Long Story... basically it lead from flying some semi-unique seaplanes and bar tending at night. A former Navy Hornet guy was a regular customer.. and flew air shows with a CJ-6A Nanchang, he took me under his wing and taught me a lot about flying those type of aircraft, formation, and aerobatics just because he was a great dude, awesome pilot, and enjoyed instructing. After getting checked out in the CJ, went and started taking it to Static displays at various air shows... which led into joining up with a bunch of degenerates who were starting the "Heavy Metal Jet Team" which later became the Black Diamond Jet Team ...who let me fly and get checked out in their airplanes, work for them, and do the air show thing. Everything I've ever done is directly attributed to the generosity of others. Although the air show community has their bad apples, overall they're a great bunch of dudes.... types like Huggy and Hacker. Most of the dudes I flew with came from a military background and served in combat, etc... so despite how cool the air show environment is to work in (imagine just hopping in a Mustang with your buddy and making "strafing" runs on boats out in the bay one evening just for fun)... anyways, I really wanted to get a chance to serve like the dudes I flew with... so I left team for the Air Force, so here I am. Still get a chance to go fly the L-39 and get "BFM lessons" from Snort while waiting for Nav school to start in Pensacola. Can't complain... but those guys have some really cool stuff going on, hopefully rejoin after the AF.
So let me get this straight...you've flown jets in a demonstration squadron, and the air force, in its infinite wisdom, decides to make you a NAV?! Cool story otherwise, man. Best of luck in nav school.
I was under the impression VT-2 was the only one sending CCX's to Oshkosh. Or you profile is out of date
Ryan1234 - figured you were with HMJ - good job you guys do - and good luck with the AF. Although after flying with Snort I don't know how you decided on the AF!
Centennial T-45 from TW2 should be there. If you hear a stud's head exploding somewhere over Fond Du Lac on the radios....
Hardly anyone in the AF knows or cares what an L-39 is (or any warbird for that matter), I'm getting old...and the AF made a big push for CSOs/Navs in my particular OTS board - if I didn't take it, I would be too old by the next board. I got a 96 on the pilot portion of thr AFOQT, but was arrested when I was 18 for a "potato gun incident"....so maybe that had something to do with it....either way I'm pretty fortunate to get to serve in a flying capacity... And definitely looking forward to all the training. We'll see what the future brings... The old company just acquired about 10 A-4s... So it'll be exciting either way.
I'd be curious to hear from those that have flown in to Oshkosh to see if it's the same, and I know Sun 'n Fun is smaller, but... I've flown into Sun 'n Fun both on the civilian side and on the military side (both the Wiener and the -60). It was far less hectic bringing a military aircraft in as there is different course rules and they just bring you directly in. I actually had the entire Sun 'n Fun "show" stop just for me in my little T-34, thanks to a very helpful Airboss. The demo portion had gone longer than planned and we were scheduled to arrive after the demo. I had already stopped once for gas but because of the delay, we ended up holding for almost an hour south of the field. They continued to give us updates, but when I finally said I'd need to go get gas if we were going to wait much longer, the Airboss worked us in right after the show but right before the mass exodus of all the GA planes (when the Tower took over). So there we are, show center making our approach and landing while everyone waited for us. Then we taxied in to our static spot while all the people watched and took pictures and made us feel like rock stars. Yet another great visit to KLAL.
Interesting. I was just reading an old IFS thread and came across this: not trying to be a super duper internet sleuth, just curious why your stories dont seem to match
Took a Prowler into Oshkosh circa 96 and it went fine. Filed IFR, picked up mil fuel at Scott and hit our arrival time to the minute. Right hand carrier break at max warp to the 6100 foot runway was a bit sporty getting stopped. Great four day though. Stayed at my pilots parents house on the lake and took their ski boat for beers at a local microbrewery. A good Navy deal overall.
Huh? I am pretty slow, but failing to see the inconsistency. He said that the T-38 sim kicked his ass, he didn't say that he was in the sim on a pilot syllabus hop. Plenty of people climb in the sim, to include parents, friends, and kids. Granted, I don't really know this guy, or care for that matter, just don't see it based on what you posted.
Like I said, I was just curious, not accusing him of anything. Perhaps I could have worded it a bit better
I had flown in twice in college in a C-170B....very intense and need to keep your head on a swivel. First time in the military was what I had mentioned in an earlier post - two TA-4's. We had stopped for the night in Champaign, IL and visited old college friends after getting a couple of X's on our students on the way up. The next morning, we flipped for the lead. Both of us had been to Oshkosh as civilians, but neither of us while in the Nav. I lost and flew the wing. Going in, we both expected to get sequenced in somehow with the civilian traffic. As we were switched over to tower with the field in sight, landing west, I started to take interval on my lead. I was a couple hundred feet in trail when the controller said to bring it in low and fast for a right break over the numbers, "just like you do it at the boat", were his instructions. We figured we were dealing with a former Navy controller so I quickly closed it up and we hit the numbers doing about 325kias. Just as we were approaching the numbers, the controller made a comment about how good we looked and asked us to delay our break till the departure end so everyone could get a good look. We naturally complied and broke over the departure end of RW27 at 800'agl, landed, and rolled to the end of the 6179'. People were lined up watching as we section taxied to our parking spots on the approach end of RW04, right amongst the Warbirds. I remember at that time (1981), Oshkosh was not on the big list of airshows for the military, and we were the only active duty military aircraft there for the two days we were there. We were kings, even though we slept in sleeping bags on the floor that night!
I've flown the T-38 into Oshkosh in '97, '99, and 2002-2010 (save for 2007, when I flew the U-2 in; and 2008 when I flew the U-2 back to Beale... joined up on a Cessna on that one, and made the cover of Flying Magazine, March 2009). We always get an "IFR slot time". Despite that,... it can get "sporty".
Met up with Hacker at Vance AFB a few years ago. He was kind enough to let me fly the T-38 sim for the day. At the time it was pretty eye opening. Just a sim, sure...but it was my first taste to the differences in military type training and civilian. Not that it really matters, but there's more than a few people on this board that can validate my stuff
There's nothing inconsistent about his story. When he was a civilian, I invited him to Vance for show and tell, and we spent a couple hours in the T-38 sim then. He was all ready a professional civilian pilot at that time. Subsequent to that, he went to OTS and became a Nav student, where he is now.
Huggy, if you hadn't given me the gouge on that in 2010, I would have been totally lost. I flew up initial, got a right break behind a couple of Mustangs, had a near midair in the final turn with a Cessna 177, and had to low approach due to the Mustangs and T-6 on the runway in front of me. What a circus...and completely awesome!
What? "23 arrests but no convictions?" For a frakin' potato gun? YGBSM... Prowler and "max warp" do not belong in the same sentence. Unless it's a relative thing...
So you're saying "keep your head on a swivel" when we come in on the Warbird/Turbine Arrival on Tuesday morning?
