Touched the Face of God

[Daryl Hunt]

Here is what used to be used for the sign off when we had only three TV stations and they went off the air. For you old hands, it's precious. Only the F-104 and the SR-71 deserve to fill that spotlight.

High Flight...

 

[Oddball]

X-15 flew higher than both.

 

[Vandalshandle]

Nice!!!!

 

[Daryl Hunt]

X-15 flew higher than both.

X-15 was a rocket and it didn't do it every day like the F-104 did for NASA and the SR did for SAC.

The F-104 had special jets installed to train astronauts how to manuever in space. They flew it up to over 103,000 feet and practiced manuevering. And there wasn't any fighter that ever looked as good or looked as fast as a F-104 with the exception of the SR. both took off under their own power. Putting those two in a very unique category that others could not fill.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Great Aviation Quotes: High Flight by John Magee
During the desperate days of the Battle of Britain, hundreds of Americans crossed the border into Canada to enlist with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Knowingly breaking the law, but with the tacit approval of the then still officially neutral United States Government, they volunteered to fight the Nazis.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was one such American. Born in Shanghai, China, in 1922 to an English mother and a Scotch-Irish-American father, Magee was 18 years old when he entered flight training. Within the year, he was sent to England and posted to the newly formed No 412 Fighter Squadron, RCAF, which was activated at Digby, England, on 30 June 1941. He was qualified on and flew the Supermarine Spitfire.

Flying fighter sweeps over France and air defense over England against the German Luftwaffe, he rose to the rank of Pilot Officer.

On 3 September 1941, Magee flew a high altitude (30,000 feet) test flight in a newer model of the Spitfire V. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem — “To touch the face of God.”

Once back on the ground, he wrote a letter to his parents. In it he commented, “I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed.” On the back of the letter, he jotted down his poem, 'High Flight.'

Just three months later, on 11 December 1941 (and only three days after the US entered the war), Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was killed. The Spitfire V he was flying, VZ-H, collided with an Oxford Trainer from Cranwell Airfield flown by one Ernest Aubrey. The mid-air happened over the village of Roxholm which lies between RAF Cranwell and RAF Digby, in the county of Lincolnshire at about 400 feet AGL at 11:30. John was descending in the clouds. At the enquiry a farmer testified that he saw the Spitfire pilot struggle to push back the canopy. The pilot, he said, finally stood up to jump from the plane. John, however, was too close to the ground for his parachute to open. He died instantly. He was 19 years old.

Part of the official letter to his parents read, “Your son's funeral took place at Scopwick Cemetery, near Digby Aerodrome, at 2:30 P.M. on Saturday, 13th December, 1941, the service being conducted by Flight Lieutenant S. K. Belton, the Canadian padre of this Station. He was accorded full Service Honors, the coffin being carried by pilots of his own Squadron.”

 

[fncceo]

Star Fighters

 

[Third Party]

Here is what used to be used for the sign off when we had only three TV stations and they went off the air. For you old hands, it's precious. Only the F-104 and the SR-71 deserve to fill that spotlight.

High Flight...

I remember the Indian head on the screen.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Here is what used to be used for the sign off when we had only three TV stations and they went off the air. For you old hands, it's precious. Only the F-104 and the SR-71 deserve to fill that spotlight.

High Flight...

I remember the Indian head on the screen.

Yes, that came on for a time after High Flight. Then the grey dot screen until the next morning where they opened with the Star Spangled Banner.