Talk about luck, you should have bought a lottery ticket right then and there, Gary

Great story, Bill. that pic brings back memories of my one and only first hand viewing of 1 of 3 restored and flying F4-U Corsairs. It was in a hangar at the Allendale/Fairfax airport in South Carolina some 25 years ago. It was owned, and flown, by Joe Tobul. It was a huge fighter plane and I was awed by it's sheer presence. The four blade prop was immense. Joe crashed and died in that plane at an airshow some years later. I've been told that his son has rebuilt the airplane to it's former glory.

As Bob Hope used to say, "Thanks for the memories".

The F4-U Corsair is the ultimate fighter aircraft and you got to see one of them fly. That's awesome Stan. Yeah, great memories.

Many years ago when I was in the Navy, 1956 - 1957 to be exact when I was on the USS Allagash AO 97, a fleet tanker or sea going gas station, we refueled ships at sea.

We refueled aircraft carriers on our port side and I can recall looking up to the edge of the flight deck and see that folded gull wing and large 4 bladed prop of the Corsair. We carried aviation gas for those plus JP 5 for Navy Jets that were in the early stages.

Some great memories there too.

Sometime if you don't have anything to do, check out the home page of the USS Abbot DD 629. Here: https://abbot.us/main/

I took that movie showing the Abbot coming alongside to refuel in some pretty nasty weather. And we didn't thank God.

Go here to see some more of my movies and you can just get a quick look of one of those carriers on our port side and see a couple of those Corsairs on the edge of the flight deck. Here: https://abbot.us/AO97/ You will get a very quick glimpse at 6:44 into this movie. And towards the end of that movie, I got on the fire control tower of the Allagash and took those movies of the flight deck of the carrier.

Wouldn't it be great if we could see one of those Corsairs in the air again. We can dream, can't we?

Thanks Stan.

Great memories, Bill. The close friend of mine who took me to see the Corsair piloted them in the latter part of WWII and in Korea. He flew for a time with the Black Sheep squadron in the South Pacific. His stories of flights in those planes are indelibly imprinted in my mind. I have a pic of him in his F4-U, taken by a wingman, somewhere. If I can find it I'll post it here, in memory of him and his sorties, if for nothing more.

I hope you can find it and post it here Stan.

That is a fantastic story with a great ending!!! There are still good people in this world!

And you think collecting Parkers is expensive....