Bush Flew Fighter Jets During Vietnam

Sam Byrams wrote:

I know what the statistics are, and I don't
care. I suspect Bush Jr's motives were the same
booze, pussy and kerosene!

As a former fighter pilot (or "pilot who flew fighters", compared to
guys like Ed, et al) I wish to disassociate myself from that remark.

It was JP-4, Pussy, and booze -- in that order and with appropriate
nomenclature and capitalization, please.


Jack

In '68 (not '72) public sentiment was divided.

Probably: by '72 it wasn't. You had a few hardasses and Birchers and
whatnot and everyone else was for getting out. I grew up in a
middle-sized town and one that was overwhelmingly 'AuH2064':yet even
the rednecks had serious questions by '72. Men in uniform-and even
then, although it was understood they were noncombatants, the
occasional female-were certainly not disrespectfully treated, but it
was expressed that we hoped the war would be over shortly -either way.


Bush got his training
slot when production for UPT was as high as it had been historically
since WW II. UPT was expanding from eight to eleven bases and capacity
at each site was increased. We were up to more than 5000 per year
input to UPT from all sources. (I was director of ATC Student Officer
Rated Assignments from 1970 to April 1972 and managing the program.)





My Presidential vote isn't going to count anyway since my state is
not remotely up for grabs and it's a winner-take-all state.

Since 48 out of 50 states are "winner-take-all" Electoral College
votes, your reasoning should get everyone to give up voting.

It would seem to this political scientist (BS, MPS, MSIR) that the
closeness of the last election in so many states would indicate that
the value of every citizen's vote is critically important.

Ours wasn't close. And this one will unquestionably be farther
apart-Kerry will do worse than Gore.


They both suck. If I voted on pure principle I couldn't even vote
Libertarian-although they're closer. Kerry might really screw things
up so bad people would have to pull their heads out and in the long
run, like a dope bust,it might be beneficial for an addict.

If you can't differentiate between the basic ideological positions of
the two parties, you shouldn't vote. Good choice.


I am aware of what their platforms say. I concede some may consider
them fundamentally different. I consider them basically similar in
that they both seek to encode their politicoreligious notions in the
law. In one case it's a recognized religion, the other is an implicit
one. In practice, they differ only by amount, not by real principle.


Dr. Joe Bagadonutz, the wealthy proctologist buys a Mustang or even
a
MiG-17 and successfully takes off and lands. He isn't, by any stretch
of the imagination, a fighter pilot. He isn't really, even that
lesser
level, a pilot who flies fighters. He's simply an accident waiting to
happen.

He's equally likely to kill himself in a Bonanza for that matter.

The initial post was about flying "fighters". Yes, Bonanzas are
notorious for applying the principles of Darwin to doctors.

Actually some doctors are pretty good, even excellent, aviators.
Several aerobatic champions have been doctors. Same with other
professions. It is possible to become an excellent stick and rudder
pilot through civilian training if you have the time, money, and
drive. About the only thing you won't be able to learn as a civilian
is weapons delivery.


The phrase far predates that book. It was the grinder call in the 50s
era USAF and I can remember my uncle-who went through the air cadet
program in the 50s-talking about it. Hated the culture of USAF where
Fighter Pilots were gods-he was a C-133/C-130 pilot who dropped dead
six weeks after retiring from TWA at 60 as a four striper.

With all due respect to your uncle, we never won a war by hauling
more
trash than the enemy. Trash haulers help, but only because they
provide the warriors at the pointy end of the spear with the bombs,
beans and bullets to kill the enemy.

He was no fighter pilot, but he was a good guy and he's missed. He'd
planned to get involved in the EAA Young Eagles program and had signed
up for a soaring rating when he dropped dead-not a heart attack per se
but an electrochemical heart problem. The ambulance got there five
minutes too late but the doctors said he might have been
brain-impaired anyway, so "maybe it was for the best."


Haven't seen Mason't book, but if he thinks the "Tiger" attitude got
replaced by something less, he's sadly mistaken. Warriors are
professionals, but they'd better have a healthy dose of attitude.


Mason's book-wriitten for young adults (young male adults-it was
fifteen years before females wore USAF wings)-portrays the USAF air
cadet programs as basically unalloyed aggressiveness designed to crank
out winning fighter jocks-at the expense of a certain casualty rate,
and notwithstanding that most grads went to tankers, transports,
bombers, helos, or ocasionally directly to IP school. As I remember
the big change_according to Mason_ was that flight training "later on"
took in people who were already officers, not needing the boot camp
mentality, and was vastly less tolerant of accidents. Also the T-38
Talon was a big challenge for people whose total experience consisted
of under 200 hours in the T-37.

This agrees with accounts of flight training by many other writers,
including Richard Bach and several of the early astronauts, who went
through 50s era USAF flight training.

Bottom line as far as politics- I personally don't like Bush, right
or wrong, and I can't support a Kennedy, which Kerry as well may be,
nor would I vote for someone that liberal even if he is an active
pilot. (In general I tend to prefer Reps to Dems, provided they are
not so fundamentalist they can't separate church from state.) I don't
agreee with everything John McCain says but I'd work for his election
over Kerry. Voting third party expresses my dissatisfaction, and if it
clearly throws the election either way so much the better.

Sam Byrams wrote:

[Mason's book claims] the T-38 Talon was a big challenge for people
whose total experience consisted of under 200 hours in the T-37.

In the mid and late 60's it would have been less than 100 hrs in the
Tweet for studs transitioning to the Talon, and nobody didn't like the T-38.


Jack

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:40:29 -0500, Jack
wrote:

Sam Byrams wrote:

[Mason's book claims] the T-38 Talon was a big challenge for people
whose total experience consisted of under 200 hours in the T-37.

In the mid and late 60's it would have been less than 100 hrs in the
Tweet for studs transitioning to the Talon, and nobody didn't like the T-38.


You've got that right. I had 132 hours in Tweets before Talons. The
UPT syllabus dropped that to 120 with introduction of the T-41
screening. No problems. Later with better simulators the total UPT
syllabus was reduced to 188 hours with less than half of that coming
prior to T-38 qualification.

The T-38 has been a great airplane for 42 years of training and with
the upgraded glass cockpit looks like it will be active in SUPT for
another 20 years at least.

Easy to fly, no adverse characteristics. Reliable. I wound up with
about 1500 hours in Talons, more than 1200 accrued as an instructor in
Fighter Lead-In teaching new instructor candidates. (And taking the
occasional recreational trip to ski in CO/UT, visit the sea-food
paradises of FL or the sexpots of LSV.)


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:40:29 -0500, Jack
wrote:

Sam Byrams wrote:

[Mason's book claims] the T-38 Talon was a big challenge for people
whose total experience consisted of under 200 hours in the T-37.

In the mid and late 60's it would have been less than 100 hrs in the
Tweet for studs transitioning to the Talon, and nobody didn't like the T-38.


You've got that right. I had 132 hours in Tweets before Talons. The
UPT syllabus dropped that to 120 with introduction of the T-41
screening. No problems. Later with better simulators the total UPT
syllabus was reduced to 188 hours with less than half of that coming
prior to T-38 qualification.

The T-38 has been a great airplane for 42 years of training and with
the upgraded glass cockpit looks like it will be active in SUPT for
another 20 years at least.

Easy to fly, no adverse characteristics. Reliable. I wound up with
about 1500 hours in Talons, more than 1200 accrued as an instructor in
Fighter Lead-In teaching new instructor candidates. (And taking the
occasional recreational trip to ski in CO/UT, visit the sea-food
paradises of FL or the sexpots of LSV.)

Preceded you a little bit. Did the T-34, Tweet & T-bird. Old T-bird had
a lot of inertia with full tips and a lot of slack in the stick.

There was a noticeable drop in instrument skills and ability to handle
older aircraft when the all Tweet/Talon guys started coming out the end
of the pipeline. They were just TOO easy to fly.

Our T-34/Tweet instructors were "civilian" at least technically. Mine
was actually one of those much reviled in another tread TANG types, in
fact became GWB's commander in the Deuce.

My best friend, then and now was another instant airman to lieutenant
guardsmen. A second guard classmate went on to command his state guard
with 2 stars on his shoulders. None of us saw Vietnam. All 3 of us
managed 30+ years of airline.

Beats working for a living.

--
Ron Parsons

Ed Rasimus wrote:

Later with better simulators the total UPT
syllabus was reduced to 188 hours with less than half of that coming
prior to T-38 qualification.

I got a bit over 200 total with a little over half that in the T-38.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:36:59 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

The T-38 has been a great airplane for 42 years of training and with
the upgraded glass cockpit looks like it will be active in SUPT for
another 20 years at least.

I have a friend who went from F-18s and SR-71s to T-38s (Bs, I think)
with conventional cockpits. He sure missed the HUD at first. I don't
think he realized how much difference it made to him. I could have
told him, though, because having a HUD greatly improves my piloting,
so think of what it does for a real pilot.

Does the T-38 glass cockpit have a HUD? NASA did a cockpit upgrade on
the JSC T-38s, but I'm pretty sure it didn't include a HUD.

The USAF has been turning every cockpit into a glass cockpit. They
did the KC-135s that the ANG flies a couple of years ago, even.
That's real dedication to glass cockpits, I'd say.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 20:35:10 -0700, Mary Shafer
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:36:59 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

The T-38 has been a great airplane for 42 years of training and with
the upgraded glass cockpit looks like it will be active in SUPT for
another 20 years at least.

I have a friend who went from F-18s and SR-71s to T-38s (Bs, I think)

That doesn't track. Was he on USN exchange? Was he flying "company"
SR-71? If he was USAF it isn't likely that he would have been flying
either, but then how did he get to T-38s? The only "B" models are
AT-38s, which are only flown by the SUPT fighter-leadin squadron. The
NASA, ATC/UPT Talons are all "A" models.

with conventional cockpits. He sure missed the HUD at first. I don't
think he realized how much difference it made to him. I could have
told him, though, because having a HUD greatly improves my piloting,
so think of what it does for a real pilot.

Did the SR-71 get a HUD? Dunno what there would be to see out the
window.

Does the T-38 glass cockpit have a HUD? NASA did a cockpit upgrade on
the JSC T-38s, but I'm pretty sure it didn't include a HUD.

The glass mod does include a HUD.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

Was he flying "company"
SR-71?

I didnt think there was such a thing, other than the A-11, which were well
before F-18.


Ron
PA-31T Cheyenne II
Maharashtra Weather Modification Program
Pune, India

"Ed Rasimus" wrote:
On Mon, 19 Jul 2004 20:35:10 -0700, Mary Shafer
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:36:59 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

The T-38 has been a great airplane for 42 years of training and with
the upgraded glass cockpit looks like it will be active in SUPT for
another 20 years at least.

I have a friend who went from F-18s and SR-71s to T-38s (Bs, I think)

That doesn't track.

Mary was at NASA, F/A-18's, SR-71's and T-38's have been and are in their
inventory.

Was he on USN exchange? Was he flying "company"
SR-71? If he was USAF it isn't likely that he would have been flying
either, but then how did he get to T-38s? The only "B" models are
AT-38s, which are only flown by the SUPT fighter-leadin squadron. The
NASA, ATC/UPT Talons are all "A" models.

with conventional cockpits. He sure missed the HUD at first. I don't
think he realized how much difference it made to him. I could have
told him, though, because having a HUD greatly improves my piloting,
so think of what it does for a real pilot.

Did the SR-71 get a HUD? Dunno what there would be to see out the
window.

Does the T-38 glass cockpit have a HUD? NASA did a cockpit upgrade on
the JSC T-38s, but I'm pretty sure it didn't include a HUD.

The glass mod does include a HUD.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8