There are romantic notions associated with aviation, like the
steely-eyed pilot lifting his huge craft into the wild blue yonder,
mocking danger, then returning safely to earth. And there's a
little of that, but it's more about training, experience, and
perseverance.
My junior year of college I transferred to University of Florida on
an AFROTC scholarship, which provided some much-needed cash in
exchange for a commitment to the Air Force when I graduated. I
wasn't gung-ho about the military, but an Air Force commission was a
good way to fulfill my duty.
I scored well on the pilot portion of the Air Force Officers
Qualification Test so my senior year I got an opportunity to learn
to fly through the AFROTC Flight Instruction Program. It also
gave the USAF a low-cost way to determine whether I had an aptitude
for aviation. I did. So I learned to fly a
Piper
Cherokee and earned a private pilot's license in 1967.
Undergraduate pilot
training at Moody Air Force Base was an interesting transition
from the civilian world to the military world. There was
plenty of machismo but it was mostly hard work and commitment.
Flying the
T-38
was like strapping on a rocket. Every single flight was
exciting and challenging--so much to learn and so much to
perform. But I could tell early on that I wouldn't be staying
in the Air Force after my five-year commitment.
Flying the
C-141
was quite different but there was plenty of challenge. Early
on I remember pulling out onto the runway at
Travis AFB for a night flight across the
Pacific. It was foggy--the ceiling was zero and visibility was
just a quarter of a mile, but that's enough to take off under
Instrument
Flight Rules. As we advanced the throttles to takeoff
exhaust pressure ratio the four engines roared and vibrated with
80,000 pounds of thrust and as always there was that excitement in
the pit of my stomach. We weighed 325,000 pounds with a full
load of fuel and cargo so our initial movement was painfully
slow. But soon we were accelerating down the runway and trying
to maintain visual cues in the dark and fog. Half way down the
runway the edge lights flew by at one a second and we could only see
one at a time. If an engine failed there wasn't enough runway
remaining to stop, so our only choice now was to take off. As
we rotated, everything beyond the windscreen turned white as the
landing lights reflected off the fog. We waited for a positive
rate of climb, then gear up, flaps up, and accelerated to climbout
speed in the soup. Whew. Then months later on another
takeoff I remember thinking, "Hey, that wasn't exciting; it was
routine."
A year later, learning the C-130 was familiar--four engines, cargo
ramp, dual rails, crew door, Lockheed, hydraulics, essential AC bus,
pilots, engineers, loadmasters, formation, troop drops, cargo
drops. But the challenge in the C-130 mission is delivering
the goods to
places where
pilots of other four-engine airplanes dare not go.
Flying in Vietnam was challenging and interesting, but I'm not an
adrenalin junkie. And after a year I was ready to rotate "back
to the world" (even though it was to
Pope
AFB). Meanwhile, I experienced the old pilot's adage...
"hundreds of hours of stark boredom punctuated by
seconds of stark terror".
Aviation is a pretty technical job but not what you would call
creative. Generally you don't want your pilot to do things
creatively; instead you want him to do things the same way every
time. I learned that I don't really care for repetition and I
remember the moment that I realized that I was not interested in
becoming an airline pilot when my Air Force career was done....
We flew long days and nights and we were at our sixth stop of the
night,
Danang.
We were 12 hours into our crew day. Tired. Cranky.
As I taxied out the copilot was reading the usual before-takeoff
checklist. And I remember thinking, "If I have to hear that
checklist another time today I'm going to throw up." And
that's when I knew the romance of the air was over.
