I have to start off by saying that I have been truly blessed, having been allowed to live what would otherwise be called a true bucket list. The following is not all in chronological order. I have been married to my Honey, Kaye, ever since that day in June 1968, at the Base Chapel at “Willie”, Williams AFB, AZ, where I was going through USAF Pilot Training. A number of my fellow UPT officer buddies and their wives attended our wedding ceremony and celebrated with us, and Kaye and I were very blessed and honored that they did. I was 22 when I received my Wings a year later. Fast forward, we had three precious children, Bill, Christian and Julie (fortunately not at the same time). It’s true what they say. In no time they turn into adults. Our first child, Bill, married Kimberly. Our second child, Christian, has not yet married. Our third and final child, Julie, married Jeremy and they have a precious little girl, Mila Rose, born on my birthday, and a precious little boy, Jack Ryan, born a year later on the day after my birthday. They are all precious, and Kaye and I are proud of them all.

In addition to flying tactical jets, I have spent years working in the public sector as an Electrical Engineer and a Registered Professional Engineer. For eleven of those years I also served as Chair of the NCSL International Airline and Aerospace Metrology Committee. Having said that, I have always considered it such an honor and a privilege to be one of those who flew for the United States Air Force and the Arkansas Air National Guard. It’s one thing that really defines me. I got to fly the T-37, T-38, T-33, RF-84F, F-101B, RF-101C (see photo), F-100F and the F-100D. I thank Jesus every day for always watching out for me, and for making sure that I always returned with all the parts I left with. Our Unit did not deploy while I was flying with them, but I would have gone anywhere with all the superb pilots and support personnel I trained with. I want to say that I respect and salute every woman and man who has ever deployed.
Also, I want to thank every crew chief and mechanic for their dedication which allowed me and so many other pilots to get back after every flight.

Like many others, the T-37 was my first introduction to jets. For those of you not familiar with it, the T-37 was a small, twin-engine good flying jet and the only jet in the Air Force inventory that one could intentionally spin. And spin it did! It would really wind up, and you had to man-handle it to recover. All of us pilots wanted to be known as a “smooth stick”, but that would just get you into an inverted spin in the T-37.

The T-38 was a beautiful aircraft, and it responded very quickly to the throttles and controls. It was like a sports car in that regard. What a thrill it was to first solo the supersonic T-38!

In my assigned unit following flight training, we had a couple of T-33’s and a full complement of RF-84F’s. Among other things, the T-33’s were used by pilots new to the unit to get familiar with the local area flying procedures. The T-33 had direct mechanical controls with a hydraulic aileron boost. Therefore, the T-33 was capable of making dead-stick landings. The straight wing really helped in this regard. There were prescribed procedures for dead-stick landings in the manual, and we practiced those while building up time in the aircraft. It was great fun to be about 30 miles out, pulling the engine back to idle, never touching the throttle again and trying to make the runway. That was a good exercise in energy management, and I got really good at that. However, nothing I was to fly thereafter could be dead-sticked under any circumstances.

The RF-84F was a single-seat reconnaissance jet. It was the first jet to be built from the ground up as a reconnaissance jet as opposed to a modified something else. There were no simulators for it and no two-seat versions, so the first flight was solo! For obvious reasons, what a thrill it was to first solo the RF-84F, given that I had the least amount of jet time that an Air Force pilot could have! Not only that, our first baby got us up 5 times in the middle of the night prior to my first solo flight in the RF-84F.

Later our unit was assigned single-seat RF-101C’s to replace the RF-84F’s. We were also given two F-101B two-seaters (interceptor version) for checkout and training. The Voodoos were BIG (see photo) with twin-engines and afterburners, and they had an initial climb rate of 45,500 ft/min! The RF-101 was the first supersonic aircraft designed from the ground up as a reconnaissance bird. My flight suit arm patch read “Voodoo One-Oh-Wonder”. The mechanics wore a patch that read “Voodoo Medicine Man”. My first takeoff in the F-101B was thrilling, and my brain was somewhere “behind” the aircraft. At about 3 miles past the runway my instructor from the rear seat said “Give me 50 degrees of pitch because you’re at 0.95 Mach!” I knew then that this was going to be a fun aircraft! I had the privilege of strapping them on my back for about 2 years.

Our unit was later changed from Tactical Reconnaissance to Tactical Fighter and we were given a full complement of F-100D single-seaters and two F-100F two-seaters (all affectionately known as “Huns”). The first time I ever saw the Thunderbirds I was a young boy at my home town airport with my Mom and Dad, standing directly across from and in front of six F-100’s with their beautiful red-white-and-blue paint scheme, and the smell of jet fuel as they cranked up in unison for the most exciting show I had ever seen. My big Brother, whom I really looked up to, was in the Air Force already, working in the photo lab at Edwards AFB, so I was definitely hooked on the Air Force. It would have been thrilling to know then that I would someday be receiving formation training in a T-38 from a former F-100 Thunderbird pilot. Not only that, it would have been thrilling to know then that I would someday have the privilege of flying the Super Sabre F-100D myself.

All of us pilots in our unit were sent out West for F-100 Ground School. The first thing they did was show us a film of the “Sabre Dance” involving adverse yaw, and a flameout, and a huge fireball, and they had our undivided attention thereafter. If you haven’t flown an F-100, you might find it interesting to know that it is a rudder-only aircraft in the traffic pattern. No ailerons were used in slow-speed, high-angle-of-attack situations if you knew what was good for you (refer to “Sabre Dance”)! I learned to fly the Hun partly from a North American tech rep. With him in the back seat, I have been in total control of the Hun from supersonic speeds down to and including 90 knots IAS including turns in level flight, which was around 50 knots below landing speed! That was a great confidence maneuver. It’s also interesting to note that the F-100D’s we flew were equipped with F-102 afterburners, which were more reliable, especially when activated under increased G-loads. Everyone who has flown the Hun respects adverse yaw but loves the aircraft, and I am proud to be counted among them. I strapped on the F-100D up until I left the Air National Guard. Although I had been supersonic many times before first flying the Hun, I was given a framed, personalized North American Aviation Mach Buster’s Club Certificate “for having exceeded the speed of sound in the F-100D Super Sabre” from the Los Angeles Division of North American Rockwell Corporation. It is one of my prized possessions. I was so very glad to see the F-100D get its rightful place on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.

I am also especially proud of the fact that I had the privilege of flying two of the Century-Series aircraft, the “Voodoo” RF-101C and the “Hun” F-100D. I have many fond and exciting memories of flying these great aircraft, which now allow me to go flying whenever I want, at night, in my mind.