Air-Minded: the C-130 Replacement that Wasn’t

I’m putting this Air-Minded post back at the top of the blog because it’s an interesting bit of aviation history; new, I hope, to some of my readers. I wrote it in 2012, at a time when Mitt Romney and John McCain were competing for the Republican presidential nomination and the US military services were floating […]

Air-Minded: Counting My Squadrons

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?