It is almost exactly 70 years since I flew solo for the first time in a Stearman trainer plane in Ponca City, Oklahoma. I have been recording my memories of my four years in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, including the pilot training I had in America as part of the ‘Lease-lend’ arrangements UK had with USA. Memories are triggered by random contacts with names, places, music, photographs. They are ‘wild echoes flying’.