Air-Minded: A Different Shade of Gray (Updated)
There’s no money to reopen the F-22 production line, let alone design and build a new air-to-air fighter, but hey, they still make F-15s in St. Louis — why not buy some new ones?
Air-Minded: Define “Best”
If I were king of the Air Force, I’d keep it in the drawer for private viewing, along with my stash of porn.
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?
Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog XVIII
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.
Air-Minded: Bitchin’ Betty (Updated 4/25/19)
When Sexy Sally started warning B-58 Hustler crews about engine fires in the 1960s, it was a major innovation, and using a woman’s voice was considered a brilliant stroke: human factors researchers thought a woman’s voice—rarely heard on the radio and never on the intercom—would cut through other chatter and get the crews’ attention.
Transonic Cat Wars
I remember a huge flap at Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands when a new guy, one of the first of a wave of evangelical Christian officers from the Air Force Academy (a wave that continues to plague the USAF today), recorded Spielberg’s awful “1941” movie over all the alert shack’s Betamax porn tapes. Funny now, but an existential crisis at the time!
Air-Minded: A Visit to the Museum
A few years back a friend told a friend of hers to hook up with me on Facebook. She thought we’d hit it off, since Kevin had been an F-15 maintainer at Kadena Air Base, stationed there at the same time I was. I didn’t know him then, but was happy to add him as a friend, […]
Air-Minded: PASM Photoblog X
This photoblog is primarily about the newly restored F-15A at Pima Air & Space Museum. I wrote about this Eagle in September 2011, when it was moved from the back acreage of the museum to the head of fighter row. What piqued my original interest was its tail number, 74-0118, because I flew 1974 Eagles […]