On Mar 23, 1:32*pm, aviatorr727
wrote:
I posted a lot of pictures from my USAF Pilot Training at Williams AFB,
Arizona at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/aviator...7601902012851/

Here is the story of how I soloed in the T-37

Most Air Force instructors in the Pilot Training program were calm,
reasonable men who used enlightened techniques to train pilots. There
were a few insructors, however, we labled as "screamers".
The kindest thing I can say of them is that they must have believed
that yelling, screaming, and occasionally squeezing our oxygen hoses so
that we could not breathe, was a way of ensuring that we would learn to
function under-pressure, if things went really bad. *

On the day that I was to solo in the T-37, I had no idea that this
would happen. *We were flying landing patterns, and suddenly my
instructor started shouting at me : " If you don't fly the next
pattern better, I'm going to ground your ass and you're never gonna fly
another *&#!@*- * Air Force plane as long as you live"

I flew the next pattern as best I could and my instuctor shouted:
"OK, I'm done. *Land this fu---ng airplane full stop! "

I was crushed, thinking that my career as a USAF pilot was now over.
We pulled into the parking spot and I reached over to shut both engines
down. He slapped my hand, shut down the right side engine, climbed out,
reached inside and started securing his seat belt and oxygen hose. *

He said : "I've had enough and I'm getting out. Don't forget to
restart the right engine. *I want to see 3 good landings. Are you gonna
go out and kill yourself? " *

I replied: " No Sir "

He answered: "Well, if you do, go do it somewhere that I don't
have to watch, stay off of the radio and go-in like a man"

I soloed OK and decided that I would later ask my Flight Commander for
a different IP. *Next morning, I gathered up my courage to do that, but
before I could say a word, my Flight Commander assigned me to another
IP to whom I'm forever in his debt for teaching me a lot more about
flying.

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aviatorr727

Thanks for the post. I spent almost 30 years living in San Antonio
and watched more flights of formation pairs of T-37s and T-38s out of
Randolph AFB than I can count. I always smiled when I saw those
pretty white planes flying overhead.