Knights Without Parachutes — frederick libby

Attack in the Third Dimension But now wheeling swiftly across [the river], like shadows of untimely night, he saw in the middle airs below him five birdlike forms, horrible as carrion-fowl yet greater than eagles, cruel as death. Now they swooped near, venturing almost within bowshot of the walls, now they circled away. But now the dark swooping shadows were aware of [Gandalf]. One whirled towards him; but it seemed to Pippin that he raised his hand, and from it a shaft of white light stabbed upwards. The Nazgul gave a long wailing cry and swerved away; and with that...

My Great Friend, "Rick" Richthofen That's the impression Frederick Libby decided to leave when he returned to America, after a couple years of flying for the British, when Billy Mitchell requested he go teach American pilots how to fly. (Which didn't actually happen, but that's another story.) Libby didn't enjoy being asked about the war all the time (his audiences wanted gruesome stories, and as he put it, "We only were killed, not butchered.") So with one group, he inquired whether they had ever heard of the great Baron von Richthofen. "I launch forth and give the great baron his biggest buildup, how...

A Colorado Cowboy Kisses the Blarney Stone ...Which could be why Horses Don't Fly is so readable. One of the local connections Andy Parks likes to mention on Vintage Aero Flying Museum tours is Frederick Libby, the cowboy from Sterling, Colorado. Libby's father offered Frederick's older brother three of his best horses if he could keep Frederick alive to the age of 18 (and later revised the reward to the age of 15). Fortunately, Frederick Libby survived his own escapades, grew up, went to Canada, joined the war as a truck driver, hated the rain, and joined the Royal Flying Corps to get...

Frederick Libby, like many other airmen, got into aviation because it sounded better than the infantry. In Libby’s case, it was the rain that got to him; he felt sorry for the men entrenched in what had been a swampland, since the Germans across from them had seized the ridge. Whatever else he knew, he knew airplanes didn’t fly in the rain. Except that sometimes they did. The Red Baron once got lost trying to get to Berlin in spite of bad weather. “I laughed at the clouds and the beastly weather even though the rain came down in buckets....