* * I want to thank everybody for responding so much to this thread, and thank our webmaster for providing this avenue of discussion, it's genuinely accomplishing something good in our world of WW1 aviation. *The earliest memory I have is of watching Cole's Nieuport 28 (now at NASM) running up its engine, two or three guys on each wingtip holding on, and the great sound of the Gnome. *I would've been about 4 or 5, around 1967. *My uncle lived only a few hundred yards from there, and sometimes at night my brother and cousins and I would sneak down and sit in the Fokker D.VII or SPAD, pretending to be Gabriel or Rickenbacker. *I was too young to remember, but my cousins have told me that my first airplane ride was with Cole, in the Kinner Bird that he used at the time for rides (The Cheyenne County Bird, now in the static museum up on the hill), apparently we used to hang around until he was finished with paying rides, and then beg for a freebie. *What a fantastic place to grow up. *In those days we would often have a dozen or more people around the dinner table at my Uncle's on Sunday night after the show. *At the end of the year banquet we'd have a rip roaring time, with "awards" for screwing up during the season (I won a few), and speeches, and often
Doug Campbell and
George Vaughn and
Ken Porter would be there and tell stories.
* * You can see where the recent developements have bothered me, and it's good to see some light being shed. *I think another key to getting to the bottom of this is to get the proper media outlets interested and involved. *If anybody out there knows any magazine editors, direct them to this thread, and tell them to start digging. *I know that many are not news oriented, the EAA mags and OTF, but the more people who know about it the better, and magazines like Atlantic Flyer, Private Pilot, and the like might see the story as newsworthy (maybe Flight Journal). *How about Aeroplane and Flypast in the UK, anybody know anybody there? *Or any other suitable magazines or internet outlets, spread the word.
* * Get the truth out there, it will speak for itself.