Springtime in the Rockies! Snow on June 10th—4 inches at USAFA and two feet or more in the high country. And guess who thought it would be a good time to take permissive TDY from Ent AFB for a 50-mile backpacking trip with the Boy Scouts—Earl VAN INWEGEN.

Bill TAYLOR, who departed USAFA in April for an F-4 checkout at Homestead, still expects to be going to Udorn in July, maybe. Before he left, Bill asked me to write the Summer Class News column—so here goes.

Congratulations are in order for nine more of our Super achiever classmates who made the latest Lieutenant-Colonel list: Howie BRONSON, Jerry DE LA CRUZ, John GIFFEN, Karl Mac JONES, Thomas LALIME, Ed LEONARD, Willard MACFARLANE, Don STEVENS, and Alex ZIMMERMAN. Good show! (I hope I didn’t miss anyone— if I did, send me a nasty.)

The aviation-gate requirements are causing curtailments up here in Fairchild Hall, and Mike MCCALL will soon be returning to crew duties at Travis. He’s already been out to scout the place and reports that PA COOKE is an assistant ops officer there.

The Academy flying programs are undergoing equipment changes. The tango-two-niners are already history; cadet nav missions will henceforth be flown in T-43s, which will be dispatched TDY from Mather. Ponca City, it’s the end of an era! The class of 1979 will be the last to get orientation rides in the T-Bird ... the Academy’s T-33s will be replaced with T-37s by the end of the summer. Nineteen-sixty vintage pilots, including yours truly, will cease flying when the Lockheed Racer does. Meantime, I’m still burning the JP-4, and on a recent trip to Cannon AFB I ran into Dick MEYER. It seems the F-111D may be unique these days—there is a shortage of OR pilots, and Dick is frozen. He says Jack SCHIRA is also stationed at Cannon-by-the-Sea.

Talked to Roy JOLLY last week. He’s at Tinker flying for the Reserve, and loving it. He’d seen Gordy FLYGARE, who had wandered in from the University of Oklahoma where Gordy’s in an AFIT program. Roy took his F-105 west recently and lifted a few with Jerry GIRARD at Nellis (PCS'ing to Wright-Patt) and George LUCK and Karl Mac JONES, at Edwards. Roy also mentioned that he’d seen Eileen THURMAN in December. She and the kids are living in Dayton, Ohio and doing well.

Jack BRUSH is spending the summer here preparing an inflation forecast for Hq USAF. Jack’s usual cynicism seems to be changing to optimism as his hairline recedes—he assures me that inflation will be 6 percent in FY 76 and 3.3 percent in FY 77. Jack also had a wild rumor—he says that he’d heard Walt SWEENEY left his job with the New Mexico ANG long enough to come up here during June Week and present an award to the graduate who had slipped furthest in order of merit. I’ve been unable to verify any of that, but it’s a good story and fills space. What about it Walt?

PCS: Charlie HART from Reese to Pentagon; Walt FUTCH from Kirtland to McClellan; Phil MEINHARDT from UCLA to SAMSO; FAT MAC from Edwards to Homestead to ?; Doug REKENTHALER from APO NY to Papillion, Nebraska; and ANTOM, PH from Nice, France to Acapulco. PH passes on the word that Denis WALSH is still holding a swingwing cockpit job at Plattsburgh (and thus DL’s feet are not itching). Dale THOMPSON is back in the states after five years in Europe—he and Cherie will be going to Montgomery for Air War College after spending some leave in Oklahoma and Nebraska. Dale, by the way, was the only one of you who bothered to send a note for the Class News Secretary. Thanks, Dale. Since I’m not the regular crew chief on this column (and since I’m also guilty of having never written). I feel I should deliver admonishments. Procure one each piece of paper, grasp a pen between thumb and forefinger, etc.—please! This column can’t pass on news unless you guys supply it.

Sad tidings for last. Robert C. DAVIS was declared KIA on 2 May 1975. He had been MIA since March, 1969.

I expect Jock SCHWANK will be here to write the next column (where are you, Jock?), and this will probably be my only opportunity to address the entire class, so—best wishes, good luck and Merry Christmas.