Rock Star!

From my friend Brooks Wachtel…
I received an amazing holiday gift the day after Christmas thanks to Ian L. Sitren who arranged for me to meet Fred Bell, the director of the Palm Springs Air Museum. It’s not often a writer gets rock-star treatment, but that’s what the Museum staff – all fans of DogFights – gave me.

I found, to my delight, that the museum even run segments of the series on monitors in front of some of their display aircraft to illustrate the warbird’s stories.
One of the treats was seeing this Phantom, in Midway livery, that we depicted in “Mig Killers of the Midway” an episode I wrote with Cynthia Harrison-Wallach.

We interviewed most of the aviators whose names are emblazoned on the aircraft and brought their combat to life – they were responsible for both the first the very last MIG kill of the Vietnam War.

Here’s Fred Bell and I in front of the F-4 Phantom (thank you, Ian, for the photo). Fred and his staff do a fantastic job and I highly recommend the museum for any fan of history or aviation. They have an amazing collection and it keeps getting better.

For the curious, I’ve included the DogFights episode thanks to the inevitable youtube link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfQVehFjvaI