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Just got some bad news

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Basil

Basil

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I just learned that a old friend of mine from a former job passed away yesterday. His name was "Carl" and he immigrated here from Czechoslovakia back in the 50's. He was a friend and mentor back when I was a young Second Lieutenant working as a radar evaluation engineer. We would evaluate radars located all over the world and optimize them for the best operations in their environment. Carl was my technical adviser on most of the evaluation trips I took, many of which were evaluating tactical radars in Germany. Carl was a huge Mercedes buff and I spent many a weekend (on our time off) in Germany going through German salvage yards helping Carl pull as many "spare parts" for his MBs back home. He would routinely ship hundreds of pounds of MB parts back to the states when we were doing an eval over there.

Although I hadn't seen Carl in several years, I'm still a little sad to hear of his passing. Life is too short.
 
basil, sad news, naturally it hurts to lose a close friend, i had a similar experiience with my chief engineer, he was very experienced having flown in nam and then with airforce one, other then my grandfather he was the most nurturing individual ive ever met, he took me under his wing and groomed me for his own job, calling him my mentor would not bring justice to our relationship , three years after he retired we lost him to lung cancer and he never smoked, any time i see or hear an aircraft i cant help but think of him and the kind of good man he was, richard also being a practical joker once put a basketball in an engine inlet and put the inlet cover on just to see my reaction when i did the preflight inspection, these are things i recall about him, he changed my life in a unique way and i know how lucky i am to have known him, he was a gift at a time i truly needed one.
 
Very sorry to hear about your pal...as we get older, we all tend to get more of this sort of news.

When I was a kid here in NJ, I couldn't drive (my MGA) alone becasue I only had a "learner's permit".
You had to have a licensed driver with you until you passed the driver's test.

My licensed driver was Ginny (8 months older than me), who lived across the street. She was a great sport and would go almost anywhere with me in that ratty MGA.

Ginny was an attractive, cute blond, so it wasn't bad for my ego either.

Eventually she went on to marry another friend of mine, John. He had a great career as a Marine chopper pilot (he's retired and flies for Verizon corporate now).

I just got a note from John this week that she has passed away. I still think of her as my little MGA co-pilot. Like you, I'm in shock over the loss of my old pal.
 
Sorry to hear the news, Basil. In general I don't mind getting older, but this facet of the process seems to be the worse.
 
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