Gatherings

This weekend I'm ensconced in the Hangar Hotel in Fredericksburg Texas. It's a great place, built in a WW II era hangar structure and themed around airplanes. The desk clerk is outfitted in airline uniform shirt, the public areas are decorated with 1940s luggage, airplane pictures and memorabilia. Outside there is, of course, an airfield with aircraft coming and going.

Hangar Hotel

The high point for an itinerant fighter pilot always seems to be the watering hole. Here at the Hangar, it's the "Officer's Club" and it is quite simply a very neat bar. Paneled walls, plushy leather arm-chairs, comfortable stools at the bar with a congenial barmaid, a pool table, some retro-style pully-driven ceiling fans lending a colonial Brit flavor and a separate TV room with a giant 80 inch flat-panel TV to watch the Rangers collapse before the Yankees onslaught.

I'm in town for the sixth annual gathering of the surviving members of the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron that flew F-105s in the early years of the Vietnam war. We'll assemble north of town in Willow City for BBQ, beer and BS today.

But, the Hangar always has something else going on. This year it is a gathering of the Texas Cobra Club. There are more AC Cobras in the parking lot than I ever imagined could exist. All colors, all variants, all noisy and adrenaline surges on wheels. I'll try to get some pix up tomorrow.

The Cobras aren't originals though. They are all kit-car builds commemorating the Shelby racing classics. The result is a bit of creativity, a huge upgrade in technology and a wide variety of engines. A bunch of bored/stroked power plants offering even more ponies per pound than the original Cobra. One even displays the tiniest little bow-tie on the engine plaque; a heretic who dumped a Chevy mill into the Cobra frame. Regardless, they are all pretty.