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The Flyboy Podcast: Guest Rob "Robsan" Donaldson · The Flyboy Podcast

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Fly Boy Podcast where we bring you just one thing cool flying stories.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, David Moore, and today I'll be talking with Rob Donaldson, call sign Rob San.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: In the Air Force, Rob flew the OV 10, the A-37, the F 16, including two tours in Iraq, and the F-117, also including two tours in Iraq.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: He also flew the AT thirty eight at Tonopatest range.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: When he left the Air Force, he flew with the airlines and he's flown the 727, the 737, 747, 757 DC nine, A three thirty, along with various GA aircraft, including the Ford Trimotor, the Helio Stallion, and the Twin Otter.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Rob has more than twenty thousand flying hours across a variety of airframes.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Rob, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the invite.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh never.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us, when did you first know you wanted to be a pilot?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it's the classic answer, you know, knee high to a grasshopper, very, very young.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: My father was a career Air Force fighter pilot.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: I started off in the F-86s in uh Germany where I was born, and then uh flew the uh the F-102 at a tour in Madison, Wisconsin when it was called Truax Field, which kind of comes back later around in my life when I flew in the Air National Guard out of Truax Field, F-16s with them.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it was kind of kind of full circle.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: When he flew the F-102, we were stationed in the Philippines, the Clark Air Base there, and he was TDY to Southeast Asia, uh, both to Saigon as well as to Bangkok.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: A first lieutenant in his flight was a guy by the name of Mike Harris, which probably the old timers up at uh Tonopah remember him and him as uh one of their commanders.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um his second tour was in uh Thailand with in the A-1 Sky Rider.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: He had uh over 500 missions alone in the A-1.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So he was a Sandy one and he recorded some of the rescues that he was on, which he played for me later on in life when I could probably fully appreciate the the gravity of the situation of the ground troops and the the gunfire in the background, the screams.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: His last tour was in Cambodia.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Air Force called it the AU-24 Heliostallion.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: No civilian equivalent existed at the time.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was a squadron commander down at Hurlbert Field, but that was his final tour in um Southeast Asia, was in the AU-24 in Cambodia there.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I remember him coming home wherever we lived, and his flight suit smelling like JP4, big old salt stains on his back, and it just the biggest smile on his face because he really loved what he was doing.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's always been my larger than life hero, my dad.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I really looked up to him, best friend, gave me a lot of great advice in the Air Force when I went in.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: He said, fly as much as possible.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was number one.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, you you are your own best personnel officer.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And most importantly, number three, always treat the enlisted with respect.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know, the enlisted can make or break you.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh always followed that advice, trying to fly as much as I possibly could, and made some real good friends with crew chiefs and enlisted folks.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: He was there for me in life and glad I followed in some great big footsteps.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, Rob, what's the coolest thing you've ever done in an airplane?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, kind of a combination of things.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was flying an A330 from uh Narita, which is the uh international airport in Tokyo, to Seattle, and in the middle of the night, crossing the Pacific, everybody's kind of coming back to the States at that time, the United Delta American.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, the United guys come up on the common frequency and say, hey, just to let everybody know, our dispatch is broadcasting positions of STS-117, which is the space shuttle.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: The 117 was significant because the commander was Drew Archibald, who was a an F-117 pilot in the 415th and a good friend.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're broadcasting his position as it came overhead the uh North Pacific there.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, it came from like about right four o'clock up over the top of us, and it was an absolute flaming orange volleyball trailing this immense tail on it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Drew was up there, and we watched it head over, basically up to the North Pole, and then started a descent down towards uh Edwards Air Force Base in California.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was one really proud American of Drew, knowing that he was at the controls of that, and it took him ten years to get there.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was just neat to know that he was up there doing that.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's probably the coolest thing I I've seen.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: So he is coming in, re-entering the atmosphere in the space shuttle, and you're seeing the flaming orange from the heat shield from the plasma jet coming off.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell Yes, that is all correct.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Once in a lifetime, I'd seen a launch, I think I'd seen two landings out at Edwards and all.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: But to see it in flight and to know that you know the guy at the controls was super special.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell Rob, what's the closest call you've ever had in an airplane?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it would have to be maybe three or four weeks into the war in Iraq in Desert Storm.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: On my very first sorty, the very first night of combat, I was a no-drop because of weather, the bad, bad weather over that that winter in Iraq.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had to visually ID the target before we could drop the bomb.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And weather precluded me from getting to this uh command post that I was supposed to bomb.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so very, very frustrating.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: I took note of it and uh because I was at a set altitude which was, in my opinion, a little bit high.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought maybe if I just got down underneath it, I could visually acquire the target.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I stored that little nugget of information in my head.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So the sortie in question was about four weeks into the conflict there.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was making a run from north to south down near Basra.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: My two targets were bridges on the main supply route, trying to get the Iraqis bottled up in Kuwait so they couldn't retreat back to Iraq or couldn't send more reinforcements down that way.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I looked out and man, it was ugly.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: There was a black cloud because Saddam had set the oil fields on fire.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you could see the individual wells through this black cloud.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you know, my profile called for me to be at this altitude.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I go, that's not gonna work.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And remembering the first night, the extreme frustration of not being able to drop.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I let myself down and got below the scud layer basically of uh oil burnoff and all.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And at about 800 feet, I broke out underneath it.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're wait a minute, you're 800 feet above the desert?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You are low, low, low.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So um but I was visual, and that's all that counted.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so I turned loose the uh the first bomb, which was a GBU 10, a 2,000 pounder, with a bit of a delayed fuse on it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So they they wanted the bomb to get through the the bridge pavement basically and explode underneath it to drop a span.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so um this was wild.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm going as fast as I can possibly go at about 800 feet, 700, 750, something like that.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I turned the bomb loose, but I also knew that I would probably overrun the IRADs, the downward-looking deliver because of my rate of travel.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I yanked the throttles to idle, which immediately set my inner ear tumbling and everything.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to guide it, it hit the uh the bridge and dropped the span.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the very last like half second of the video, uh an Iraqi army truck drove off the drop span.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, the blast hit me from this 2,000 pound bomb, as you know, the the uh low.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, probably within the frag envelope.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, very, very well.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's 2,500 feet in all directions after it hits the ground.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think the thing that really helped me was the fact that it it didn't explode until it was through the bridge and and it it it exploded underneath it.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I believe that saved me from some possible shrapnel.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the blast turned me upside down to the left about 135, 140 degrees, something like that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I'm upside down at 800 feet above the ground.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: At night.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Upside down.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: At night.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: At night.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you know what?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was just uh my reflexes were I just slam the stick to the right, rudder to the right, and the airplane dished out about 300 feet above the desert floor.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I checked my altimeter.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um next thing I I did was I I I looked at my engines, they were still running.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I looked at my gas and it wasn't going down appreciably fast.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And my next target was seven miles down the road from the first one.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I knew what to expect now on the second target, because I climbed back up to uh the bottom of the undercast 800 feet or so, dropped the bomb, same thing, is going as fast as I could go, rip it to idle, and then you know, the tumbling in the in the head uh was pretty severe.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it it blew me over to the left again, but same thing, just push the stick to the uh the right, ruddered to the right, and dished out about 300 feet again.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I dropped both bridges, and I came back and I did a very close inspection of the aircraft just to make sure there were no uh holes or things like that.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there and there weren't.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that was remains the most harrowing moment of my aviation career, I guess.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: That would qualify.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: That would qualify.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, the immense satisfaction that followed that and I just didn't want to drag those bombs home and be be weathered out or anything like that.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Again.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Again.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, again.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So um I took my chances, it paid off.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was the highlight of in-flight uh everything.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the plane, my inner ear, you know, just all scrambled up at one time.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I got out of it.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: So for our listeners, uh you mentioned the delair, which is the downward-looking infrared radar on the underside of the F-117 stealth fighter.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So as you are tracking the target, you've flown over it and it is now rapidly going behind you.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so the reason you slammed the throttles to idle was to try to give yourself a few more seconds of being able to track that target to see the impact.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so you are now not only disoriented, your throttles are at idle in combat at night, eight hundred feet over the ground, and the explosion then flips your plane over inverted.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was uh we we we termed it uh gimbal.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: You would gimbal the delair, meaning that you overran the capability of the delire to look back and track the uh target.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, everything luckily came together and those spans dropped and I got out of dodge.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm gonna wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares about that one.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think there was a higher power involved in that mission there.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: That you know, got I've I've heard the the term that uh God takes care of uh dumb farm animals and fighter pilots, and sometimes I don't know which side of the fence I'm on, but I do believe there was a higher power involved uh in that uh situation there.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell So tell me about the worst in-flight emergency you've ever experienced.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I listened to all the other guys on your podcast, you know, nothing can really touch Bill Lake's landing uh flameout F-16.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of guys have had emergencies.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I, for whatever reason, never really had a bad emergency happen to me in my jet.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: The worst thing that happened was not to me, but once we got back from Iraq, I was a functional check flight pilot uh which tested airplanes after they had maintenance issues and everything else.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was giving a uh a checkout, an FCF checkout to another guy in the squadron, John Doc Savage, uh who's in my class uh of three up at Tonopah.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so we uh it was a Saturday, I do believe, for some reason, I don't know why.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: So nobody's up there.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh take off in the T-38, come around, pick him up.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: We fly out to the area, just five to eight miles like south of Tonopah test range there.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: The uh the main altitude for all this stuff was like five thousand feet.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: AGL.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we're in Tonopah's, you know, another six thousand feet.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we're about nominally around twelve thousand feet, about five to six uh thousand feet above the ground.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm reading him the FCF checklist on checking these things out and all.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when it came time to um check the the alternate landing gear extension, if you remember right, it was that uh Oh no.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh yeah.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's coming.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that handle that handle was the same uh color, black and white or black and yellow, and it was very close to the chute handle.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, mm you know, muscle memory and all that is pulled you know, pull the chute on landing.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I I told him, I said, okay, go ahead and extend the landing gear, and poof, the black parachute comes out the back of the airplane and it immediately like it hits in flight.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: In flight.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he's down around 230 knots, something like that.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And immediately the jet goes about 75, 80 degrees, nose down.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And with the loss of thrust.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like a gigantic speed break.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I just even talking about it makes my heart jump into my throat because I lots of things went through my mind.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I got out three times, you know, jettison the shoot, jettison the shoot.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It seemed like forever, and I'm watching him head towards the ground, and finally the the chute jettison's off and he recovers.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Moment of silence, you know, and finally I said, uh, you okay?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I go, you want to continue on?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we we continued on, did the checkout, uh, came back to Tonopah, told the tower we were gonna be a new chute landing.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time we had still the Gulf Stream brakes on the airplane, so uh a little bit landing at at uh higher altitude, now high speed without uh without a chute and everything.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: But he did a great job and no hot brakes and and all that kind of stuff.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so he pulls into the uh the hangar.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I parked the uh the T-38 and um went down to the hangar there where he was.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I talked to the crew chief and I said, Hey, you know, the the chute's laying out there somewhere in the desert.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Don't worry, boss, I got you covered.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it never went it never went anywhere to, you know, as an incident to any it not anybody, because everybody was gone for the weekend too, uh, since it was a Saturday morning.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: But that put my that put my heart in my throat.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was a SOF in um Saudi Arabia, and at that time we were I think we were just we might have been doing three waves a night, 20, 20 jets per wave.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is during Desert Storm.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Desert Storm, right.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh the last two airplanes were recovering on the SOF.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had a really great enlisted guy uh up in the tower with me, as well as the Saudi controllers.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were landing like uh I can't remember the orientation of the runways, but say we're landing to the uh the east, the uh the first of the last two jets lands.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've got glasses on them, and it's just getting starting to get a little bit light.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what I see is the chute in its package comes out of the back of the 117.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: In a package, it doesn't deploy and it lands on the runway.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I grab the mic real quick and go, no shoot, no shoot, no shoot.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And um he's moving pretty quick, and so I said, you know, lower the hook, lower the hook.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: In the F-117, the hook was embedded in the inside the airframe of the the jet, and it had pyrotechnic charge that blew out a panel, basically, and uh the hook comes down, so I see the sparks scraping on the runway, and he takes the he takes the cable, the barrier.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: So now I tell the last guy to land, I go, hey, runway nine's closed, uh, somebody's in the barrier, switch to uh 3-6 or something.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he gets set up on uh runway 3-6 and he lands, and man, doggone it, if the chute did the same thing.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: It came out of the airplane as a package, landed on the runway, and then I holler, no shoot, no shoot, boom, I see the sparks from the the pyrotechnic charge, the hook comes down, he passes the cable and he doesn't decelerate, his hook skipped the cable.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so now at the end of uh that runway, there was about a 70-foot drop-off, and I leaned over, looked over at the uh the NCO that was up there with me, and he was half a fraction ahead of me because he was already pushing the button to raise the uh departure end barrier, which is like a rabbit catcher.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like the a big web of to come up to catch the airplane before it goes off the end of the runway and down a seventy-foot cliff.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, which would have totaled, you know, it in it would have involved an ejection and a totaling of the airplane.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like you see on Navy videos of crippled airplanes landing on the carrier, they come into this spider web and uh very, very effective.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And man, he was he was right on it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Boom, he pushes the button and that web comes up and everything.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the the plane, I think it was a guy by the name of Joey Salada.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's who it was.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it was him if I remember right.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have to get him on the podcast and ask.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's a great guy.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's a great guy, yeah.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the jet goes into the webbing and everything, and the end result was it only sustained like about$250,000 worth of damage, so it wasn't a class A or anything like that, and he was okay.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they put the jet back on the schedule like that the next night or something like it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was real quick.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: How about that?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: That uh controller is Johnny on the spot.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, I think he's deserved the medal for his quick actions and and all that.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And as a side note to all that, about two years later I'm flying with the guard in Madison on a day sortie, and I go up to K.I.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sawyer Air Force Base, which is in the uh the U the Upper Peninsula, and uh I just wanted to do some practice SFO, simulated flameout landings in the F-16.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I call him up and say, Hey, I'm here.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do some SFOs.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Voice says, approved.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I do an SFO and on climb out, the guy, the voice in the in the tower says, You didn't happen to be an F-117 pilot, did you?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, how'd you know?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, because I was with you in the tower at Camise when that when those two jets had no shoot landings and the one ended up in the barrier.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Man, how did you how didn't you know that?
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I recognized your voice.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I go, okay, wow.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a chit chat about you know how life had been since leaving Saudi Arabia and and uh and everything else.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, I believe that that guy deserved a medal.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: So none of this happened to me, it was uh to other people, but I was involved on the periphery of all that.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: So Rob, what's the longest sorti you've ever flown?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it would be the deployment from uh Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to uh Saudi Arabia.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: We had initially flown from Tonopah to Langley on the East Coast.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we uh spent the night in uh Langley, and the next day our deployment was with KC-10s across the Atlantic on into uh Camise Air Base in uh Saudi Arabia.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: So total time was 14 and a half hours in the jet, but sitting in the jet time was about 16 hours because at both ends there was some dead time.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: But man, I'll tell you what, though.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was a long, long flight.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Longest one for me.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's got me beat.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my longest is 12.1 going from uh Holloman to Spangdalum and having to divert around thunderstorms in the States.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you know we probably air refueled a dozen times on those, not because we need that much fuel, but because when you get to the middle of the Atlantic, you want to have you know, you want to constantly stay topped off to make sure you got enough gas if you got to divert to the Azores or Newfoundland or Scotland or wherever you might be going.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: So air refueling is one of the things that makes us able to do our job, you know, uh extending the range of the airplane.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, um, do you have any memorable experiences air refueling?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Powell I certainly do.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was the lead on one of the waves, uh yeah, 20 jets coming out of Camise, and we would meet 10 tankers coming down out of Riyadh, so two jets per tanker.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Mark Lindstrom, great buddy of mine, he was my wingman.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what year what year was this and what conflict?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it it was Desert Storm.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like January of 1991.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: In the in the F-117.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So could have done air refueling in my sleep, you know, we had done it so many times, and uh there's still some light out and everything.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I I pull up to the tanker and I actually let Mark go first, and he goes off to the wing since he was number two, and I slide up to the tanker and I'm plugged in, and it was supposed to be calm out all the all the way, but we had like hot mic.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the tankers had this hot mic thing.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: This particular one did not.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: But pull up and and I kind of look up, I go, you know, something's a little different here.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I then took a quick look around and realized that the uh the boomer was a a female, later turned out to be from crew 7 Eleven of Grissom Air Force Base, Indiana.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so she I looked around and I go, something something's odd, something's different.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So when I took a closer look, I realized that she had the top of her flight suit peeled off.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so she just had, you know, some uh basically her bra on, and that was about it.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh she disconnects and everything, and I I kind of crept my F-117 up a little bit further and closer, and she got a big smile on her face.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think this was her plan all along, but anyway, she flashed me.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so, you know, uh the plane turns wobbly and everything else, and and I move away so I don't have any collision with the tanker.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I I just break radio silence and I I said, go go do what I just did.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he slides I slide off to a wank, he slides in, and same thing.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: She flashed him.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, his jet got all wobbly and he makes a few uh um you know, that's the word I'm looking for.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um exclamations.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Exclamation, yeah, comments and everything.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So now the rate the radio erupts like, you know, what's going on up there?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's this, what's that, and everything, and and we just ignored it all.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: But she was also the same boomer on the way back, post-strike era fueling.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: That all happened pre-strike strike, and so post-strike, same thing.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she was waiting for me this time.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: The pod was all dark as I slid into position to to get my gas and everything, and then all of a sudden the lights turned on, and um there she was again.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got on the radio, uh, this is post-strike, and said, Hey, listen, you know, w what's your name and where you where are you based?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to send you some memorabilia from the F-117.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: We had pictures and caps and shirts and things like that, and all so I did.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I sent it up to uh to Riah to her squadron up there, and everybody kept asking.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Asking, you know, what the heck happened up there?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I j I told them as well as Mark told them.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so now every time guys took off, they would ask, you know, is this Crew 7-Eleven from uh Grissom Air Force Base, Indiana?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because I guess they were hoping for the same uh the same result that Mark and I had.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: But uh that's the most memorable air refueling incident episode, I guess is the best way to say it.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: So well, okay, but now the$64 question.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did you hit your targets that night?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you hadn't, if you had been distracted, that would have been a bad thing.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was the least I could do was shack the targets, you know, given that very patriotic American display and everything.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, but yeah, it w all the the wide grins and giggling didn't happen until after I landed and uh and all.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, she's she's pretty well burned in my memory as the most memorable air refueling sortie.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So Rob, what's the worst weather you've ever flown through to land an airplane?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh this is an F-16 story.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was flying at F-16A models down at uh Homestead Air Force Base in Florida, and we deployed to uh Norway and uh one of my good buddies, Rex Carpenter, great, great F-16 pilot.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um he and I were real good friends.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: He and I took off from our Norwegian airbase and we flew down towards Oslo to do some dry casts with the Norwegian Army.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Dry close air support practice practice mission.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, thanks.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: So no no bombs dropped or anything, but just uh working with them to identify targets and make a pass on it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing dropped off the plane.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the weather started to deteriorate, and the plan was that we uh were going to recover at uh Rigay Air Base near Oslo and turn the jet there um as part of our our time in uh in Norway and all.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the weather's getting kind of bad.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about it and and we decide, hey, we probably need to get on down to Rigay now because it was coming in from the west and closing off.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we uh go on down there and we get a hold of their radar approach control and ask what the weather was at Rigay, and uh the guy says, Yeah, you can you can get in here.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we got to the final controller, I think Rex went first.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was a uh a female controller, and we at first thing we asked was what's the weather?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Well, as you Americans say, um it is at minimums, which you know is code word for it's below min's, it's really dicey.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we said, Well, we got we got no place else to go.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so she brought in Rex first, and then she um she came over to me to pick me up, and she said this was going to be a precision approach radar, which is uh the best approach, the lowest approach that you can go to.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think like 101 or something like that.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: So she said, We are going to run a plow truck down the middle of the runway first before you land, and so you will see the the center line and uh the plow truck will will exit at the end, and then he will guide you to your parking spot and said, Okay.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: So she had the the most utter confidence in her voice and everything, which made the situation much easier to digest, I guess, because we're getting low on gas and you know, below at minimums is so she talked me on down to um uh I I really never did see the runway until I lowered my nose because she gave me all everything, you know, you're you are at 200 feet, you're right.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: 100 feet on on path, on on glide slope, everything, you know.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then she goes, you're at fifty feet, and I see nothing.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh you know, about two seconds later she said, 30 feet, you can start your flare now.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I followed her uh directions, and sure enough, you know, squeak squeak onto this uh runway that had snow on it and and uh you know the the anti skid is just chattering away as I'm trying to get stopped on the ice and everything.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: But got stopped and sure enough there was the uh the plow truck waiting at the end and and uh he brought us on in to our parking spot and and before I went over to the tower frequency, I said, Listen, thank you so very much.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, you probably just save two American jets.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And her reply was, oh, we do this all the time.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't do it all the time, but uh thank you for you know guiding us safely to uh to landing.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Her words still ring in my head, you can start your flare now.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's probably the worst uh worst weather that I've ever flown through to get on the ground.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: So So Rob, tell me about the people who've been most instrumental in shaping you as a fighter pilot.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first and foremost, my father, who I greatly admired and because uh he was just the best, not only as a pilot, but also uh as a father and uh and a friend and everything.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you know I wanted to be just like him.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I have to uh single out an individual named Colonel Ed Carter.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: He was my DO at Homestead Air Force Base in the 31st Tech Fighter Wing at that time.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I had been there for about three years.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: He called me up.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was working in Wing Weapons, and he said, um, hey Rob, you're uh you're due to rotate out.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you three choices.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can't go to Luke and be an IP.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: He said you can uh instructor pilot.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Instructor pilot.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he said you can go out to Kaneowee Air Force uh Marine Air Base in uh in Hawaii on the island of Oahu and fly F-A-T in exchange with the Marines.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, man, it doesn't get any better than that.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, uh or you can go to Nellis and fly A7s.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I don't I don't want to I don't want to do the uh RTU, the replacement training unit uh instructor pilot uh tour.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, can can you give me a few days?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I need to make some phone calls.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah, take your time, let me know.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I called the Marines and they said, Oh, yeah, it's great.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Six months on the boat, six months on land, you know, flying the F-18, and I said, Okay, thanks.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then I I called my dad and I said, Hey, this is a you know, I have a choice between flying an F-18 out there or going to Nellis in the A seven, and of course, by that time, you know, there if you go out to if you'd gone out to uh Nellis in a in a you know red flag exercise or anything like that, you know, there was always that hidden background rumbling of what are those A sevens really doing?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I r I remember going to those red flags and you would taxi by and they would have cop cars out on the flight line in the and so you would pull in an A seven, the cop cars would pull aside, and then as the jet pulled in, the cop cars would then close the gap for the entry control point.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we knew there was a little something going on there.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, okay, what's really going on?
• 28:21
  unknown: Yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I I asked my dad, I said, can you give me uh Colonel Harris's Mike Harris his phone number?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because he had recently been a commander out there, un unbeknownst to to me, you know, obviously uh there was something behind the A7 program.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So he gave me uh Colonel Mike Harris's um phone number.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Mike had been, as I previously mentioned, in my dad's flight flying 102s and uh Clark Airbase during the Vietnam War.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I called up Colonel Harris and I said, Hey, how are you doing, sir?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh he goes, Oh Rob, good to hear from you.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I'm down here at Homestead due to rotate out, and one of the choices that I've been offered is go fly A7s at Nellis, but I also have an offer to go fly the F-18 exchange with the Marines in Kaneohe.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he let a let a moment sink in and he goes, Rob, come out here and do this.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Okay, it's all I need.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I went back to um the uh wing DO's office, Colonel Ed Carter, and uh he was his door was open, but he was face down uh doing some paperwork and something I knocked on the door and he looked up and he he said, Yeah, come on in.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I walk in and I said, Yeah, I I've I've made my choice, sir.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, All right.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'd like to go fly A7's at Nellis.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked up and he stood up and he said, Shut the door.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, did I say the wrong?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Did I say something wrong?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I closed the door.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then he jumped up, he physically jumped up and he said, hot damn, I was hoping you would choose that.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh now it now he's really got my interest peaked and everything.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I I can't tell you anything other than um I was on the TAC IG team and I uh got close to something that uh you're you're about to see, and that's all he could say about it and everything.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, Man, I'm so glad you made the right choice.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: He had been in he had been in briefed into the program.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: He never flew the jet or anything, but to give them uh an evaluation, he had been in-briefed into the whole program.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so um his his words, you know, come out here and do this.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Colonel Carter was super excited for me.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually called him up and and and told him, you know, not that many years ago, you know, thank you for for giving me the opportunity to go do that because it was you know the pinnacle of my my Air Force career and everything.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: So he's the he's the first guy that really put a good thumbprint on my uh fighter pilot identity, I guess is the best way to see it.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh another guy I'd like to recognize is uh Colonel Al Whitley.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: He was first uh U.S.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Air Force operational pilot in to be checked out in the F-117.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Trevor Burrus, Jr.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Bandit 150.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: 150.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the bandit number started, right.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so he uh I I thought he was the greatest um wing commander I've ever had.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh had a particular incident with him.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we were in Khamis, uh Mushat in Saudi Arabia, and it had come down from uh Schwarzkopf, the commander over there.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: General order number one, no no liquor, no alcohol in the kingdom.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we happened to be at a base where there were uh tornadoes flown by the Royal Saudi Air Force, and so there were British uh contractor maintenance guys there.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: God bless the Brits, they don't go anywhere without their alcohol.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, God bless the Brits.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: God bless the Brits.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Love them.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And they uh so they invited six pilots and six um maintenance guys, which were all almost all chiefs, uh, to a bowling party because there was a bowling alley at the at Kamis Mishad Air Base.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so they invited us to this bowling party.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we get there and they have all their homemade wine, homemade beer, and homemade moonshine there, uh, of which we partook and and had a great time.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then the wing judge advocate general was not from Tonopah, he was from uh Mountain Home, Idaho.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, he found out about it um somehow, some way, and he went over Colonel Whitley's head to uh General Horner up in uh Riyadh, who is the uh basically the com uh commander of all air aircraft.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: The four the four-star commander for the Air Forces.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, hey, you got your uh you know pilots down here that have been drinking and maintenance guys, you know, with many, many stripes on their uh sleeve, you know, down here drinking and everything like that.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so word comes down from General Horner to uh Colonel Whitley, hey, you better get those hooligans under control down there because they just violated General Order No.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: So Colonel Whitley had just come back from the uh United States, Tonopot Testrain, he's getting his checkout because when we first deployed to Saudi Arabia, he had just been assigned as the wing commander, didn't have a time for a checkout.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Once we got bedded down in Saudi, he went back to the States, got his uh F-117 recall, and he came back of uh Saudi Arabia.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: So he got word to all of us uh hooligans that he uh wanted to see us one at a time.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I was the last to go in.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: I knock on the door, and the voice behind the door says, come in.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I open up the door and and he's standing there with his back to me, and he said, You know, close the door.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I closed the door, and he said, Well, damn Rob, you've just been having a great old time over here while I've been gone, huh?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Yes, sir.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I could tell his shoulders were kind of going up and down, and and he's laughing.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's actually laughing.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: He turns around and he has this coast-to-coast grin on his face, and he said, You know, if I were you, young captain over here doing what we're doing, I'd have been right there drinking too.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Glad you had a chance to take uh more than a couple nips and everything.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And but here's the situation, because I'm getting heat from above.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta do something with you guys.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the punishment is gonna be I'm gonna write up an article fifteen for all you guys that were involved, which is a you know kiss of death in the in the Air Force.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm thinking, ooh, this is bad news.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, But I'm gonna put them in my desk.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be a desk drawer, Article 15.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when you leave here, either uh rotate out or the end of the war or in a pine box, he said, I will tear those things up.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: So true to his word, the day the war ended, he called us into his office and he reached into his drawer and he pulled out these papers and he tore them up right in front of us.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was the greatest single act of um leadership I'd ever seen.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he uh he had our not only our backs, but he had our whole our whole being, you know, and he he stood in front of uh in between us and and CENTCOM and everything and said, No, you guys, you know, CENTCCOM needs you guys more than you need CENTCCOM.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh once again it was the greatest act of um selfless leadership I think I've ever seen.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And um so I'm still friends with Colonel Whitley today.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he to me embodies the perfect wing commander.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll give a shout out to his wife, Miss Ann, because I've been to their house in South Carolina.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've flown out to see him.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: She, you know, she gets the award for the best uh supporting uh wife of uh of a wing commander, great lady, Miss Ann Whitley.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: So uh wonderful guy, and uh I look forward to seeing him uh at the reunion.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's been up here to Alaska, we got together and best wing commander.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: The other guy I'd like to uh talk about is um Lieutenant Colonel Greg Gognier.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: GT.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: GT.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's been on your program before.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Fabulous guy.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: He had spent time up here in in Alaska, and we actually got together uh up here and did some fishing and had been good friends.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I single him out because he was, to me, the best squadron commander I've ever and he wasn't even my squadron commander.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: He was the 416th squadron commander.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: But on my second tour over there, I had in the M-117, I had a I was under him.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was uh the uh the head guy over there and everything, and he got me to fly because I was getting out of the Air Force.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of there on a penalty tour from my squadron commander for announcing that I was you know departing the Air Force.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so but he saw to it that I got to fly to remain current and uh you know for my application to the airlines and everything.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he's just a great guy.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: We've been real good friends.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Then the best um DO, squadron DO is Colonel Lieutenant Colonel Barry Horn.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: He was the uh the 415th uh squadron DO, saved my bacon a couple of times, and uh I saw him last summer.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: He came up here to fish with his son, and uh we got together and hashed over old times and everything, but uh much the same thing as Colonel Al Whitley, you know.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: He uh he deflected a lot of uh lot of heat directed at any one of his pilots, which was was awesome.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Great guy.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's for for flying guys and everything.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd like to give a shout out to the um academic instructors up at Tonopah.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: These guys were old retired F-4, F-105 guys.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: One had actually been a POW, and they were never checked out in the airplane, they just taught ac academics, but they were some of the most proudest Americans that I have ever encountered.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they were buttonbursting pride, uh the pride that they had to be involved in that program and and also they were awesome.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the simulator people, the simulator technicians and and support people were just incredible.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Person by the name of Jules was up there.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: She was a simulator technician, and uh a guy by the name of Dave Scans.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: They were great, great in the jobs that they did.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give an insight into how we kind of blew off steam up at Tonopah.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh somebody else mentioned the tocacle, the Tonopah Officers Club in Chinese laundry, uh, which was our little uh bar area.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the simulator technicians named Jules um was witness to all the antics that fighter pilots can put on, you know, such as trying to microwave a cue ball and uh and uh see how long it lasted.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why would we do these things?
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: We do.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we do.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: But probably the best was uh had a pilot named uh Lou McDonald, great guy, he was in our squadron, and uh one night we're all doing the uh the one fifty the rum 151 rum, very uh high alcohol contact, and the uh the lighter thing make a blowtorch.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Lou had a little bit too much to drink, and he s spewed 151 rum all over his right forearm and it caught on he caught on fire.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like a Hollywood bee horror movie thing.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's flapping his arm up and down and he's trying to put out the flame, and then it started creeping up his flight suit.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, instead of doing the right thing immediately, you know, we are all laughing because it was just so funny.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he finally kind of had to put out the fire on himself.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: He dropped to the floor and rolled around, and then somebody jumped on him and helped him.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh it was stuff like that that was part of our you know blow-off steam kind of thing.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because Tonopah was actually considered a hardship tour.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're away from your family for Monday through Friday, and then you know, sometimes longer, and and things like that.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we had some ways of uh blowing off steam.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell That doesn't mean you have to light your arm on fire.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, that nobody else did but Lou.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Lou did.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the guys I'd really like to acknowledge here also on this program, our our mission planning people were former uh F-4, the majority of them were former F-4 uh backseaters.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there was uh Katie Boyer was the uh the head guy, a guy by the name of Doug Smith, and then Steve DeMarcus uh were all F-4 guys.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was an un I can't remember his name, but it was an F-111 guy as well involved.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason they were, to me, really the unsung heroes of our operation in Desert Storm, because we started off doing two waves a night, which means they had to mission plan for 40 targets, and then we brought the other squadron over the 416th over.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're adding another wave of jets, so it's we're turning out six sixty sorties a night, and these guys had to mission plan for every single one of those sorties, and they they never got a break, they never got time off, the you know, their workload had increased uh immensely and and and they had to to keep up with it all.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so to me, that those guys were really the linchpin, you know, the long pole in the tent, everything because nothing would have happened had they not we called her a computer Elvira, I don't know, the mission planning computer.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Mistress of the dark.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, right.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: But those four guys were very instrumental in the success of of the program over there.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then lastly, I'd I'd like to but not least, I'd like to recognize my uh my two crew chiefs, a guy by the name of Sean and the other guy's name was Cat Daddy.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know I never cat daddy Cat Daddy.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: I never I never knew his real name.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, these guys uh were out there busting knuckles and uh and making sure that that jet was ready to fly.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And after my the initial uh after the first sortie in Iraq, when I came back, uh I was the last guy to land because my tanker was late post-strike.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I came back, I was the last to land, and as I landed, I saw these uh F-111 Fs that had diverted from uh Taif.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: They were uh from Lake and Heath uh in England, and they had diverted from Taif uh airbase and uh I taxied in and some of them were shot up, they got some battle damage and everything, and I thought, oh man, this is this is bad.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because at first I didn't believe that anybody could have survived the amount of triple-A that was coming up.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I go, for sure, we lost some airplanes.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, the seeing the battle damage F-111 and F's just kind of cemented that.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I pulled into the uh hardened aircraft shelter in uh Camise there.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: They shut me down, and uh I climb out.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: The crew chief told me, You're the last guy to land.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody made it back.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, There's no way.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way anybody could have survived all that triple-A and not even taken a hit.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and t they ta they had to tell me three times, Rob, it's okay.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody came back, you're the last guy.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: We were waiting on you.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so my interaction with my crew chiefs was uh more of a brotherly uh uh kind of thing.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it trying to hear to my dad's advice of always treat the enlisted with respect and everything.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: We had a very, very good, tight uh relationship.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: When they told me, you know, Jets fine to go, trusted them at their word, just climbed in and after after a walk around and check with the weapons and things like that.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: But they were uh man, those were some great Americans, really appreciate them.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: But three times they had to tell me because I just couldn't believe that anybody could have survived all that.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, Rob, thanks so much for sharing all of those folks who had such a tremendous influence on you.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to give you a moment to remember others as well.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: We know flying can be dangerous.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Have you lost any friends along the way?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: And is there anyone you want to be sure we remember today?
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell, Yes.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and thank you for the uh opportunity to remember these guys.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: But most people don't realize that we had a British exchange pilot um up at Tonopah that was uh part of the program, and specifically he was part of the um 415th Fighter Squadron, Tech Fighter Squadron.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh his name was Graham Ordell, excellent pilot, great guy, had previously flown, I think, Jaguars and Tornados in the uh Royal Uh Air Force in in Britain, and came to us as a first exchange pilot.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: The really sad thing about Graham was that the decision was made at very high levels not to include him in our deployment to Saudi Arabia.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: During Desert Storm, you mean during Desert Storm, that's correct.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: So when we uh all taxied out to uh take off to go to Langley and everything, he stood in the arming area, um, just you know, a a single soul, saluted everybody that taxied by, and uh man, we just we were really, really distressed to leave him behind, because that's exactly how it felt like we're leaving a brother behind, and he was a great but the decision was out of our hands and and I'm sure from up from higher levels.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: The uh and he uh left Tonopah, went back to uh RAF and then became a uh hawk demonstration pilot in Europe, um, showing the hawk to various different countries and things like that.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: And tragically he was killed in a hawk demonstration uh to one of the eastern former Eastern uh bloc countries there.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh you know, he'll always he'll always be part of the four fifteenth uh legacy and and everything.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just a great guy, but uh killed in that uh hawk demonstration accident.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: The other guy uh I'd like to recognize is a individual named Ilan Ramon, who was an Israeli uh F-16 pilot.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: The way I met him was that after the war, I have a I had a buddy that was an F F sixteen exchange pilot at Lewarden Air Base in the Netherlands, and he called me up and he said, Hey, we're having the Dutch Fighter Weapons School, which it was at Leywarden, uh, is having a symposium uh with all the aircraft that flew in Desert Storm.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you're talking F-14s and A6s and A tens and and everything like that.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, you know, I know you had uh a tour, and I'd known this guy for a long time.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, You were over in uh uh uh Desert Storm.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Can you come and give a presentation?
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Sure, yeah.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I uh went to Laywarden, my buddy uh Mike Vott picked me up and and uh he said, Hey, uh this is gonna be a good time.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had I had actually made it, Colonel Al Whitley tasked me with to make a compilation of the greatest hits and everything.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I had that video all made up and uh and a whole thing to talk about the 117.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh there was a dinner the the night before the symposium was to begin.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody was invited, all the pilots, you know, so there were RAF pilots there and and uh American pilots of all sorts.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I uh sat down at a table, had my name and had uh F-117 on it and everything.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: And these two guys uh came very quickly and they sat down next to me.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: We exchanged greetings, you know, hello, and and they said in a very thick accent, you know, hello.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so the guy sitting right next to me said, We have something in common.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, yeah, what's that?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, You have seen Baghdad by night, I have seen Baghdad by day.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew immediately what that meant, that he was on the uh June 1980 raid from the Israeli uh Air Force on the Osiric nuclear facility in Baghdad, Iraq.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: So immediately had my full on attention, and so we we talked some more, and really kind of a real nice bond ex started to form between us.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: I gathered pretty quickly that he was uh an Israeli F-16 squadron commander, and the other guy with him was the squadron DO.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: So when it came to be my turn to do the presentation in front of this crowd the next day, uh I did it, and at the end there was supposed to be a question and answer period.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I told the audience, I said, There's no um there's no classified questions, but there may be some classified answers that I cannot give.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, a couple of questions and everything, and then when that was done, uh Elon comes up to me and he he he said, I have some questions.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he asked one, and I said, sorry, Elon, you know, that's uh that's the answer is classified.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I said, But I'll I'll tell you something else if you just tell me how many MIG kills you have.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and he he put it right back in my face.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Oh, I'm so sorry, Rob.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's a classified answer.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I said, Okay, you know.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: But uh by the time that symposium was over, um we had actually formed a real good uh relationship.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and then a couple years later, uh let's see, uh in uh 2003, he was on he was I had seen it in the news where you know uh Israel sent over a uh guy to be involved in the NASA program to go up on the shuttle.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he did his name, Ilan Ramon, I go, Yeah, I know Elon and uh know of his family and everything like that.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so they went up on the uh the uh Columbia, which tragically burned up on re-entry, and so he perished in that.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um I did some further research into uh his family, his background, things like that.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually a museum in Tel Aviv that uh exists with uh all his accomplishments and everything.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: And his son had become an F-16 pilot, but uh had tragically uh uh crashed and was uh crashed and uh was killed in a it looked like a G loss of consciousness uh episode in Israel.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh his wife had died as well.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean he wasn't um on the earth.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: Elon was no longer on the earth, but that family was beset by uh by tragedy and all.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I'd like to recognize uh Ilan Ramon as uh one very fascinating, interesting individual.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he was poised for greatness in the uh Israeli Air Force, probably chief of staff.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: And just um you could tell you were in the presence of a very accomplished uh man and uh so I'd like to recognize him as well.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: Here, here.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: Nickel on the grass.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, indeed.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, Rob, thank you so much for joining us.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have just one last question for you today.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: When you meet someone, a young person who tells you they're interested in becoming a pilot, what advice do you give them?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if the guy or gal says, I want to become a fighter pilot, you know, the purpose of the Air Force is not to fly around and look great in that sexy little F-16 or that super cool F-22 or the, you know, the F-35.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be able to do a a job.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the fact that uh you know, those guys were shot down in the um the F-15E and rescued should bring home to most people who are thinking that they want to do that, that you better be able to be prepared to have that happen to you in your in your aviation world and everything.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna sugarcoat it to you, I'm gonna tell you what the hazards are, but I'm also gonna tell you it's the most thrilling thing you will ever do in the world.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: Light the afterburner on that F-16 or the F-22 and rock it off into the sky and and take care of the bad guys.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I just kind of steer the the uh conversation in into where my strengths lie.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell Rob, thanks so much for being on the podcast today.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell My pleasure.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me, Never.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate your uh invitation.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to the Flyboy Podcast.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by our parent organization, the Flyboy Lab.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: The mission of the Flyboy Lab is to elevate awareness and appreciation of aviators, their service, sacrifices, and contributions, and hopefully we've fulfilled that mission today.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: New episodes of the podcast drop every Thursday morning, and you can find previous episodes on our website, theflyboypodcast.com.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Until our next sortie, push the mock, use the vertical, and fly safe.