Howdy everyone. I guess to start with I will try to give a brief explanation of who I am. As for those who have chatted with me, or emailed back and forth can attest, that may be quite difficult for me to do, since I start off trying to say one or two words and end up writing a novel. I can only say it must be due to the many experiences in my life as a very hyper-active person. I think I get some of it from my uncle who was also very active and always on the go, and developed a very large world famous company.

I was born in August of 1952. My mother was Vivian M. Bushman, and married Jack M. Veggin. To some the names may ring a bell, to others it may not even tinkle the spoon in their coffee cup, yet a lengthy family history book called "From Candlelight to Satellite" gives great detail to my ancestors on my mothers side, and on my fathers side it's not quite as discrete. His mothers mother, my great grandmother had three brothers. One of which my father and I get our first name from, Jack Warner. Most of you probably know who I am speaking of. So for the rest of you, Jack Warner is that powerful person who headed up the Warner Brothers company.

Jack Warner was a big fan of Volvo and SAAB for their precision work and detail, and he used their products in his movies extensively. He had never married or had children, so he favored my grandmother for naming her son after him. Then when I was born, I carried a "W" as my middle initial which thrilled him out of this world. He had explained to me several times that it thrilled him so much because he avoided marriage and having children. That decision was by choice because his work left him no time to have a family life, and he felt he couldn't be the father he should be if he had kids. Therefore he never looked past the W in my name and called me J Dub 2. Everyone who knew him referred to him as J Dub. The W in my name is for my mothers father, Wil Bushman, who worked for Hostess bakery in Seattle for 30 years and was very well known in the northwest. My uncle Jack never seemed to mind that fact, and went throughout the world speaking of me. Not to average people I might add, as he was the most powerful person this world has ever seen, being able to freely come and go in any country of the world because of his company. He dealt with rulers around the world from the 20's to the 70's. Now that I have cleared up who I am, I'll get to the stuff you're here to read about. Hopefully in shorter detail than my autobiography I am currently working on.

My uncle's involvement with SAAB, and Volvo, the timing of my birth, and my initials were coincidence, since I don't think my parents planned on me showing up the year and month I did. After all it was 9 months to the day after New Years Eve 1951 in which I did arrive. I never did ask if it was beer or wine or whatever, that influenced my entry to this world, although I know that 1951 December holiday period had to have a big influence with it. Later in the year of 1952 as things became less easy to hide, my uncle received word of what my initials would be whether I was born a girl or boy.

He was involved at that precise time in the start up of the next generation of SAAB Fighter Jets. Being so financially involved with it, he was able to influence the naming also, and having fluent knowledge of the Swedish language, and history, he had the plane named after me, as he told me many times over. He did mention if I was a girl I would have been named Jackie and constantly prayed I would be a boy. So came the name of the SAAB JA37 Jakt Viggen. With my uncle keeping me informed on its development all through my childhood, giving me many little die cast replicas of the plane.

This is the repaint I did for FS, with this view over the SAAB Airfield in Sweden

As a kid there was only one thing I didn't like about its design which I remember quite well. It was the bottom tail fin. Being a young kid, I liked daydreaming and pretending to be flying it, making sounds of a jet, but landing on the floor its nose always went down, and on carpets it hooked, due to the fin holding it up in the back. Some things you just can't make a child appreciate no matter what you say. My uncle tried to explain to me several times what it was there for, and I do remember laying in hospital beds touching and looking at that fin endlessly on the first plastic replica he gave me, which I treasured. I can still see the teeth marks in my mind thinking of it, where I had tried to chew that fin off so I could make perfect 3 point landings. But in those days plastic was like steel, and the fin remained.

How I got in the hospital is in itself many long separate stories, not just one experience. The first six years of my life must have been a total nightmare for all my relatives. I know I would have had a heart attack and died if it was one of my children. First was German measles coupled with tonsillitis at age two which they didn't expect me to survive, second was my drowning in a motel pool near Twenty Nine Palms, I had very carefully watched out the sides of my eyes to be able to sneak to the deep end of the pool with a toddlers rubber raft and go deep sea sailing in it. Yet when I attempted to step in, it scooted out across the pool and I went straight to the bottom. All this will be in great detail in the book, and is currently available to a good extent online.

Shortly after getting out of the hospital over that ordeal I was still very exploratative and sneaky. Yet I quickly learned my mother had made sure we live nowhere near water when I got out, and I found myself going home to a motel way out in the desert, which was old, and hot, and not with any luxuries at all, and no place for kids to play except in the endless ocean sized sand box full of scorpions; this box however was the desert itself.

Being very explorative it was less than two weeks and I found something new to investigate. As my mother and stepfather Frank, a marine, were inside playing cards with the owners of the motel, I found my way around behind the cabin and noticed a small step ladder and a square metal box on the wall, which made me curious, and therefore I climbed up and ended up taking the lights out to fix them which were not really lights at all, but flat glass fuses. After another short stay in the hospital, I again returned home to another new place, then eventually onto the base housing as it was completed.

There we were directly across from the marine heliport for training. It was in about 1956, and I watched many hours of auto gyro training of helicopter pilots, and saw many crash and explode violently killing fathers of some of my friends, and swore never to go up in one of those contraptions. But as of lately my son has been, and against my wishes, since he is in the Army National Guard of Washington. So in reverse of common cliche, like son like father I guess I may go up in one also; my son may have me lined up in a Black Hawk this summer. I will give details here on FlightSim.Com as to how it handles and feels, and its sounds, when and if I get the nerve up to actually ride a weed eater into the sky. My favorite Sikorsky is the actual first true helicopter, and I do enjoy flying it in my sim. It's what I use on there to try looking into the windows of them condos down around Miami beach, oops, there goes another top secret story. It makes me wonder of the feds who get paid to do that stuff, what it might be like to have one of their jobs, or the personality to do it. Did I say that?

Soon after, I started kindergarten in a brand new school in the desert, and that year went off OK, nothing too wild about me, but my mother got attacked by scorpions and nearly died from that, and in the summer after I had two more bad happenings, first was falling onto a cactus which my mother told me the story of many times, and how it took three days in the hospital for doctors to remove the foot long needles.

Then late summer just before my sixth birthday I went once around the block of two quadplexes, and pulled back up in front of our kitchen door on my bicycle, to notice a large pile of sand, and called to my mother, since I could see her in the window doing the breakfast dishes, and she came to the door and panicked and said don't move, I looked down and saw I was totally covered to the waist with bright red fire ants, I started to yell in fear knowing they could hurt me badly, and they all bit at the same time, and I remember next coming home again from the hospital wrapped up from my waist down in gauze and spent the rest of that month in the house.

The third bad one was on about he first day of school in the first grade, when I was playing in the fenced play area at the slide, and a kid a bit older and taller than myself, hit me over the head with a broken chunk of cement, in the size and shape of a football, and with all his force, the details to this episode are very lengthy, and so I'll jump ahead to being back in Seattle and meeting up with my uncle after my miracle recovery and regaining the use of my right side.

It was about 1960 when they figured I was near fully recovered with only some spacy daydreams interrupting my thought processes. My uncle had come to me to ask me if I want to be a famous singer, and the most famous ever, yet I had already been talked to by my dad's father and warned I may not know who a friend or enemy is if I accept my uncle's offer. My grandfather may have meant well but I have since learned it has nothing to do with money or fame and sure wish I could let him know that today. From his talk I decided I wanted nothing to do with fame, and explained it to my uncle, yet he made me aware I was already world famous for several reasons, and that hiding it would be hard to do and may not be possible.

We went on to discuss his will and many other things, and I am currently seeking those who defrauded my uncle's estate and took the moneys which should have come to me. It's not for the money but for my hatred of the wickedness and evil of those who victimize others, especially the innocent helpless and less fortunate. God knows I have paid the price for all victims, and has made examples from me with miracles, to give hope to those who need it, and if I regain control of Warner Brothers, that is what it will become, the most powerful advocate for victims in the world. And when I finish my book, much of the proceeds will go to help those who deserve help and to fight the biggest thieves in this world.

After the visit of my uncle in 1960 he returned shortly again with the King and Queen of Sweden and explained to me he had a very important couple of people who came from half way around the world just to meet me. I was picked up and taken to a fancy place I barely remember, and I do remember their accent very well, yet with clouded problems from the coma, I can only remember being so flattered by the queen and the honest look in her face and eyes as she spoke to me, which I knew instantly she was a great person and one to be honored for her compassion of others. She leaned over to shake my hand and said they came all the way around the world only to meet me and had been waiting many months to do so, and had been very worried of my accident and prayed endlessly for my recovery, she said I am truly the "Fighter and the Thunderbolt" in which my name stands for. My recovery was remarkably fast once I had awoke from the coma, regaining control of my right side which was totally paralyzed when I first awoke, and that accounts for my half left handed and half right handed ways.

Shortly after that is when I began my flying experiences. The first was an old Piper Tri-Pacer, in which I could not see over the glare shield of without getting up to my knees on the seat. I was so excited with the experience I lost contact with who ever it was who took me up, I can only recall it was someone special, and very well could have been my uncle, as I do remember my mother's excitement of the person being there to take us one at a time, and I was the first and the one with the longest ride, and I remember being shown how to turn and level and climb and descend, and remember being told the rudder is not needed to do these things if done slow and gently. Then I was given my chance, not being able to reach the pedals even just sitting in the seat, he had kept them steady and straight and talked me through making several turns and maneuvers, and I was a very astute student, my eyes did exactly everything he told me to do with them, and after a short time I had my first attempt at a touch and go landing. Boy did I ever feel like someone special when he said I must have had lessons somewhere before because all he did was steer the nose wheel when on the ground, and had admitted he didn't think I could do it, but proved him wrong on the first try. The second wasn't so hot, as I came in a bit high and slightly off center and he said not to worry it had to be the winds or something. I remember getting out later and not feeling any winds and thought about that on the way home, barely listening to my mother commenting back to me how proud she was for what he told her of my handling the plane. She told everyone we knew in the next few weeks just beside herself about an ability they never dreamed I could attain after the series of bad experiences.

My next was in the air scouts, getting in an unfinished 272 on its third flight and each of us having time at the stick, another awesome experience for a young boy, and for those who have never had that chance if you keep your volume to the right level and sit back on your PC, and take one of those situation flights like for the 737 the experience is so close, it's amazing, you just don't get the full feel on the sim, but the handling is quite accurate, the sound is nearly true, and for those with better PC's than the one I fly on, the sound may just be perfect. I was 11 at that point, and that's when I got to see the big birds with hands on, and got my glider permit about then also. I had a lot of fun in the hangar as a kid recovering the troop's glider, having done many model planes in tissue and silk span, the chance to use real silk was fun and easy, just a bit too heavy for the models, and yes I got a little to take home and try. The only problem with the real silk on models was not so much the weight, it just wouldn't shrink enough to fit the tight curves and corners of the small model planes.

Over time and several commercial flights from time to time, and after my kids were a couple years old or so, I started on my private license. I flew several different Cessna versions, from 150's to 192's, a Piper Cub, a stock Alon Air Coupe, and a modified Air Coupe which had all controls on the yoke, except one pedal for a brake only. The Alon Air Coupe is a really neat old vintage plane said to be spin proof due to the double tail. I would love to design or find one already made to use in my sim. I also flew and quickly fell head over heels in love with a Stearman PT17, and found a sterling scale gas model which I still have, and it flies like the real bird. If you want down you go wings over fall into a dive or cut the throttle off and wait till it slows to start a descent.

My brother Mark had gone to a school for an airframe and power plant certificate, and eventually landed a job and heard of an opening in the avionics section. I being deeply involved in electronics, he called to tell me of the opening. I went and applied and got the job. While there I didn't last long because I was stolen from that shop and pulled into flight test. My name was a key in that power pull I found out later. One of the pilots knew exactly who I was when he heard my name. That was Blackie Blackwell, and at that time was the leading Lear pilot the world over, having logged more hours than any other by virtue of working for the Lear Company, and many others as a test pilot, and for several movie makers including Warner Bros.

I did computer mod's and calibrations, avionics work, and ran the onboard flight photo recorder, having also been involved in photography since high school, and helping to launch the first electronics class there, and the first, dare I say it, home economics class for boys. That class ended up having all the trouble makers and hams of the school, and was Auburn's hope that would make it fail. It was a great success.

As we flew and did our testing in the Lears and Saber Liners, I spent a lot of time in right seat. Blackie and I fast became good friends, and a person you can learn about in a movie called Air America, staring Mel Gibson playing the person I speak of, had his hangar right behind us, and he flew several times with us. I must say Mel did a good job of playing him, only I can't quite put my finger on it, but there was a bit of difference. I think Mel should have been a little more serious looking in the movie, yet maintaining the humor. The end of the movie has a short bibliography of him and Air America.

In the many times we went up in the experimental Lear 24F, we had many problems of equipment failure. and a number of mayday calls, believing we weren't going to make it back to a place to land. One time it was pretty severe. We lost the starboard oil pressure fairly rapidly, down to about 30% then suddenly the engine died off. As we circled over the Straight of Juan DeFuca and headed toward the shores of Washington State, somewhere slightly east of the Dungeness Spit, we saw an area that appeared in from shore to flat and long enough with only bushes at the end instead of trees like the rest of the area.

This is the Lear 24F Experimental on the apron back in late fall of 1979.

This is the Saber Liner 80 Experimental on the apron, taken about a month later after some refitting work, with the nose of a 707 belonging to Air America in the background.

As we headed toward it the port engine started to lose oil pressure also, not as rapidly though and frantically trying to restart the starboard engine without luck. Then the port engine dropped off even more and died, we began to descend rather fast. As we approached I could see it was a field of about four to six soccer fields together and full of people. Still trying to start engines and Blackie getting nervous and calling mayday continually and finally getting a response from Pain Field he began to read it out play by play to them. We must have been between 500 and 700 feet when we got the port engine to fire and then the starboard engine. As we powered up and felt them give thrust, just as it was about to stall, I noticed a person on the field jumping and pointing at us, and the fields cleared like flies on a cow pie. Blackie wasn't paying attention until that point and we looked at each other, and we smiled, and right back to our jobs, leveled off and passed over the field with thrust going up rapidly and holding about 300 feet. I don't think the people on the field knew what was happening with us, but after we circled a few times to regain altitude and a spot plane with us in contact the full time, the oil pumps seemed to stabilize and power was OK, and we began to head toward Pain Field holding at 10,000 feet. As we got near there all seemed well and we were in a position to choose either Seattle or Everett, Blackie said Seattle, and we angled a bit more to the south with seemingly no problems and the spot plane stayed beside us. As we approached Harbor Island we lost a little power but the oil pressure seemed fine. By the time we passed Spokane Street oil pressure began to drop in the starboard engine again, and we had a bit of a side wind from the west to deal with. In our straight in approach the final descent we dropped too much and had no choice as the engines both decided to drop to under 30% port and 20% starboard. We slammed down hard at the very edge of the cement at under stall speed by about 8 knots. Hitting the thrust reversers Blackie said starboard flame out, and we cut the reversers and rode out a long hairy stop.

The 24F has only 12 inch tires, and doesn't come with thrust reversers on the engines, but Dee Howard Company manufactures them, and those on that bird at that time, had the second revision.

I had heard the news several years back of a Lear crashing on a test flight in Texas near San Antonio. I had listened intently, for I knew they were there near San Antonio to the news for a few days until the release of the pilot's name. It was the Great Blackie Blackwell. He had gone down while doing stall speed tests and a stall had developed into a flat spin, a well known problem of Lear jets. I guess that's why Blackie drank so much, and could down a fifth of gin and sitting with him you couldn't notice, but by the second fifth he staggered as he walked, but only a little, and still it didn't show in his voice. A great pilot and and professional hot dogger and thrill seeker in a Lear. The picture is the bird we flew most, the 24F, with pitot boom, and a very slick paint job and Dee Howard reverser's. If anyone wishes to get with me to design a true copy of this bird, its characteristics are much different than a stock 24F. Capable of higher altitudes and faster speeds and even ground speeds beyond belief and we caught lots of trouble from the tower many times for stunts on the runway and line ups waiting to go. Such as topping 400 kts before letting the stick go, and hovering in the taxi ways in line ups behind 272's and DC-10's doing their run ups.

Another pilot who flew with us was Tom, please forgive me for forgetting his last name at the moment but Tom never liked to go with Blackie, he was a much more straight forward do it by the book pilot, and argued with Blackie several times over some of Blackie little stunts, he didn't mind the superb snap rolls with a glass of gin and tonic filled to the brim set up on the glare shield and not spilling a drop, and Blackie always made bets doing that, and won every time.

One other famous thing Blackie did was get everyone sick who rode with him, except me, and he nearly got himself sick one day trying. The FAA buy off's were always a special treat for him as he would place big bets with them guys since they had more money than the employees in the hangar we took up for weight. And after the buy off's and then the bets he played a little on his way back giving each FAA pilot a feel of the hot little 24F, and not to mention normally getting 2 out of 3 of them sick every time on the last leg back.

Everyone who worked with Blackie knew he was very serious in his work and it was always work first and picking an area to do the work, and then on the return in a different area would be the play, and it was always that way. I know that if they said he was doing stall tests when the spin occurred he was working and not playing. That was a sort of known secret in case something did happen, yet in that spin I think it was his personal mechanic who went down with him. I ceased to use my flightsim for nearly two years because I could only think of his face and knowing and remember his fear but uninterrupted professional responses in a time of unforeseen emergencies in the air. His first concern was always for an open place on the ground where no others would be endangered. Like me, Blackie had more concern for others' safety before his. Him and I had no fear of our own deaths.

Another friend you all know, who I began to get close with was Commander Dick Scobee, and his uncle who introduced us about two years prior to his death. My son and daughter attended school with his kids, Dick and I developed a thing for the Rainier School in Buckley for the retarded kids to race model soapbox cars and see who won without any arguments, and it worked great.

All of this and much much more will be in my autobiography.

This article I have done as a special introduction to display on FlightSim.Com. I will in the near future do many more, in the nature of reviews for comparisons in the feel of real planes I have flown to the FS models designed to represent them.

God Bless All...
Jack W. Veggin Sr.
Copyrights 1979 to 2001 J.W.V.Sr.
JDub2 Productions