Back in 2010, when Pilot Training Class 65-F was preparing for their first class reunion, each class member was asked to create a biography covering their life in the past 45 years since graduation. The following is Lew's rendition.
Barely Intelligible Observations (BIO)
Where should one begin an eminently forgettable narrative that is probably one step down from old photos in an old box stashed somewhere in the basement? Perhaps my rationale for joining the AF will suffice. With that as a launching point, “let us go then, you and I…” on an eclectic 22 year AF adventure, and beyond. I had been working as treasurer for a summer theater and as a production engineer making gas pistons for M-16 rifles. Both were located in the Northwest suburbs of Detroit. I had just graduated from college, barely.
The nature of the manufacturing job had earned me a critical skills deferment. That was great till the U.S. Government decided that they must have had enough M-16’s and my critical skills classification ended. With Vietnam ramping up in a serious way, I assessed that my next classification soon would be “drafted.” Naiveté knows no limits, so I decided to join the AF. I’d heard AF food was better. Vietnam and that thought was sufficient motivation to visit the friendly AF recruiter who advised me not to open any mail from the Department of Defense because it would be a draft notice, talking about gullible. So he asked me what I’d like to do in the AF. Well I’d been on two airplanes as a youngster. One was a short flight in a Steerman. The second was a trip to Los Angeles to compete for a slot on the US Olympic wrestling team. Incidentally that didn’t work out, though it was a fun experience. Flight tests and physical worked out, so off I went and six months later “landed” at Vance.
T-37 was fun, the T38 was more so. A couple of flights still stand out. The first was an early T-38 solo flight. Game plan, “I’ll first do a burner climb to FL 400. That was fun, watching the earth recede. Too much fun, overshot by 15,000’ Oops FL550, real quiet, a purple sky. The second was a return flight from a cross country to Las Vegas. On meeting the IP in Base Ops, it was eminently clear that he had lost a round or two with a bottle of Tequila, sniff, definitely tequila. So, in he hops, 100% O2. We are filed basically via direct for Vance. Shortly after takeoff, he announces, “I’ve got it.” I’ thinking why, clear day, we are straight and level, what’s to go wrong? “We are going low level” at one of the Nellis test ranges. He gets clearance and down we go. Maybe 10-20’AGL, going sideways between cactus, watching the down wing tip kicking up dust. This is not where one should be with a very hung-over IP.
The rest of pilot training went along in a fairly normal manner. How Karl, Stu, and I ever graduated is one series of fortunate cases of not getting caught. The brightest spot was getting married to Olga on the 26th of December. That definitely improved the rest of pilot training. Then time to request an aircraft assignment. F-105 sounded good. Nope, AF in its infinite wisdom thought I’d make a good Tanker pilot. That set a pattern. I never got a single assignment I’d signed up for, not once. So much for “dream sheets.” Then again, each assignment turned out better than I’d planned for. Where? K.I. Sawyer AFB MI, my home state, so much for “join the AF and see the world.” That, however, worked out great. Olga and I like the outdoors, though winter days that got up to -20F puts the thought to a real test.
What else to do there? Why not take the astronaut physical at Brooks. Passed that. Great, now I’ll apply for a SR-71. I’m on my way. Dream sheet luck strikes again. On return from a TDY to Goose Bay, on my way to turn in classified material, an NCO walks by and says, “Congratulations. You’re on your way to Vietnam in a Caribou.” What’s a Caribou? The next day I find out it has reciprocating engines and is really, really ugly. So when is this disaster going to happen? The answer is soon. Olga is pregnant and I’m off to the other side of the world. So, it’s off to “upgrade” to C-7’s, Sewart AFB, TN. By the way, don’t hit reverse thrust before wheels are on the ground, no matter what the IP says, “It’s an Australian technique.” You can land in a very, very short distance, maybe 200-300’ – if the aircraft doesn’t break. Then, back to KI Sawyer to see Olga and a brand-new son for a week or so. “See you at R&R.” That did not have a pleasant ring to it. Nonetheless, off I went, as we all did. As it turned out C-7’s were fun, so was making 7-15 short field landings a day, on runways 900-1200’, if you want to call them that. We just flew. When you exceeded maximum number of monthly flying hours, you just kept on flying, you just logged “X” time. Now remember KC-135’s were all about procedures. Caribous, “no rules mate.” How do you set your altimeter when there is no tower? Use the field elevation of the last place you landed. Which way do you land? Whichever way you are least likely to get shot at, that includes by friendly fire. The Army occasionally placed 105 Howitzers at the end of a runway. On a couple of occasions, they forgot to get the message to stop firing while you were landing. Also learned that rudders have a real purpose, and differential power was really handy in a crosswind. Both of those tidbits bailed me out when I was back in KC-135’s. But that’s for later. Also learned one can fly VFR in hurricanes. In fact, my only IFR flight during that whole year was a short flight from NaTrang to Cam Ranh where approach control put me in a holding pattern over the South China Sea for more than an hour. Well what do you do when you are running out of fuel? Easy, cancel IFR, declare to ATC, “Caribou 123, special VFR,” instant “roger,” then descend till you can see the waves, and VFR the rest of the way home at about 20’ - maybe a quarter mile viz - maybe. We drank a lot of scotch that year.
Years almost up, so what do I request on the infamous dream sheet? How about RF-4’s to England, sounds great? Nope, its back to KC-135’s at Westover, MA. Well Ok, it’s not an Arc Light base (no six month TDY’s to UTapao, Kadena, Guam, CCK). AF changed the rules two weeks after arriving at Westover, so back to SEA. So what’s memorable there? Three missions stand out. Setting the stage. The AF had been robbing O&M to buy aircraft, so it became common place to fly a 135 with 5-10 pages of “signed-off” Red “X’s.” On return to CCK Taiwan, after a very long C2 orbit mission just south of the DMZ mission, oh by the way it is not a good idea for the navigator to go to sleep on a northbound leg headed for Hinan Island, we are again typically low on fuel. Typically, when things go wrong they go really wrong. At about 10,000’ we get a garbled call from approach control. “CCK just went IFR, zero ceiling and viz, proceed to your alternate.” Oops, there is no alternate, too low on fuel. We’re landing at CCK. And then, and then, the remaining UHF radios die, VHF had been out, so had HF, so does the remaining VOR, no ILS, we do have one handheld emergency radio that sort of worked if you held it up next to the window. The value of earlier experience in Caribou’s: in Caribous, I’d gotten pretty good at using the weather radar for navigation, say it isn’t so. I just offset from the aluminum hangers, guesstimating, the runway ought to be about here. So we land, amazingly enough on the runway, about at the same time we see the runway, though “a bit offset.” Then on the handheld radio we hear ground control advise, “cleared to taxi in.” Nope, you guys come and get us. I’m done for today. It took the ground crew a while to find us in the fog, another night for scotch.
The next was also weather related, and Caribou experience saved the bacon. This was another long C2 mission along the coast of Vietnam, another long flight returning, this time, to recover at Kadena AB, again with minimum fuel, and again weather played the spoiler. The alternate was CCK which was right on the flight path to Kadena. CCK was clear as we overflew it, and we checked in to confirm that Kadena was OK. “Affirmative.” So we began letting down from FL 400+, fat dumb and happy. At about 15,000’, we get your friendly call from approach control, “proceed to your alternate, Kadena is closed for a hurricane.” Another oops, not enough fuel to climb out and return to CCK. The hurricane was supposed to be well out to sea, so much for weather forecasts. So, I declare an emergency and continue. Oh by the way, “which way are we landing,” Oh great, landing downhill, “What are the winds? How about a 40K crosswind, that’s way, way out of limits for a 135. The outboard engines scrape the ground at 8 degrees of bank. The alternate airfield is in the ocean, not a fine choice, so down we come. Caribou experience applied to a 135. We’ll use cross control to about 5 degrees of bank and make up the difference with differential power. (Use of differential power isn’t taught in 135 school). I’d never landed with the upwind engines at nearly mil power and the downwind engines at idle, well it worked. Though, I did have to turn around on the overrun. It was another night for scotch.
All in all during the Vietnam era, I was in SEA three years with about nine months at home, and half of that was on alert or on short TDY’s.
Next Olga and I are off to Offutt. You guessed right, again this was not on my dream sheet. And again it turned out to be a better assignment than I had asked for. I flew T-29’s and 135 for logistics support and with ten other computer programmers, built the National Missile Warning Display system from scratch punching out programs on O-29 keypunch machines. Programming mainframes was fun then, you did it all yourself, from turning on the computer, stopping it whenever you wanted, repairing memory cards. The memory cards were about two feet by two feet. You could see a memory cell on those 32k cards. And they call computers simpler now. Today’s computers are a complete mystery. No one understands all the pieces parts now.
Finally, I sort of got an assignment I asked for, flying 135’s at Ramstein AB, GE. Got the base, but not the flying part. That ended my flying career. I did get interested in developing future command and control facilities and C2 systems for USAFE, did some traveling, and the family learned how to ski without getting killed.
After five and a half years, it was off to the Pentagon. Again the dream sheet F-4 request didn’t happen. I worked in the Readiness Center and with Checkmate as a planner. Soon enough it was time to update the now infamous dream sheet, this time though, I didn’t check the box to volunteer for worldwide duty, kids in high school. It was time to put family first, time to retire.
The rest involves working for a couple of interesting defense analysis companies. One interesting assignment was working with Gen Mike Duggan, CSAF doing the initial air campaign planning for Desert Storm 1, with six other folks. Since then, I’ve twice not succeeded in retiring. I’m presently developing and running war games for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. This will last, perhaps for another year, then Olga and I will say, it’s been great but enough is enough.
Catching up on the home front: We have two children Gregory and Alexandra better known as Sasha. Both are married and live within an hour of us. Greg and Michelle have two children Anya 7and Matthew 5. Sasha and Kevin are expecting their first at Thanksgiving. Now fast approaching the time to glean out the gewgaws and furbelows we’ve acquired over many years. Amazing what one can’t live without, some items have never to be used, others so worn one wonders what twists of byzantine logic caused us to save them. It’s a glacial process, like snow, stuff just keeps piling up. At the same time there are, intermixed those purchases that are jewels, so cleaning up with a bull dozer is not an option.
Presently we live just west of Warrenton, VA on 11.35 acres with beautiful views all around. Current projects include clearing the tangle of trees, vines, and brambles that have grown up on the property’s perimeter, a consequence of the previous owners neglect. Our next door neighbors have a small farm winery, where Olga helps out from time to time, and she still does real estate work, mainly for family and friends . I’ve gotten into horticultural things. I’ve put in a small orchard, and have developed an interest in bonsai. As each of us do, we are finding that there will again not be enough time to do all the things we would like to do.
Barely Intelligible Observations (BIO)
Where should one begin an eminently forgettable narrative that is probably one step down from old photos in an old box stashed somewhere in the basement? Perhaps my rationale for joining the AF will suffice. With that as a launching point, “let us go then, you and I…” on an eclectic 22 year AF adventure, and beyond. I had been working as treasurer for a summer theater and as a production engineer making gas pistons for M-16 rifles. Both were located in the Northwest suburbs of Detroit. I had just graduated from college, barely.
The nature of the manufacturing job had earned me a critical skills deferment. That was great till the U.S. Government decided that they must have had enough M-16’s and my critical skills classification ended. With Vietnam ramping up in a serious way, I assessed that my next classification soon would be “drafted.” Naiveté knows no limits, so I decided to join the AF. I’d heard AF food was better. Vietnam and that thought was sufficient motivation to visit the friendly AF recruiter who advised me not to open any mail from the Department of Defense because it would be a draft notice, talking about gullible. So he asked me what I’d like to do in the AF. Well I’d been on two airplanes as a youngster. One was a short flight in a Steerman. The second was a trip to Los Angeles to compete for a slot on the US Olympic wrestling team. Incidentally that didn’t work out, though it was a fun experience. Flight tests and physical worked out, so off I went and six months later “landed” at Vance.
T-37 was fun, the T38 was more so. A couple of flights still stand out. The first was an early T-38 solo flight. Game plan, “I’ll first do a burner climb to FL 400. That was fun, watching the earth recede. Too much fun, overshot by 15,000’ Oops FL550, real quiet, a purple sky. The second was a return flight from a cross country to Las Vegas. On meeting the IP in Base Ops, it was eminently clear that he had lost a round or two with a bottle of Tequila, sniff, definitely tequila. So, in he hops, 100% O2. We are filed basically via direct for Vance. Shortly after takeoff, he announces, “I’ve got it.” I’ thinking why, clear day, we are straight and level, what’s to go wrong? “We are going low level” at one of the Nellis test ranges. He gets clearance and down we go. Maybe 10-20’AGL, going sideways between cactus, watching the down wing tip kicking up dust. This is not where one should be with a very hung-over IP.
The rest of pilot training went along in a fairly normal manner. How Karl, Stu, and I ever graduated is one series of fortunate cases of not getting caught. The brightest spot was getting married to Olga on the 26th of December. That definitely improved the rest of pilot training. Then time to request an aircraft assignment. F-105 sounded good. Nope, AF in its infinite wisdom thought I’d make a good Tanker pilot. That set a pattern. I never got a single assignment I’d signed up for, not once. So much for “dream sheets.” Then again, each assignment turned out better than I’d planned for. Where? K.I. Sawyer AFB MI, my home state, so much for “join the AF and see the world.” That, however, worked out great. Olga and I like the outdoors, though winter days that got up to -20F puts the thought to a real test.
What else to do there? Why not take the astronaut physical at Brooks. Passed that. Great, now I’ll apply for a SR-71. I’m on my way. Dream sheet luck strikes again. On return from a TDY to Goose Bay, on my way to turn in classified material, an NCO walks by and says, “Congratulations. You’re on your way to Vietnam in a Caribou.” What’s a Caribou? The next day I find out it has reciprocating engines and is really, really ugly. So when is this disaster going to happen? The answer is soon. Olga is pregnant and I’m off to the other side of the world. So, it’s off to “upgrade” to C-7’s, Sewart AFB, TN. By the way, don’t hit reverse thrust before wheels are on the ground, no matter what the IP says, “It’s an Australian technique.” You can land in a very, very short distance, maybe 200-300’ – if the aircraft doesn’t break. Then, back to KI Sawyer to see Olga and a brand-new son for a week or so. “See you at R&R.” That did not have a pleasant ring to it. Nonetheless, off I went, as we all did. As it turned out C-7’s were fun, so was making 7-15 short field landings a day, on runways 900-1200’, if you want to call them that. We just flew. When you exceeded maximum number of monthly flying hours, you just kept on flying, you just logged “X” time. Now remember KC-135’s were all about procedures. Caribous, “no rules mate.” How do you set your altimeter when there is no tower? Use the field elevation of the last place you landed. Which way do you land? Whichever way you are least likely to get shot at, that includes by friendly fire. The Army occasionally placed 105 Howitzers at the end of a runway. On a couple of occasions, they forgot to get the message to stop firing while you were landing. Also learned that rudders have a real purpose, and differential power was really handy in a crosswind. Both of those tidbits bailed me out when I was back in KC-135’s. But that’s for later. Also learned one can fly VFR in hurricanes. In fact, my only IFR flight during that whole year was a short flight from NaTrang to Cam Ranh where approach control put me in a holding pattern over the South China Sea for more than an hour. Well what do you do when you are running out of fuel? Easy, cancel IFR, declare to ATC, “Caribou 123, special VFR,” instant “roger,” then descend till you can see the waves, and VFR the rest of the way home at about 20’ - maybe a quarter mile viz - maybe. We drank a lot of scotch that year.
Years almost up, so what do I request on the infamous dream sheet? How about RF-4’s to England, sounds great? Nope, its back to KC-135’s at Westover, MA. Well Ok, it’s not an Arc Light base (no six month TDY’s to UTapao, Kadena, Guam, CCK). AF changed the rules two weeks after arriving at Westover, so back to SEA. So what’s memorable there? Three missions stand out. Setting the stage. The AF had been robbing O&M to buy aircraft, so it became common place to fly a 135 with 5-10 pages of “signed-off” Red “X’s.” On return to CCK Taiwan, after a very long C2 orbit mission just south of the DMZ mission, oh by the way it is not a good idea for the navigator to go to sleep on a northbound leg headed for Hinan Island, we are again typically low on fuel. Typically, when things go wrong they go really wrong. At about 10,000’ we get a garbled call from approach control. “CCK just went IFR, zero ceiling and viz, proceed to your alternate.” Oops, there is no alternate, too low on fuel. We’re landing at CCK. And then, and then, the remaining UHF radios die, VHF had been out, so had HF, so does the remaining VOR, no ILS, we do have one handheld emergency radio that sort of worked if you held it up next to the window. The value of earlier experience in Caribou’s: in Caribous, I’d gotten pretty good at using the weather radar for navigation, say it isn’t so. I just offset from the aluminum hangers, guesstimating, the runway ought to be about here. So we land, amazingly enough on the runway, about at the same time we see the runway, though “a bit offset.” Then on the handheld radio we hear ground control advise, “cleared to taxi in.” Nope, you guys come and get us. I’m done for today. It took the ground crew a while to find us in the fog, another night for scotch.
The next was also weather related, and Caribou experience saved the bacon. This was another long C2 mission along the coast of Vietnam, another long flight returning, this time, to recover at Kadena AB, again with minimum fuel, and again weather played the spoiler. The alternate was CCK which was right on the flight path to Kadena. CCK was clear as we overflew it, and we checked in to confirm that Kadena was OK. “Affirmative.” So we began letting down from FL 400+, fat dumb and happy. At about 15,000’, we get your friendly call from approach control, “proceed to your alternate, Kadena is closed for a hurricane.” Another oops, not enough fuel to climb out and return to CCK. The hurricane was supposed to be well out to sea, so much for weather forecasts. So, I declare an emergency and continue. Oh by the way, “which way are we landing,” Oh great, landing downhill, “What are the winds? How about a 40K crosswind, that’s way, way out of limits for a 135. The outboard engines scrape the ground at 8 degrees of bank. The alternate airfield is in the ocean, not a fine choice, so down we come. Caribou experience applied to a 135. We’ll use cross control to about 5 degrees of bank and make up the difference with differential power. (Use of differential power isn’t taught in 135 school). I’d never landed with the upwind engines at nearly mil power and the downwind engines at idle, well it worked. Though, I did have to turn around on the overrun. It was another night for scotch.
All in all during the Vietnam era, I was in SEA three years with about nine months at home, and half of that was on alert or on short TDY’s.
Next Olga and I are off to Offutt. You guessed right, again this was not on my dream sheet. And again it turned out to be a better assignment than I had asked for. I flew T-29’s and 135 for logistics support and with ten other computer programmers, built the National Missile Warning Display system from scratch punching out programs on O-29 keypunch machines. Programming mainframes was fun then, you did it all yourself, from turning on the computer, stopping it whenever you wanted, repairing memory cards. The memory cards were about two feet by two feet. You could see a memory cell on those 32k cards. And they call computers simpler now. Today’s computers are a complete mystery. No one understands all the pieces parts now.
Finally, I sort of got an assignment I asked for, flying 135’s at Ramstein AB, GE. Got the base, but not the flying part. That ended my flying career. I did get interested in developing future command and control facilities and C2 systems for USAFE, did some traveling, and the family learned how to ski without getting killed.
After five and a half years, it was off to the Pentagon. Again the dream sheet F-4 request didn’t happen. I worked in the Readiness Center and with Checkmate as a planner. Soon enough it was time to update the now infamous dream sheet, this time though, I didn’t check the box to volunteer for worldwide duty, kids in high school. It was time to put family first, time to retire.
The rest involves working for a couple of interesting defense analysis companies. One interesting assignment was working with Gen Mike Duggan, CSAF doing the initial air campaign planning for Desert Storm 1, with six other folks. Since then, I’ve twice not succeeded in retiring. I’m presently developing and running war games for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. This will last, perhaps for another year, then Olga and I will say, it’s been great but enough is enough.
Catching up on the home front: We have two children Gregory and Alexandra better known as Sasha. Both are married and live within an hour of us. Greg and Michelle have two children Anya 7and Matthew 5. Sasha and Kevin are expecting their first at Thanksgiving. Now fast approaching the time to glean out the gewgaws and furbelows we’ve acquired over many years. Amazing what one can’t live without, some items have never to be used, others so worn one wonders what twists of byzantine logic caused us to save them. It’s a glacial process, like snow, stuff just keeps piling up. At the same time there are, intermixed those purchases that are jewels, so cleaning up with a bull dozer is not an option.
Presently we live just west of Warrenton, VA on 11.35 acres with beautiful views all around. Current projects include clearing the tangle of trees, vines, and brambles that have grown up on the property’s perimeter, a consequence of the previous owners neglect. Our next door neighbors have a small farm winery, where Olga helps out from time to time, and she still does real estate work, mainly for family and friends . I’ve gotten into horticultural things. I’ve put in a small orchard, and have developed an interest in bonsai. As each of us do, we are finding that there will again not be enough time to do all the things we would like to do.
Back in 2010, when Pilot Training Class 65-F was preparing for their first class reunion, each class member was asked to create a biography covering their life in the past 45 years since graduation. The following is Lew's rendition.
Barely Intelligible Observations (BIO)
Where should one begin an eminently forgettable narrative that is probably one step down from old photos in an old box stashed somewhere in the basement? Perhaps my rationale for joining the AF will suffice. With that as a launching point, “let us go then, you and I…” on an eclectic 22 year AF adventure, and beyond. I had been working as treasurer for a summer theater and as a production engineer making gas pistons for M-16 rifles. Both were located in the Northwest suburbs of Detroit. I had just graduated from college, barely.
The nature of the manufacturing job had earned me a critical skills deferment. That was great till the U.S. Government decided that they must have had enough M-16’s and my critical skills classification ended. With Vietnam ramping up in a serious way, I assessed that my next classification soon would be “drafted.” Naiveté knows no limits, so I decided to join the AF. I’d heard AF food was better. Vietnam and that thought was sufficient motivation to visit the friendly AF recruiter who advised me not to open any mail from the Department of Defense because it would be a draft notice, talking about gullible. So he asked me what I’d like to do in the AF. Well I’d been on two airplanes as a youngster. One was a short flight in a Steerman. The second was a trip to Los Angeles to compete for a slot on the US Olympic wrestling team. Incidentally that didn’t work out, though it was a fun experience. Flight tests and physical worked out, so off I went and six months later “landed” at Vance.
T-37 was fun, the T38 was more so. A couple of flights still stand out. The first was an early T-38 solo flight. Game plan, “I’ll first do a burner climb to FL 400. That was fun, watching the earth recede. Too much fun, overshot by 15,000’ Oops FL550, real quiet, a purple sky. The second was a return flight from a cross country to Las Vegas. On meeting the IP in Base Ops, it was eminently clear that he had lost a round or two with a bottle of Tequila, sniff, definitely tequila. So, in he hops, 100% O2. We are filed basically via direct for Vance. Shortly after takeoff, he announces, “I’ve got it.” I’ thinking why, clear day, we are straight and level, what’s to go wrong? “We are going low level” at one of the Nellis test ranges. He gets clearance and down we go. Maybe 10-20’AGL, going sideways between cactus, watching the down wing tip kicking up dust. This is not where one should be with a very hung-over IP.
The rest of pilot training went along in a fairly normal manner. How Karl, Stu, and I ever graduated is one series of fortunate cases of not getting caught. The brightest spot was getting married to Olga on the 26th of December. That definitely improved the rest of pilot training. Then time to request an aircraft assignment. F-105 sounded good. Nope, AF in its infinite wisdom thought I’d make a good Tanker pilot. That set a pattern. I never got a single assignment I’d signed up for, not once. So much for “dream sheets.” Then again, each assignment turned out better than I’d planned for. Where? K.I. Sawyer AFB MI, my home state, so much for “join the AF and see the world.” That, however, worked out great. Olga and I like the outdoors, though winter days that got up to -20F puts the thought to a real test.
What else to do there? Why not take the astronaut physical at Brooks. Passed that. Great, now I’ll apply for a SR-71. I’m on my way. Dream sheet luck strikes again. On return from a TDY to Goose Bay, on my way to turn in classified material, an NCO walks by and says, “Congratulations. You’re on your way to Vietnam in a Caribou.” What’s a Caribou? The next day I find out it has reciprocating engines and is really, really ugly. So when is this disaster going to happen? The answer is soon. Olga is pregnant and I’m off to the other side of the world. So, it’s off to “upgrade” to C-7’s, Sewart AFB, TN. By the way, don’t hit reverse thrust before wheels are on the ground, no matter what the IP says, “It’s an Australian technique.” You can land in a very, very short distance, maybe 200-300’ – if the aircraft doesn’t break. Then, back to KI Sawyer to see Olga and a brand-new son for a week or so. “See you at R&R.” That did not have a pleasant ring to it. Nonetheless, off I went, as we all did. As it turned out C-7’s were fun, so was making 7-15 short field landings a day, on runways 900-1200’, if you want to call them that. We just flew. When you exceeded maximum number of monthly flying hours, you just kept on flying, you just logged “X” time. Now remember KC-135’s were all about procedures. Caribous, “no rules mate.” How do you set your altimeter when there is no tower? Use the field elevation of the last place you landed. Which way do you land? Whichever way you are least likely to get shot at, that includes by friendly fire. The Army occasionally placed 105 Howitzers at the end of a runway. On a couple of occasions, they forgot to get the message to stop firing while you were landing. Also learned that rudders have a real purpose, and differential power was really handy in a crosswind. Both of those tidbits bailed me out when I was back in KC-135’s. But that’s for later. Also learned one can fly VFR in hurricanes. In fact, my only IFR flight during that whole year was a short flight from NaTrang to Cam Ranh where approach control put me in a holding pattern over the South China Sea for more than an hour. Well what do you do when you are running out of fuel? Easy, cancel IFR, declare to ATC, “Caribou 123, special VFR,” instant “roger,” then descend till you can see the waves, and VFR the rest of the way home at about 20’ - maybe a quarter mile viz - maybe. We drank a lot of scotch that year.
Years almost up, so what do I request on the infamous dream sheet? How about RF-4’s to England, sounds great? Nope, its back to KC-135’s at Westover, MA. Well Ok, it’s not an Arc Light base (no six month TDY’s to UTapao, Kadena, Guam, CCK). AF changed the rules two weeks after arriving at Westover, so back to SEA. So what’s memorable there? Three missions stand out. Setting the stage. The AF had been robbing O&M to buy aircraft, so it became common place to fly a 135 with 5-10 pages of “signed-off” Red “X’s.” On return to CCK Taiwan, after a very long C2 orbit mission just south of the DMZ mission, oh by the way it is not a good idea for the navigator to go to sleep on a northbound leg headed for Hinan Island, we are again typically low on fuel. Typically, when things go wrong they go really wrong. At about 10,000’ we get a garbled call from approach control. “CCK just went IFR, zero ceiling and viz, proceed to your alternate.” Oops, there is no alternate, too low on fuel. We’re landing at CCK. And then, and then, the remaining UHF radios die, VHF had been out, so had HF, so does the remaining VOR, no ILS, we do have one handheld emergency radio that sort of worked if you held it up next to the window. The value of earlier experience in Caribou’s: in Caribous, I’d gotten pretty good at using the weather radar for navigation, say it isn’t so. I just offset from the aluminum hangers, guesstimating, the runway ought to be about here. So we land, amazingly enough on the runway, about at the same time we see the runway, though “a bit offset.” Then on the handheld radio we hear ground control advise, “cleared to taxi in.” Nope, you guys come and get us. I’m done for today. It took the ground crew a while to find us in the fog, another night for scotch.
The next was also weather related, and Caribou experience saved the bacon. This was another long C2 mission along the coast of Vietnam, another long flight returning, this time, to recover at Kadena AB, again with minimum fuel, and again weather played the spoiler. The alternate was CCK which was right on the flight path to Kadena. CCK was clear as we overflew it, and we checked in to confirm that Kadena was OK. “Affirmative.” So we began letting down from FL 400+, fat dumb and happy. At about 15,000’, we get your friendly call from approach control, “proceed to your alternate, Kadena is closed for a hurricane.” Another oops, not enough fuel to climb out and return to CCK. The hurricane was supposed to be well out to sea, so much for weather forecasts. So, I declare an emergency and continue. Oh by the way, “which way are we landing,” Oh great, landing downhill, “What are the winds? How about a 40K crosswind, that’s way, way out of limits for a 135. The outboard engines scrape the ground at 8 degrees of bank. The alternate airfield is in the ocean, not a fine choice, so down we come. Caribou experience applied to a 135. We’ll use cross control to about 5 degrees of bank and make up the difference with differential power. (Use of differential power isn’t taught in 135 school). I’d never landed with the upwind engines at nearly mil power and the downwind engines at idle, well it worked. Though, I did have to turn around on the overrun. It was another night for scotch.
All in all during the Vietnam era, I was in SEA three years with about nine months at home, and half of that was on alert or on short TDY’s.
Next Olga and I are off to Offutt. You guessed right, again this was not on my dream sheet. And again it turned out to be a better assignment than I had asked for. I flew T-29’s and 135 for logistics support and with ten other computer programmers, built the National Missile Warning Display system from scratch punching out programs on O-29 keypunch machines. Programming mainframes was fun then, you did it all yourself, from turning on the computer, stopping it whenever you wanted, repairing memory cards. The memory cards were about two feet by two feet. You could see a memory cell on those 32k cards. And they call computers simpler now. Today’s computers are a complete mystery. No one understands all the pieces parts now.
Finally, I sort of got an assignment I asked for, flying 135’s at Ramstein AB, GE. Got the base, but not the flying part. That ended my flying career. I did get interested in developing future command and control facilities and C2 systems for USAFE, did some traveling, and the family learned how to ski without getting killed.
After five and a half years, it was off to the Pentagon. Again the dream sheet F-4 request didn’t happen. I worked in the Readiness Center and with Checkmate as a planner. Soon enough it was time to update the now infamous dream sheet, this time though, I didn’t check the box to volunteer for worldwide duty, kids in high school. It was time to put family first, time to retire.
The rest involves working for a couple of interesting defense analysis companies. One interesting assignment was working with Gen Mike Duggan, CSAF doing the initial air campaign planning for Desert Storm 1, with six other folks. Since then, I’ve twice not succeeded in retiring. I’m presently developing and running war games for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. This will last, perhaps for another year, then Olga and I will say, it’s been great but enough is enough.
Catching up on the home front: We have two children Gregory and Alexandra better known as Sasha. Both are married and live within an hour of us. Greg and Michelle have two children Anya 7and Matthew 5. Sasha and Kevin are expecting their first at Thanksgiving. Now fast approaching the time to glean out the gewgaws and furbelows we’ve acquired over many years. Amazing what one can’t live without, some items have never to be used, others so worn one wonders what twists of byzantine logic caused us to save them. It’s a glacial process, like snow, stuff just keeps piling up. At the same time there are, intermixed those purchases that are jewels, so cleaning up with a bull dozer is not an option.
Presently we live just west of Warrenton, VA on 11.35 acres with beautiful views all around. Current projects include clearing the tangle of trees, vines, and brambles that have grown up on the property’s perimeter, a consequence of the previous owners neglect. Our next door neighbors have a small farm winery, where Olga helps out from time to time, and she still does real estate work, mainly for family and friends . I’ve gotten into horticultural things. I’ve put in a small orchard, and have developed an interest in bonsai. As each of us do, we are finding that there will again not be enough time to do all the things we would like to do.
Barely Intelligible Observations (BIO)
Where should one begin an eminently forgettable narrative that is probably one step down from old photos in an old box stashed somewhere in the basement? Perhaps my rationale for joining the AF will suffice. With that as a launching point, “let us go then, you and I…” on an eclectic 22 year AF adventure, and beyond. I had been working as treasurer for a summer theater and as a production engineer making gas pistons for M-16 rifles. Both were located in the Northwest suburbs of Detroit. I had just graduated from college, barely.
The nature of the manufacturing job had earned me a critical skills deferment. That was great till the U.S. Government decided that they must have had enough M-16’s and my critical skills classification ended. With Vietnam ramping up in a serious way, I assessed that my next classification soon would be “drafted.” Naiveté knows no limits, so I decided to join the AF. I’d heard AF food was better. Vietnam and that thought was sufficient motivation to visit the friendly AF recruiter who advised me not to open any mail from the Department of Defense because it would be a draft notice, talking about gullible. So he asked me what I’d like to do in the AF. Well I’d been on two airplanes as a youngster. One was a short flight in a Steerman. The second was a trip to Los Angeles to compete for a slot on the US Olympic wrestling team. Incidentally that didn’t work out, though it was a fun experience. Flight tests and physical worked out, so off I went and six months later “landed” at Vance.
T-37 was fun, the T38 was more so. A couple of flights still stand out. The first was an early T-38 solo flight. Game plan, “I’ll first do a burner climb to FL 400. That was fun, watching the earth recede. Too much fun, overshot by 15,000’ Oops FL550, real quiet, a purple sky. The second was a return flight from a cross country to Las Vegas. On meeting the IP in Base Ops, it was eminently clear that he had lost a round or two with a bottle of Tequila, sniff, definitely tequila. So, in he hops, 100% O2. We are filed basically via direct for Vance. Shortly after takeoff, he announces, “I’ve got it.” I’ thinking why, clear day, we are straight and level, what’s to go wrong? “We are going low level” at one of the Nellis test ranges. He gets clearance and down we go. Maybe 10-20’AGL, going sideways between cactus, watching the down wing tip kicking up dust. This is not where one should be with a very hung-over IP.
The rest of pilot training went along in a fairly normal manner. How Karl, Stu, and I ever graduated is one series of fortunate cases of not getting caught. The brightest spot was getting married to Olga on the 26th of December. That definitely improved the rest of pilot training. Then time to request an aircraft assignment. F-105 sounded good. Nope, AF in its infinite wisdom thought I’d make a good Tanker pilot. That set a pattern. I never got a single assignment I’d signed up for, not once. So much for “dream sheets.” Then again, each assignment turned out better than I’d planned for. Where? K.I. Sawyer AFB MI, my home state, so much for “join the AF and see the world.” That, however, worked out great. Olga and I like the outdoors, though winter days that got up to -20F puts the thought to a real test.
What else to do there? Why not take the astronaut physical at Brooks. Passed that. Great, now I’ll apply for a SR-71. I’m on my way. Dream sheet luck strikes again. On return from a TDY to Goose Bay, on my way to turn in classified material, an NCO walks by and says, “Congratulations. You’re on your way to Vietnam in a Caribou.” What’s a Caribou? The next day I find out it has reciprocating engines and is really, really ugly. So when is this disaster going to happen? The answer is soon. Olga is pregnant and I’m off to the other side of the world. So, it’s off to “upgrade” to C-7’s, Sewart AFB, TN. By the way, don’t hit reverse thrust before wheels are on the ground, no matter what the IP says, “It’s an Australian technique.” You can land in a very, very short distance, maybe 200-300’ – if the aircraft doesn’t break. Then, back to KI Sawyer to see Olga and a brand-new son for a week or so. “See you at R&R.” That did not have a pleasant ring to it. Nonetheless, off I went, as we all did. As it turned out C-7’s were fun, so was making 7-15 short field landings a day, on runways 900-1200’, if you want to call them that. We just flew. When you exceeded maximum number of monthly flying hours, you just kept on flying, you just logged “X” time. Now remember KC-135’s were all about procedures. Caribous, “no rules mate.” How do you set your altimeter when there is no tower? Use the field elevation of the last place you landed. Which way do you land? Whichever way you are least likely to get shot at, that includes by friendly fire. The Army occasionally placed 105 Howitzers at the end of a runway. On a couple of occasions, they forgot to get the message to stop firing while you were landing. Also learned that rudders have a real purpose, and differential power was really handy in a crosswind. Both of those tidbits bailed me out when I was back in KC-135’s. But that’s for later. Also learned one can fly VFR in hurricanes. In fact, my only IFR flight during that whole year was a short flight from NaTrang to Cam Ranh where approach control put me in a holding pattern over the South China Sea for more than an hour. Well what do you do when you are running out of fuel? Easy, cancel IFR, declare to ATC, “Caribou 123, special VFR,” instant “roger,” then descend till you can see the waves, and VFR the rest of the way home at about 20’ - maybe a quarter mile viz - maybe. We drank a lot of scotch that year.
Years almost up, so what do I request on the infamous dream sheet? How about RF-4’s to England, sounds great? Nope, its back to KC-135’s at Westover, MA. Well Ok, it’s not an Arc Light base (no six month TDY’s to UTapao, Kadena, Guam, CCK). AF changed the rules two weeks after arriving at Westover, so back to SEA. So what’s memorable there? Three missions stand out. Setting the stage. The AF had been robbing O&M to buy aircraft, so it became common place to fly a 135 with 5-10 pages of “signed-off” Red “X’s.” On return to CCK Taiwan, after a very long C2 orbit mission just south of the DMZ mission, oh by the way it is not a good idea for the navigator to go to sleep on a northbound leg headed for Hinan Island, we are again typically low on fuel. Typically, when things go wrong they go really wrong. At about 10,000’ we get a garbled call from approach control. “CCK just went IFR, zero ceiling and viz, proceed to your alternate.” Oops, there is no alternate, too low on fuel. We’re landing at CCK. And then, and then, the remaining UHF radios die, VHF had been out, so had HF, so does the remaining VOR, no ILS, we do have one handheld emergency radio that sort of worked if you held it up next to the window. The value of earlier experience in Caribou’s: in Caribous, I’d gotten pretty good at using the weather radar for navigation, say it isn’t so. I just offset from the aluminum hangers, guesstimating, the runway ought to be about here. So we land, amazingly enough on the runway, about at the same time we see the runway, though “a bit offset.” Then on the handheld radio we hear ground control advise, “cleared to taxi in.” Nope, you guys come and get us. I’m done for today. It took the ground crew a while to find us in the fog, another night for scotch.
The next was also weather related, and Caribou experience saved the bacon. This was another long C2 mission along the coast of Vietnam, another long flight returning, this time, to recover at Kadena AB, again with minimum fuel, and again weather played the spoiler. The alternate was CCK which was right on the flight path to Kadena. CCK was clear as we overflew it, and we checked in to confirm that Kadena was OK. “Affirmative.” So we began letting down from FL 400+, fat dumb and happy. At about 15,000’, we get your friendly call from approach control, “proceed to your alternate, Kadena is closed for a hurricane.” Another oops, not enough fuel to climb out and return to CCK. The hurricane was supposed to be well out to sea, so much for weather forecasts. So, I declare an emergency and continue. Oh by the way, “which way are we landing,” Oh great, landing downhill, “What are the winds? How about a 40K crosswind, that’s way, way out of limits for a 135. The outboard engines scrape the ground at 8 degrees of bank. The alternate airfield is in the ocean, not a fine choice, so down we come. Caribou experience applied to a 135. We’ll use cross control to about 5 degrees of bank and make up the difference with differential power. (Use of differential power isn’t taught in 135 school). I’d never landed with the upwind engines at nearly mil power and the downwind engines at idle, well it worked. Though, I did have to turn around on the overrun. It was another night for scotch.
All in all during the Vietnam era, I was in SEA three years with about nine months at home, and half of that was on alert or on short TDY’s.
Next Olga and I are off to Offutt. You guessed right, again this was not on my dream sheet. And again it turned out to be a better assignment than I had asked for. I flew T-29’s and 135 for logistics support and with ten other computer programmers, built the National Missile Warning Display system from scratch punching out programs on O-29 keypunch machines. Programming mainframes was fun then, you did it all yourself, from turning on the computer, stopping it whenever you wanted, repairing memory cards. The memory cards were about two feet by two feet. You could see a memory cell on those 32k cards. And they call computers simpler now. Today’s computers are a complete mystery. No one understands all the pieces parts now.
Finally, I sort of got an assignment I asked for, flying 135’s at Ramstein AB, GE. Got the base, but not the flying part. That ended my flying career. I did get interested in developing future command and control facilities and C2 systems for USAFE, did some traveling, and the family learned how to ski without getting killed.
After five and a half years, it was off to the Pentagon. Again the dream sheet F-4 request didn’t happen. I worked in the Readiness Center and with Checkmate as a planner. Soon enough it was time to update the now infamous dream sheet, this time though, I didn’t check the box to volunteer for worldwide duty, kids in high school. It was time to put family first, time to retire.
The rest involves working for a couple of interesting defense analysis companies. One interesting assignment was working with Gen Mike Duggan, CSAF doing the initial air campaign planning for Desert Storm 1, with six other folks. Since then, I’ve twice not succeeded in retiring. I’m presently developing and running war games for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. This will last, perhaps for another year, then Olga and I will say, it’s been great but enough is enough.
Catching up on the home front: We have two children Gregory and Alexandra better known as Sasha. Both are married and live within an hour of us. Greg and Michelle have two children Anya 7and Matthew 5. Sasha and Kevin are expecting their first at Thanksgiving. Now fast approaching the time to glean out the gewgaws and furbelows we’ve acquired over many years. Amazing what one can’t live without, some items have never to be used, others so worn one wonders what twists of byzantine logic caused us to save them. It’s a glacial process, like snow, stuff just keeps piling up. At the same time there are, intermixed those purchases that are jewels, so cleaning up with a bull dozer is not an option.
Presently we live just west of Warrenton, VA on 11.35 acres with beautiful views all around. Current projects include clearing the tangle of trees, vines, and brambles that have grown up on the property’s perimeter, a consequence of the previous owners neglect. Our next door neighbors have a small farm winery, where Olga helps out from time to time, and she still does real estate work, mainly for family and friends . I’ve gotten into horticultural things. I’ve put in a small orchard, and have developed an interest in bonsai. As each of us do, we are finding that there will again not be enough time to do all the things we would like to do.
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