames had run a series of tests using the DC-3 as a platform, to see if video camera and display technology could be used for flight, especially landings, without "looking out the window". This was prompted by two things: the prototype designs for SST's, many of which did not have forward visibility, and the anticipated advent of weather-penetrating cameras using IR or similar (this was in the days before HUD were imagined.)
But all Dad wanted to talk about was a trip he flew in the Ames DC-3 to Philadelphia, stopping there and back at Glenview NAS (Chicago) and the then-new O'Hare airport. (He never did get around to explaining WTH they were doing in Philly.) Glenview NAS is no more, having been completely redeveloped into a small city / suburb of Chicago in the intervening years. I was just out there with Dad's brother, at his wife's funeral, and in passing Glenview he pointed out the street that used to be the main runway, and the houses under the approach whose resident's used to complain about those obnoxious Navy boys flying too low in those noisy Corsairs.
Anyway, back to the DC-3. Dad actually had no idea (or more likely could not remember anymore) why it was still on his ticket. Personally I suspect it had something to do with some private joke at NASA. No doubt, something to do with the old saying:
Real pilots fly behind Round Engines.
