Lefty

[Neal Nurmi]

Since I seem to be waxing nostalgic lately (Does that mean I'm getting old, or that I AM old?) I'll start another thread about someone I really miss, and an airplane I really miss too.

I'm sure folks here have probably seen more Lefty Gardner photos than they can stand, but Lefty is one of my next scanning projects so y'all are just gonna have to take it, LOL.

[Neal Nurmi]

Those hands had done a lot of work...

[Neal Nurmi]

This was Reno 1977, back when I was just a rank beginner at this whole airplane picture taking thing.

Somehow I don't think you'd ever see this sort of thing these days...

[Neal Nurmi]

At the Miami Air Race in 1979

[Sully]

Keep them coming Neal.

[Invader26]

In the '70's a trip to Harlingen with a Tx BBQ at Lefty's place with the Mustang taxied across the road from his airfield and parked on the front lawn of the house 'till 3am....

[Neal Nurmi]

A decade later the paint scheme had changed and the airframe cleaned up a bit, but it was always kind of a rough airframe by modern standards. Here Lefty is landing in iffy weather after the Silver Race at the former Hamilton AFB in 1988.

[Neal Nurmi]

Lefty raced this thing for a long time. What a set of careers that man had...

[stryper]

Met Lefty when I lived in Santa Maria, Ca. My house was in SMX's approach, and I heard the distinctive sound of the P-38 flying over. Got in my truck, and sped over to the airport to see it. It was early evening on a Sunday, and I figured Lefty just got in from an airshow somewhere. With the little crowd that had gathered, Lefty took his time answering all of our questions, and let us look around the plane. After our excitement, and questioning had slowed, Lefty said "It's been a long weekend, y'all have a good night".

On my way back home, I thought "that was a cool ole' guy".

[Neal Nurmi]

That he was.

The second shot here is by my wife Birgitta.

[Lynn Allen]

Thank you Neal for these pictures of Lefty and hopefully more. He was the 1st CAF Col. I ever met. Sure do miss him and his routine that he flew...

[Lon Moer]

Lefty Gardner was the only person to race a (those were both wrong) at the Reno Air Races.
He also won the Gold Championship in 1976 flying his P-51 Thunderbird.

I remember in '78 it it snowed at Reno and Lefty went up in the P-38 and did aerobatics to keep the crowd occupied while they waited for the storm to pass.
I have slides of that that I should scan.

Last edited by Lon Moer on Sat Jun 04, 2016 4:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Neal Nurmi]

Actually Lefty raced a P-63, and fellow Colonel Ed Messick raced a P-39.

I do remember that snowstorm -- a bunch of us press people walked most of the way back to the pits afterwards, because somebody forgot to come out and pick us up. Boy was it cold...

[Neal Nurmi]

I ran across another Lefty picture -- this was at the former Hamilton AFB in Marin County, California. That's the only Air Race I ever went to where I could sleep in my own bed at night. The Race was 20 minutes from my house at the time.

Lefty was in very good company here...