A Once-Shy Teenager Found His Salvation in Aviation

A new book explains the transformative power of flying.

Growing up as a shy teenager in Texas in the late 1970s, David Dale didn’t have a lot of confidence, but he didn’t let that stop him from getting a pilot’s license at age 16. This early success forecast a magnificent career in military and civil aviation, which included Dale’s service as a U.S. Air Force navigator in the Boeing B-52G. From there, he would become an aircraft commander in the McDonnell Douglas KC-10. He ended his military career as the commander of a squadron that flew VIP transport missions in the C-37. In his new book, Aviation Therapy, Dale, a decorated airman, writes of his many intersections with history. He took part in Operation Just Cause over Panama and Operation Desert Storm over Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Flying the KC-10, he delivered the U.S. Army Rangers to Mogadishu in October 1993—just before the infamous Black Hawk Down incident. He refueled F-16s during the Bosnian War, and he later logged many hours transporting General Tommy Franks to his meetings with President George W. Bush when Franks led the U.S. Central Command. Dale is now a captain at Southwest Airlines. He was recently interviewed by Air & Space Quarterly  senior editor Diane Tedeschi.

How did aviation help you overcome shyness and gain confidence?

The wonderful thing about aviation is that every day is different. Mother Nature changes constantly, so even if you land on the same runway day in and day out, the winds and the weather are always different. Landing is usually the most intensive phase of a flight, and the concentration can be extreme. But once the landing is over, you feel the exhilaration of a great accomplishment. With each challenge I overcame, my confidence grew. And once I started taking pride in my accomplishments, I no longer wondered if I was good enough.

Did being a B-52 navigator make you a better pilot?

I think I got off to a great start at pilot training because I was comfortable talking on the ATC  [air traffic control] radio and wearing an oxygen mask, which can be claustrophobic at first. I also had what we call “air sense,” aware of what was happening in-flight and around me, which helped improve my situational awareness. From a crew standpoint, I had been a navigator serving the pilot and now I was a pilot looking out for a crew. It helped to have been in the shoes of a non-pilot crew member.

Does the cabin of a B-52 make for a noisy work environment?

Yes! There was a constant dull roar once the eight engines started. We wore foam ear plugs under the earmuff-style headphones to try to block out some of the noise, but it was always very noisy. There were three different forms of communicating within the B-52. The two pilots talked on inter-phone, and we could chime in when necessary. The electronic warfare officer and the gunner used a private inter-phone setting, and the two navigators downstairs usually just dropped their oxygen masks and yelled to each other. As the navigator, I rarely spoke on the ATC  frequency, but I would click on the inter-phone to give guidance to the pilots sitting above me.

Is flying the B-52 at 400 feet above ground level on a simulated bombing run a nerve-racking experience?

I really enjoyed the intense concentration of low-level navigation. Sitting in my dark hole downstairs, I did not think about how low we were, and I mainly trusted the pilot to keep us from hitting the ground. I had to focus on keeping us within a four-mile corridor of the low-level route centerline and keeping us on time to the next simulated bombing target. I always remember the feeling of exhilaration as the bomber climbed up out of low level and I could momentarily take a break. I would drop my oxygen mask, lean back, and take a huge swig of water from my water bottle. The previous 90 minutes had been a total focus on navigation and calling out the bomb run checklist during our low-level route.

After Desert Shield began in August 1990, one of your friends who was stationed in Oman said: “Dave, you’ve got to get over here. The flying is great!” Was he right?

Most definitely. That was a very fulfilling and rewarding part of my life. We were all young pilots, flight engineers, and boom operators, and we wanted to participate in something meaningful. We didn’t feel like we had to go fly, but that we got to go fly. I brought along and read Peter Townsend’s 1970 book Duel of Eagles, about his World War II combat experience as a pilot in Britain’s Royal Air Force. I think that helped instill in me a sense of purpose for why I was supporting Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. It was also during that time that I flew my first mission in support of Mogadishu, Somalia, just two weeks before Desert Storm began. We helped with the evacuation of 61 U.S. State Department workers as the city fell to rebels. The sense of mission accomplishment is the most gratifying part of any military service. 

How important is teamwork and maintaining positive energy when your office is a KC-10 supporting combat aircraft?

Teamwork and crew coordination are vital to completing the Air Force mission. My crew got along great and worked very well together. It’s important that the enlisted crew members feel that they can speak up when they need to. Nobody on our crew was a jerk, and that helped a lot. Two KC-10 crews, or eight people total, shared one desert tent, so we were around each other day and night during Desert Shield/Storm. On a later deployment during Southern Watch (supporting the no-fly zone over southern Iraq), one of the other pilots had a problem working with his young copilot. The aircraft commander and I agreed to switch copilots. My new copilot was not a strong aviator, but I was coming up on instructor upgrade so my opportunity to instruct him was a benefit for both of us.

On at least one occasion, you and your team crossed into Iraq’s airspace, which required flying without lights and maintaining radio silence. In such crowded airspace, did you ever worry about a midair collision with a friendly aircraft?

Our mission over Iraq was made up of only two KC-10s and a handful of F-15s, pursuing the fleeing Iraqi fighters. We were much higher than the [coalition] bombers and fighter-bombers flying their attack routes over the desert below us. The concern for a midair collision, however, was very real over the Saudi airspace—south of Iraq. We had a near-miss when a [U.S. Air Force] KC-135 flew over the top of our refueling orbit on a partly cloudy night and missed us by only 500 feet. He truly was close when I heard his four jet engines before I saw him. They briefed us before the war started that midair collisions would be a real concern.

You were comfortable dispensing fuel as a KC-10 pilot. What was it like to be on the receiving end—especially at night?

Giving the gas as a tanker crew is fairly easy because the autopilot is usually on and we are using the altitude hold feature and adjusting our autopilot-heading-select knob to make the turns as smooth as possible for the receiver aircraft behind us. As a receiver pilot, the task was much more difficult. We stabilized our aircraft 1,000 feet below and one mile behind the tanker and then with the autopilot off, climbed up at 100 feet per tenth of a mile until we were stabilized behind and below the tail of the tanker. Hand-flying the aircraft, we had to maintain this formation position for as long as 30 minutes during a heavy-weight on-load of fuel. The most challenging circumstance was at night and in the clouds behind a 1950s-era KC-135 with an unreliable autopilot, requiring it to sometimes be hand-flown as well. Receiver refueling was a definite confidence booster.

Most military pilots dread getting transferred to a desk job. Were you able to keep that to a minimum?

My headquarters staff tour was the least enjoyable of my 20-year career. I was the KC-10 fleet program manager in charge of upgrades and maintenance while at Air Mobility Command headquarters at Scott Air Force Base, outside of St. Louis, Missouri. There was one officer assigned to each type of large aircraft that AMC flew, and the eight of us sat in one office. On the first day I was introduced to the staff, they all looked very gloomy and down. One C-141 pilot shook my hand and said, “Welcome to Hell.” We worked 10- to 12-hour days, sometimes six days a week, during an era of budget cuts. My main accomplishment was that I put TCAS (the traffic collision avoidance system) and upgraded VHF radios on the KC-10 during my time there.

When you left the Air Force in 2004 after 20 years, was it bittersweet?

Whenever anybody asks if I miss the Air Force, I tell them that I miss the people and the sense of mission accomplishment, but I don’t wish I was still in the Air Force. I retired as a lieutenant colonel, a squadron commander, and an evaluator in the C-37 (Gulfstream V). I hit all my personal goals for my Air Force career and happily retired. 

This article, originally titled "A Life Well Navigated," is from the Winter 2026 issue of Air & Space Quarterly, the National Air and Space Museum's signature magazine that explores topics in aviation and space, from the earliest moments of flight to today. Explore the full issue.

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