
Cheated Death Again By Jim Lamb Back in the late ‘70s, I was living in Wichita, Kansas, as an instructor pilot in the KC-135. Wichita was the home of Cessna, Beechcraft, and Learjet, along with twenty airports within twenty miles. For a while, I was conducting simulator instruction during the evening shift. This allowed me to work on my civilian instructor rating during the day. One day, I flew a short mission in the tanker in the morning on a nice day, except for the columns of smoke from farmers burning off their wheat fields. I wanted to get to my credit union in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where Cathryn’s dad set us up with the Phillips 66 Credit Union. I was buying a new car. I could drive a big “L” shaped drive, it would be 2 ½ hours. I had flown there in rental Cessna 152s before, and it is about an hour flight. My friend, Bill Holroyd, whom I had first met in a simulator, had a half interest in a Piper Cherokee 140. He had a civilian instructor rating. The plane had r...