Found Her!

 Way back in my formative years, I read a quote in a book about flying that went (and I'm paraphrasing from memory) "A fighter pilot has but one love to give to an airplane and when he does, there it will ever be." I read a lot of books by Richard Bach (yes, Beans including the seagull one), so I think it might have been him.  

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In any case, my first airplane was a Cessna 150.  Good airplane, could take a lot of punishment (which I administered regularly) and got me up and down safely in the 40 hour AFROTC orientation program.  That program was the first opportunity to screw up badly enough to not become an Air Force pilot.

I managed to avoid that. 

But...The Cessna wasn't "The One".

Next was Pilot Training (Laughlin AFB, Del Rio TX, Beans) and the Mighty T-37.  That jet had a USAF official name, but nobody, including the Chief of Staff of the Air Force called it anything but "The Tweet".  Loud (you had to wear ear protection religiously on the flight line), under powered, but an Air Force aircraft.  Twin engines and easily 3 times as fast as the Cessna. 

An actual Laughlin AFB Tweet. That's Lake Amistad beneath and Mexico on the left.
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One could get well behind the aircraft in a very quick time.  Getting back there regularly usually led to washing out.  My class lost 5, I think, out of 25.  One of my regular IPs was the chief of T-37 check section.  That was the folks that had the final say of whether you stayed or went.  He had a patch on his shoulder that said "100 missions over North Vietnam".  There weren't a lot of AF Brats in my class.  But I knew what that meant.  On the first mission I flew with him, we had a bit of fuel remaining when we had successfully completed the planned mission.  He asked if I wanted to try a spin.

I most certainly did NOT want to do a spin.  Spins were not fun, if  you didn't do the recovery procedure right, you could crash.  You got slammed around the cockpit, because the aircraft was out of control and headed for the ground. I did NOT want to do a spin.

"Yes, Sir"

We talk about it for a bit and start the maneuver.  Pull the nose up to a fairly steep climb, pull the throttles back and when the aircraft stalls, stomp on the rudder full in the direction you want to go.  The airplane promptly starts twirling like a ballerina while the altimeter is unwinding quite rapidly.  You were supposed to hold the rudder in for two revolutions before starting the recovery.

It seemed like forever, but I held it.  Pushed the rudder opposite the way the plane was rotating, pushed the stick full forward and when I saw airspeed climbing, added throttle and recovered from the dive.

Major Mitchell said we'd actually gone around three times, but for the first attempt, not bad.

Never liked spins. And we did a lot of them. BTW when assignments were getting close, the Tweet Squadron Commander said he wanted me to be a Tweet FAIP.  Major Mitchell talked him out of it.

But, the T-37 wasn't my first love.

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The T-38 was a nice airplane and handled well, and I flew it well enough to be in the 6 graduates from my class that were given assignments to fighters.  The T-38 wasn't my first love either.

I proceeded to Luke AFB, to learn to fly "Ol Double Ugly", the F-4C.  Good airplane, solid as a rock, couldn't turn worth a damn, all my instructors were Vietnam guys. I did pretty well and had a follow on assignment to Kunsan AB. (Yes, Beans, Sarge was there at the same time, and since he fixed F-4D's and I flew F-4Ds, and regularly broke them, I'm pretty sure we've crossed paths.). As I now had almost 200 hours in the F-4 (after two years flying it, that's not very many. No, not at all), I was assigned to Moody AFB and the F-4E.  Reagan had just been inaugurated, the military was being funded, and Moody was the wing supplying F-4E's to the Rapid Deployment Force, primarily pointed at Iran.  Spent three years there, and left with about 1,200 hours in the F-4 and was actually pretty proficient in employing it. But, still hadn't found the "one", that sang to me.

F-4C
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I know for a fact that I've flown THAT airplane.  Yellow tail FP was a Juvat Tail Number.
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Silver Tail Flash=339TFS/69TFS out of Moody.  Gen Creech ordered Dick Bong's squadron renamed the 69th so Moody would have the 68th, 69th, and 70th TFS in the wing.  Apparently, it affected his "sense of order".  Dumas!
Oh, and I've also flown this specific tail number.
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(Yes, Beans, I did meet and marry Mrs J at Moody.  She certainly is the "One" and she does sing to me.)

Next assignment was to Holloman AFB and the AT-38B.  Again, got a lot of flying, but was instructing students in how to fly and employ fighters.  One of the benefits of that is, you actually have to know how to fly and employ fighters.  I learned an awful lot about flying and fighting fighters while instructing. But the AT-38B wasn't the "one". 

Although the source states it's an AT-38B it doesn't have a fuselage pylon, so I think this is ATC "Playing Fighter Pilot" with a camouflaged T-38
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Then I got assigned to Kadena and the F-15.  But I had to go through F-15 transition at Luke AFB in Phoenix. The first sortie in an Eagle is Solo, no IP in the airplane.  That had never occurred in any airplane I've flown to that point, and in fact, I don't think I ever flew an Eagle sortie with an IP.  The profile of the first sortie is the takeoff will be an afterburner takeoff, vertical climb out, rejoin on the IP, drive out to the area, fight the IP until reaching Bingo Fuel (we've got just enough to get back to the base with a little extra in case something happens, but not much) then a formation landing.  On the first flight, and I'm solo.

So. Yes, the Eagle is "The ONE", and the one with my name on the canopy rail's tail number is 78-564.  I would do whatever it took to get she and I on the same line number on the schedule.  That usually wasn't difficult, because, she was an F-15D.  The D model is also referred to as the Family model as there's a second seat in it.  Having flown two seat aircraft exclusively up to this point in my career, that didn't bother me.  It did bother a lot of the Eagle babies (the guys who had only flown the Eagle from day one of their career), so they would usually trade with me if they could.  

Flying her frequently, meant that her Crew Chief and I became well acquainted and built a pretty good relationship.  He knew that I would tell him anything that was wrong with the aircraft (not safety related of course) personally and he and I would decide if it needed to be written up or "just fixed".  Since he was good to his word on the later, our aircraft (his actually, but my name was on it, just above his) always had functioning equipment and had one of the best "in commission" rates in the Wing.  

But, as all things come to an end, eventually, it became time for my last flight.  Bones and I walked out to the jets, Maintenance had come through and 78-564 was assigned to me. Walked up to her, and noticed there were no drop tanks on either of the jets.  The mission was to go fight a pair of Navy F/A-18s and help them with 4th generation fighter tactics as the bad guys.  But we were clean.  Needless to say the two F/A-18s loaded with 3 external gas tanks, didn't do very well. 

That was the end of my flying career and I'd always wondered what had happened to her.  I'd read that she'd gone to Edwards as a chase plane. but that was all I knew.  Just happened to be looking at Eagle pictures today and ran across this one.

At an airshow, somewhere, but TY is Tyndall AFB Fl. Picture was from 2003
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Digging a little deeper, I found a more recent picture.

Taken in 2010, She's in the camouflage paint of a NASA chase plane.
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Lucky her!  Sure would like to say hello again.