THE PILOT WHO WOULDN'T FLY

Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On Wed, 4 Feb 2004 10:54:05 -0500, "Tony Volk"
wrote:

p.s.- wasn't it a well established phenomenon in Vietnam that pilots
generally went "candy-assed" when they got close to the end of their tour?
so much so that they were rotated out of Pack VI for their last five or ten?

YUP !


Arthur Kramer

NOPE! You might want to read When Thunder Rolled for my description of
the last mission of my tour in which two of the seven flying from my
squadron were lost and I recovered back at Korat with ten pounds of
fuel left in the jet.

Statistically the most dangerous missions on a 100 mission tour were
the first ten and the last ten. The first because you were scared and
inexperienced, the last because there was a tendency to get
over-aggressive and feel a bit immortal. Many guys were trying to win
the war on their last couple before they completed and went home.

That's suprising to hear. I think most (unexperienced) people just
assume that close to the end of a tour a man will start to get jumpy.
I've read multiple times that heavy bomber guys in the ETO started to
get more nervous the closer they got to the end of the tours. Do you
think there was maybe a completely different mindset for a fighter
pilot (from any war) than there would have been for a heavy bomber
crew?

~Michael