Fifty years ago today . . .

. . . on Thursday, January 30, 1964, Mike and several of his flight school comrades flew out over the Gulf of Mexico in T-28C airplanes like the one in this picture and somehow managed to find that same ship, the USS Lexington:

One-by-one, they landed on its flight deck and took off again. Then to make sure it wasn't beginner's luck, they did it seven more times.

To commemorate the event, M planned to go flying today in another old training plane called an AT-6. He booked an hour-long "Ultimate Barnstormer" package offered by History Flight, a warplane restoration group at the DeLand Airport. The flight includes something called aerobatics, which requires clear skies and good visibility. But as a dead Scottish poet wrote, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley . . ." That basically means don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Or as a New Jersey governor might say, we'll close that bridge when we get to it! Our airport and surrounding area have been overcast and rainy for the past couple of days, thanks to a winter storm named Leon:

M took these pictures yesterday morning and hoped things would look a lot better today, but they didn't. So he'll have to try again later. Stay tuned . . .