Thursday night before his memorial service on Friday. Thirty-two of we old coots rejoined at Macayo’s Mexican Restaurant In Tucson for a great buffet complete with margaritas and ice cold Corona, Modelo and Dos Equis draft cervezas. Cheap-assed fighter pilots came from near and far, following yonder star and bearing gifts of myrrh and frankincense, but no gold. Gay attended as well as Susan Olson, one of their old friends from Torrejon. We clinked glasses and rose to tell our favorite Wee Willie stories, some of them true. We have become legends in our own minds, just not as much as Willie. Harv Damschen earned honors as the most well-traveled (driving from Oregon). With his backwoods, rural tan and facial hair he was stopped three times by the Border Patrol after crossing into Arizona and once by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix. Jim Quick finished the evening with a Jagermeister toast. There were many laughs, some sadness but fond memories all. Willie wanted to make the evening but couldn’t – he was still at the Golden Gate trying to talk his way into heaven.
This Day in History – June 10, 1969 – The X-15 gets a place in history
10 June 1969: The U.S. Air Force donated the first North American Aviation X-15, serial number 56-6670, to the Smithsonian Institution for display at the National Air and Space Museum. The first of three X-15A hypersonic research rocketplanes built by North American for the Air Force and the National Advisory Committee (NACA, the predecessor of NASA), 56-6670 made the first glide flight and