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Blind As A Bat
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My wife Ronda and I are AMSOIL dealers. Visit our official AMSOIL site to order products online and request additional information from the company.
"Ask Us About AMSOIL" is my personal site, where you can read about my impressions of AMSOIL after nearly thirty years of use.
Ronda recently became a certified Texas real estate agent and licensed Realtor. This is her HOME PAGE. This is her Houston Assocation of Realtors site.
I recently set up a new HOME PAGE to reflect my current interests.
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This is me in 1964
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Hot Flash! Several of us recently founded the Troop Carrier/Tactical Airlift Association. Our new website is at www.troopcarrier.org/home.html.
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Name and Location:
Sam McGowan, Missouri City, Texas
Hobbies and Interests:
Outdoors, aviation, military history, writing
I took an early retirement from corporate flying in 2000, but now I'm back working full time as a pilot for Wing Aviation in Houston.
Mformative years were spent in the United States Air Force, including a tour at Naha Air Base, Okinawa where I flew some interesting missions in conjunction with the Vietnam War - like the one from which my screen name is derived. Go to AIRLIFT STORIES to read about some of these missions. (Note - some of these pages are temporarily missing due to technical difficulty.) While you are there, check out Fire Flight at Katum RVN , the story of Pat Hatch and his crew's emergency landing at Tay Ninh, RVN. NEW 463rd Troop Carrier Wing Page! Also new - 315th Air Division page - Combat Cargo
Bangkok Shuttle - This is a page I put up several years ago about C-130 operations in Thailand. I thought I had accidentally deleted it, but it's still there!
One of the most interesting and exciting projects I was involved in while in the Air Force was Project BLIND BAT, which used conventional C-130s as Forward Air Controller/Flareships over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and, for a time, North Vietnam. It is the project which gave name to this page.
My dad and uncle flew B-24 Liberators with the Eighth Air Force in England in 1944. This is their page.
Writing is my favorite outlet and over the years I have had several articles published in magazines and am the author of a book about the C-130 Hercules tactical airlift mission. My most recent endeavor is a novel about the Vietnam War that was published as a print-on-demand book by 1stBooks. You can order a copy direct from - the title is "The Cave" or you can check out the Promo I have on line. Briefly, The Cave is the story of Toby Carter, a young USAF loadmaster with an interest in caves who is shot down over Laos in 1966. He discovers a huge cave and hides in it until he finds the means to wage his own personal war against the North Vietnamese. It's based on my own experiences in Southeast Asia combined with my cave exploring experience in later years while living in northeastern Kentucky. Some of my articles can be found on TheHistoryNet .
I also do aviation writing, including operations manuals, FAR 135 manuals and any other writing a member of the aviation community might choose.
One of my favorite authors and favorite people is James Webb, a former US Marine officer and Secretary of the Navy during the Reagan Administration. Webb is one of the most principled people in the country today. I think he should be elected President of the United States in 2004.
Pappy Gunn is one of my favorite heroes. He was a real character and one of the greatest heroes of World War II in the Pacific. While he is best known for the modifications he made to the North American B-25 "Mitchell" bomber, he was fighting a personal war against the Japanese in the Southwest Pacific.
My favorite base while I was in the Air Force was Clark Field, Philippines. If you were stationed at Clark, join the Clark Field Email list.
Several years ago I heard an evangelist make constant reference to "your ticket to Heaven." As he was speaking, it occurred to me that no ticket is required to get to Heaven. That afternoon I went home and wrote An Airplane Story.
I grew up in West Tennessee not far from Natchez Trace State Park. Unknown to me at the time, the real Natchez Trace was several miles to the east. Since that time I've had the pleasure of driving the Natchez Trace Parkway, which is listed by many as one of the most scenic drives in the United States.
Vietnam Veterans' War Stories!: homepage is an excellent site; it features stories written by and about Vietnam veterans. It includes one of mine about Blind Bat.
My son Chris has a WEB site with some neat links, including a lot of stuff about the ocean, lyrics to The Grateful Dead songs and Calvin and Hobbes last comic strip. Christopher's Home Page (When Chris put this site up, he was a student at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. He has since graduated and was recently diagnosed with brain cancer. He has an inoperable tumor in his brainstem.) Chris passed away on May 7, 2003 in his sleep. His passing was as peaceful as one could hope for. I have created a site in his memory - Christopher Loyd McGowan.
In 1966 Bob Bartunek was my aircraft commander on the Blind Bat mission. Now, he is retired from the Air Force and runs the Red River Winery in Enid, Oklahoma. His stepson and daughter-in-law, Mark and Tina, run Red River Winery just north of Houston in Old Town Spring, Texas - RRWINE
My other sites:
Sam's C-130 Page - A page devoted to the C-130 Hercules and the men who flew and maintained it during the Glory Days.
Airlift USA - A page devoted to the US Air Force airlift mission. Several of my historical articles on airlift can be found there.
Sam McGowan - My other home page.
SPECIAL NOTE - During my initial experience with posting using Microsoft Front Page, I accidentally deleted several of the pages I had previously posted. I hope to have them all restored eventually.
Let me know what you think about my page. Send mail by clicking here.
Last Modified November 13, 2007
Have high gasoline prices got you down, Ask me about AMSOIL synthetic lubricants for automotive, farm and industrial use.
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