I was intrigued to read the following from an online Air Force publication:

"Pentagon IDs Missing WWII Airman: The Defense Department identified remains for 2nd Lt. Harold E. Hoskin, an Army Air Forces airman missing since World War II. Hoskin was one of five crewmen on a B-24 that left Fairbanks, Alaska, on Dec. 21, 1943 on a cold-weather test mission.

The aircraft did not return to base, and it would be almost three months before they learned from surviving crewman 1st Lt. Leon Crane of the aircraft's crash upon losing an engine. Crane was one of two who parachuted out and survived in the Alaska wilderness. He led a recovery team to the crash site in 1944, but the team suspected Hoskins also had managed to parachute out when his remains were not found with two other crewmen.

In 2006, a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team located a site identified by a Park Service historian and found remains subsequently identified as belonging to Hoskins."

This at the time we watch the search for Steve Fossett. At the moment nothing has been heard from the world renowned adventurer since he departed for a three hour flight on Labor Day.

Steve was flying solo in a single engine light plane called a Citabria (airbatic spelled backwards) when he departed a privately owned ranch airstrip south of Reno, Nev.

Reportedly he was looking for a dry lakebed on which he was hoping to set a world land speed record. Since then nothing heard.

Steve Fossett, a self made multi-millionaire has his name on over 100 World Records covering a slew of endeavors. He has swum the English Channel three times, set solo around the world records in a sailing ship, a jet-powered airplane and in a hybrid hot air balloon.

It is the latter that gives him a local connection as it was our own John Kugler that taught him the fine art of hot air ballooning.

John also served Fossett in the role of inflation master on each of his many attempts at setting distance, and particularly around the world record attempts in non-powered aircraft.

Steve has reportedly gotten himself in pickles before. One other time, he ended up in the wilderness and had to walk out over 30 miles before he could find someone to pick him up. I think that adventure took three days and so far this one is 12 days and counting but it has a ways to go to equal Lt. Leon Crane's three months in the wilderness of Alaska in the dead of winter armed with only what he carried down in his parachute.

John Kugler and his buddies with Fossett connections are anxiously monitoring every news release concerning the fate of their friend and hero.

And what will be his fate? Will he walk out alive and chide us for looking in the wrong places? Will he be found perished in the wreckage of his plane having died doing what he loved best?

Or will he suffer the unknown fate of Amelia Earhart who disappeared without a trace the year I was born?

Obviously those of us who champion the adventurer hope that he is found in good health with a glorious tale of survival to tell.

Interestingly, I was visiting with a lady about the disappearance of Fossett and she bemoaned the fact that he filed no flight plan.

I informed her that most of my own flights are conducted with no flight plan. I do leave word with family and friends as to my expected whereabouts and projected time of return with the hope that they will send out a search if I fail to return.

Yeah, I know, some would be happy to see me gone. For general aviation, flight plans are not required except for bad weather and probably the vast majority of flights every day are conducted without filing a plan. It is a requirement, though, that every airline flight with passengers on board be conducted with a flight plan.

You may have read that the airlines are crying doom because the skies are getting crowded.

The real problem is that the runways and airline gates are crowded and it isn't politically correct to build more runways and airline parking facilities.

There is also a hidden agenda and that is to get general aviation to pay more of the FAA's expense to support air travel. The system is funded at the present time by taxes on aviation fuel and a tax assessed on every traveler who uses the commercial airlines. Oversight of the funds is vested in the United States Congress and we in general aviation like it that way.

The airlines want more control of the process and a greater portion of the expense to be born by anybody but them so they are pushing a "user fee." For us in general aviation that would be about a 300 percent increase in our gas taxes and even less of a voice on how the money is spent. Higher taxes are never a popular concept and probably mean a slow death for private aviation as we know it today.

Urge your congressman and senators to vote NO on user fees!

That is the way I see it.