C-47 Pilot Fred Horky, Circa 1960, Sembach AB, Germany

During my first year at Sembach I was checked out as an aircraft commander in the C-47. This was back in the days of "weekend cross-countries, and I was fortunate to be able to fly it on several neat trips, including a "Berlin Corridor" checkout to that city, Copenhagen, and London. Some of our Sembach vets will probably remember three-day passes taken in that airplane.

* At the time, I was a bachelor. Most of the other pilots checked out as A/C in the gooney bird were captains, majors, and colonels. Married captains, majors, and colonels. I was far down the totem pole as a 1st Lt, but they let me take this 3-day-pass run (my passengers were about twenty G.I.'s with "good guy" passes from all the first-shirts of the base) because the Sisterhood of Air Force Wives had heard all about those weekend trips, and thus their married captains, majors, and colonels somehow couldn't get "kitchen passes".