End of an Era

I am going to go off at a tangent for a moment here, rewind back to 1985 when I was working in Building Two (or was it Building One?) at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, California.

The days of the T-45 were a heady and happy time and we contractors (of sorts, no lucrative money at the time) worked side by side with the "normal" Long Beach inmates.

Despite the red striping on my badge, one day I was given special dispensation to go and see (and sit in) the T-45 mockup in the developmental area. An area where security was tight, not really for the T-45 but for a huge fuselage mockup in the same building. We were allowed to take a look, it was the C-17 study unit and it was HUGE, they had been using it to show vehicle loading viability.

One day, a few months later, sat at my desk, the tannoy sparked to life and the voice of Sandy McDonnell boomed throughout Building One (or was it two?) announcing (to great cheers throughout the facility) that McDonnell-Douglas had won the C-17 Program, I think his words were "..given the green light".

I'm sure I had a Michelob (or seven) that night to celebrate, mind you, in that chapter of my life I was having that sort of nightly volume of beer under normal circumstances.

Sandy McDonnell died on March 19th, I hope that more Michelob will be raised to celebrate that man's life achievements, in fact, I will make a start on that that right now.