A great has his final flight...

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DA900
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A great has his final flight...

Post by DA900 »

Read in Aviation International News that Len Morgan pass away March 11 of cancer at the age of 82

Any one who has been reading Flying for more than 10 years would remember Len's column "Vectors" That would be one of the first columns I would flip to in the back.

For those who had not heard of him he was a retired Braniff 747 driver who wrote for Flying magazine. He always had great stories about his flying experiences from his military and airline flying.

Although he was American he learned to fly in Canada with the RCAF during WWII. As the USAAF required a secondary education I believe he said. He always wrote highly of Canada and RCAF.

I was allways great to read columns he will be missed...


I did not see any threads about this if it had been mentioned before my apology
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hz2p
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Post by hz2p »

I doubt many of the youngsters here will recall Len Morgan, or Gordon Baxter for that matter. Or Roy Lopresti, or Bob Hoover.

One saying of Len's stays with me: "One good hole in the overcast is worth 10 published approaches".
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Post by Airtids »

Correct me if I'm wrong... I heard Bax passed last year. Is that correct? All those guy's you mentioned filled my head with dreams of what awaited me in my career as a pilot. Bax with how to enjoy the bottom rungs, Len with the trials, tribulations, and glories at the top end, and Lopresti how to get places fast, with Hoover how to 'fight the power'. Very educational group of fellas.
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Post by desksgo »

Hey Tids, I heard Bax wasn't well, but I never heard that he had died. No doubt though, those guys are the legends. I've met Bob Hoover, and he is an incredible guy, just a true aviator. There's some very inspiring stories, and lessons to be learned from them all.

Sorry to hear about Len Morgan, he was an incredible guy.
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Post by Vickers vanguard »

I bought my first issue of Flying magazine in 1992 ..............Len wrote a story about a flight in the BAC one eleven while he was at Braniff......I always loved his stories since it was mostly dealing with propliners from the 50's and the 60's......the long gone glamour years of aviation.
The one story I remembered the most, was how he got his first civilian flying job after the war, when He showed-up on the ramp of an airline flying a surplus P51 he bought from the air force.
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a great has passed

Post by bigred »

hz2p i've heard of Mr.Lopresti as well as his aircraft and of Mr hoover and his inverted aero commander dont know of many other 25 year olds who can say that. How about Charlie Vaughn?
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Post by hz2p »

It's important to realize that there is a great deal more to aviation than what you might initially encounter these days.

Do yourself a favour, and read _Fate is the Hunter_ by Ernie Gann and _A Gift Of Wings_ by Richard Bach. They won't cost you very much, but they will help you develop perspective on the history of what it is that we do.

I don't suppose hardly anyone here will recognize many of these names:

William Bishop
William Barker
George Beurling
Gregory Boyington
Robin Olds
John Boyd

But they were all giants in aviation, long before the self-proclaimed kings of aviation paid union dues and pushed buttons.

The first three are even Canadians, but because they weren't French, they are nearly completely lost to history.

I doubt a single soliltary soul here even knows of the famous Bishop-Barker Toronto airshow, despite how many of you dwell in the GTA. It's really quite sad and pitiful, actually.
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Post by hz2p »

For information on John Boyd, who is described as:

"while still a junior officer, John Boyd changed the way every air force in the world flies and fights."

And was behind the development of the F-16, the F-18 and the A-10, read:

http://www.avweb.com/news/reviews/183245-1.html

As expected, someone so gifted was bitterly hated by the authorities. He and his friends - the "fighter mafia" paid a high price for their achievements, but they wouldn't have it any other way.
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Post by North Shore »

How about Willie McKnight - the road into CYYC is named after him, I believe....

Is it really that sad and pitiful that no-one remembers these names? For most of us on here, they are from our grandfather's or even great-grandfather's generation, and thus a distant memory to even older posters. I'm sure that they were all courageous men (and perhaps they were great guys to get along with too), but then so were the men who were household names after WW1, or the Boer War, or Waterloo - and do we remember them any more? I mean no disrespect here (& BTW, I know all of those names, and roughly what they did, apart from Boyd - and Google will fix that) for we do owe them a lot -but now, 60 years after the fact, it's history, and where it involves a war, it is always sad..
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Post by Sticky »

Vickers vanguard wrote:I bought my first issue of Flying magazine in 1992 ..............
I read every issue of Flying the same way for decades...first BaxSeat, then Vectors, followed by I Learned About Flying From That. The current crop of writers at Flying, while knowledgeble, well-written, and respected in their fields, don't capture and hold my imagination like Bax and Morgan did. They were true stick and rudder guys who knew how to write stories for pilots...

If there is such a thing as a hereafter, then I'm sure Len Morgan is flying a big orange airplane as we speak...
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Post by costermonger »

RIP, Len.
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a great has passed

Post by bigred »

If you have not heard of Billy Bishop you should leave Canada untill you have. I myself think it is pretty sad the way that Canada deserted Buzz Beurling and his family when his sabatoged plane crashed. And the only thing I can say for Pappy Boyington is this Baa Baa Baa I wish I could have met him.
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Post by hz2p »

Apologies for the thread-jacking, but revisionism makes me barf.

On the subject of Canadian household names, I'm sure the CBC has ensured that pretty much everyone here knows who Louis Riel is, but who here knows about Sir John Beverley Robinson?

This really isn't that off-topic. Surviving in aviation is all about applying the lessons that pilots before you have learned. If you want to survive, that is.

A pilot who isn't a student of (aviation) history is a mouth-breathing lout that is inarguably an avoidable accident waiting to happen.
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Post by RatherBeFlyingInCanada »

I grew up reading both Len Morgan's and Gordon Baxter's ever since I was old enough to read, both great people. 8)
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Post by Rudder Bug »

I remember Richard Bach as Flying Magazine's editorialist when I was a kid
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Re: A great has his final flight...

Post by treck »

I posted this notice in the general comments and to my surprise only one person responded. I went to the service. I sat with a veteran
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