The good looking dude in the cockpit is quite obvious – he signed the photo. I must admit that the girl of his dreams back home, who ultimately became Mrs. Scotty the First, was unaware at the time that Scotty, the rascal, was dating a most attractive southern belle, a coed at Radford Jr. College. Perhaps he had read and believed that vicious propoganda about sailors having a girlfriend in every port.

The now vintage aircraft in which he is sitting was an N3N, negatively stressed bi-plane built at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia. It was a superb airplane in aerobatics, one of the first of the Yellow Perils. It was eventually replaced by the Boeing Stearman Basic trainer. Many N3N bi-planes were fitted with pontoons and used as trainers for the midshipmen at Annapolis. Such a float-plane was assigned to my squadron in Pensacola and I enjoyed pleasant hours thinking about the “girl of my dreams” while flying through and around the great puffy cumulous clouds prevalent in that part of Florida. For the record, the year was 1944.