Pancho Barnes and the Birth of an US Air Force Test Pilot School Tradition

The custom of commemorating a US Air Force pilot trainee’s inaugural solo flight with a water dunking traces its roots back to Pancho Barnes’ Happy Bottom Riding Club in the early 1940s. The story goes that one sunny afternoon, a group of experienced pilots was celebrating the successful completion of a young pilot’s first solo flight at the Happy Bottom… [Read More]

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