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VOL. 2/ISSUE 19
FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2014
Palm City flyer was last of a generation, prototype for a new one Patrick McCallister Staff writer
pmccallister@YourVoiceWeekly.com
Palm City’s Don Wells is a bit of living military history. He appears to be the last Navy pilot to ever get wings for training on the single-engine, propeller attack-fighter plane. That was in December 1962 in a Douglas A-1 Skyraider. He flew his training flights out of the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. “I was like, ‘I got to fly this (expletive) prop and everyone else is flying jets,’” he said. OK, he wasn’t all that excited about getting the honor. It was 1962, after all. Prop fighters were losing their place in warfare, although Wells flew combat missions in them during the Vietnam War. He did finally get his jet — the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. “The jet is much easier,” Wells said. “When you add throttle to the prop airplane, it wants to turn upside down.” Military propeller-driven aircraft were first used for reconnaissance. Unarmed pilots would fly over enemy positions and make reports. According to numerous historical reports, air war seems to have started in August 1914. A Serbian pilot fired a handgun midair at an Austro-Hungarian aviator. That was a game changer. Within months of that incident, military airplanes were getting machine guns. The dogfight was born. By and large, World War I dogfights
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Patrick Murphy
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Bipartisan solutions to create jobs Staff photo by Patrick McCallister Palm City’s Don Wells holds a bit of Navy history. Among his many piloting credits, Wells was the last Navy pilot to do a training flight to get wings for single-engine fighter planes. He has the pilot log that records the event. That training flight was in a Douglas A-1 Skyraider, which was nicknamed the ‘Spad,’ jokingly referring to the age of the plane. SPAD were French biplane fighter aircraft of World War I.
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nemployment is at its lowest level since 2008; yet our recovery has been far too slow and there are still too many people who either cannot find a job or are working more but
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“I look back at it — I’m proud of it, being older. At the time, I was young. I wanted to fly jets.” Don Wells, Skyraider pilot