Chant du Départ: Brian Shul Sled Driver

Friday, June 19, 2026

Brian Shul Sled Driver

OK this guy is another of my heroes for a lot of reasons. No, not a Medal of Honor recipient, but let me tell you his story, you'll understand why he was one of my heroes. He was one of my Instructor Pilots when I was making the transition from F-4 Pilot to Lead-In Fighter Training AT-38 Instructor Pilot. Suffice it to say, I learned a lot from him, an awful lot. So, let's get on with the post.

Major Brian Shul (rhymes with School) came on active duty in the Air Force in 1970, completed pilot training and was sent to Southeast Asia as a T-28 Trojan pilot.

Source

As one can pretty well ascertain, this wasn't a fabulous aircraft for fighting an air war. But being fairly slow, a pilot could make out a lot more details than say a pilot in an F-4. He served as a Foreign Air Advisor teaching other SouthEast Asian Air Forces how to do close air support to troops in contact with the enemy. On his 213th mission, he was shot down and crashed in the jungle. One of the drawbacks to the T-28 is that it is fueled with AvGas, basically high octane gas much like in your car, albeit much more flammable. Unfortunately when he crashed, he was knocked unconscious and the plane caught fire. Special Forces folks came and pulled him out of the flames. Suffice it to say he was severely burned and it took a few days before he could be airlifted out of the jungle and provided with more effective medical treatment. Doctors in the hospital in Okinawa didn't believe he would survive but they did their best to treat him. He was airlifted to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio when he was capable of traveling. He then underwent 15 operations over the next year.

He underwent several months of physical training with a personal goal of returning to flying status.

OK, to refresh, severely burned, not expected to live, over a year in the hospital. Wow! A lot, just to be alive!

However, at the end of that, he passed a flying physical and began flying again!

Talk about "Never Give Up! Never Surrender", Brian Shul is the epitome of that.

His next flying assignment was in the SR-71. I'll let him tell you a story about that in the video at the end of this post.

Brian Shul on the right, his Back Seater Walt Watson on the left

Brian Shul about to refuel his SR-71 on a KC-135

Brian in a Selfie while flying WAY High and WAY FAST

Now on to that video I promised you. Pretty Humorous and put an Airline Pilot in his place. Pay attention to his airspeed reading in this video. After a few whiskeys, he told me that he had significantly slowed down to this speed. Wouldn't/Couldn't tell me, no matter how may whiskey's I pried him with, how fast he HAD been going!