I completed four operational flying assignments as a pilot in the United States Air Force. My career, with its balance of operational and staff assignments, was more or less typical for USAF pilots of my generation. What was different … and I’m sure it was nothing more than happenstance … is that the flying squadrons my family and I called home were not only low-numbered ones, but came in ascending numerical order: from the 8th Flying Training Squadron to the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, then on to the 43rd TFS and finally the 44th TFS. How many USAF veterans can say that? […]
The salesman told Donna not only will we not have to rinse dishes before putting them in the new unit, we shouldn’t, because the dishwasher it’s to work best with dirty dishes. Uh-huh. Tell me another one, appliance salesman. […]
Fighters don’t carry a lot of fuel, and what they carry they burn at a great rate. […]
I was going to write a Veterans Day post but settled for a couple of short entries on Facebook and Instagram, along with some photos of combat veteran aircraft from the air museum. Writing about my own service seems, I don’t know, self-serving? Like I’m asking for a pat on the back? For doing something I loved doing? […]
I’ve been thinking about the different methods of starting aircraft engines.
Today you start almost all aircraft piston engines the same way you start your car: by turning on the ignition and engaging an electric starter motor. Of course this wasn’t always the way. In the beginning you had to hand-prop them. If you own […]
I don’t know why, with my fighter and trainer background, I should be drawn to this old Buff, but it fascinates me and I come back to it again and again. […]
In the 1980s DoD policy forbid airing partisan commentary on common area TVs and radios. CNN, which in those days was a pure news outlet offering around the clock international and domestic reporting, was authorized, and it ran in the background on TV monitors at military command headquarters and the Pentagon. […]
Meanwhile, that pretty little Cessna 172 at Pima Air and Space speaks to me every time I walk or drive past it, and no wonder. I lost my virginity to one of its sisters. […]
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