It was 1969. The Air Force used the Cessna 172, the T-37 and the T-38 to instruct new students in the art of aviation. The Cessna 172 was almost identical to the Cessna 150 I flew in the ROTC program. It was just a little bigger and faster. The T-37 was the second jet I had ever experienced. The T-37 was a short, squatty, and loud aircraft with side-by-side seating. The T-38 was the advanced jet trainer and was configured with front and rear seating.
Instructor pilots were assigned three or four students and they would normally fly with only those students. My T-37 IP was Captain Archie Morrell. Archie was about the most laid back man I’d ever met. I can’t prove it but there were times during our flights when Ol’ Archie took a quick nap. He would also pop his mask off occasionally and light up a Lucky Strike. Nothing ever fazed him. If things really got serious, he would always utter the same phrase, “Shit Oh Dear.” That was apparently a favorite saying in Archie’s hometown of Columbia, South Carolina.
My IP in the T-38 phase was Lt Steve Symon. Steve was a very intelligent guy from Massachusetts. His premature grey hair made him look older than his actual age of 27. My fellow students in the T-38 were Phil Duval and Randy Young. Phil was a big, likable guy from California and Randy was the epitome of the relaxed rebel from a small town in Mississippi. The four of us got along famously. Steve was the conductor and we were the orchestra. Phil, Randy and I helped each other through the program. We shared our mistakes and triumphs and before we knew it, the year had flown by and graduation was upon us.
By year’s end, the group of 85 original pilots was narrowed by 33 percent. This was the average dropout rate and we survivors were feeling pretty good about ourselves as we lined up to receive our wings.
I had a double celebration that month. Not only did I earn my wings, but just before graduation, my daughter, Krista, was born.
Assignments for bases were awarded just prior to graduation. Our class assignments ran the gamut from the F-4 fighter to the B-52 bomber. I was assigned to fly the C-130 at Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, North Carolina. But before heading to our assignments we had to learn to fly our assigned planes. All C-130 training was held at Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. I was excited to head to another southern state for six weeks of intensive training.
Chapter 2
In the early 1970’s the C-130 was the workhorse of worldwide airlift. Often referred to as The Hercules, the C-130 was first built in the early 1950’s with the “A” model. Over 40 models of the aircraft are in service today in over 60 nations. The current model is the “J”. I flew the “E” model.
Over the years, small improvements were made to the C-130. The engines were beefed up, another blade was added to the three-bladed prop, instrumentation was improved and the landing gear was strengthened to support heavy loads. The airplane was built like a tank. Four turboprop engines and multiple redundancies for safety, the C-130 was capable of landing just about anywhere, including dirt strips only 3,000 feet long. The Hercules earned its nickname by being a strong, tough, dependable airplane.
As a pilot, there’s a certain comfort knowing that your aircraft can continue to fly with one or even two engines shut down. The C-130 was used for every conceivable mission from troop dropping to trash hauling — the pilot’s term for cargo delivery.
All pilots, both aircraft commanders and copilots are trained to the same flying standards. The aircraft commander bore the ultimate responsibility for the entire crew and aircraft. The copilot’s job was to act as second-in-command and share the flying duties with the aircraft commander.
It was quite a switch to transition from the two-engine T-38 trainer used in pilot training, to the four-engine C-130. The T-38 was a twin seat, twin engine, fighter-type trainer. In the T-38, pilots either flew solo or with an instructor. We only had to listen to the instructor on the intercom and air traffic control on the radio.
The C-130 was much slower than the T-38 but a whole lot busier. The C-130 co-pilot is part of a five-man crew and has to communicate with the other four on the intercom and listen to air traffic control on the radio.
A typical 4-hour training mission consisted of takeoffs, landings, emergency procedures, and instrument approaches. In addition, new pilots learned to coordinate efforts with the rest of the crew.
After finishing the six-week course in Little Rock, I was transferred to Pope Air Force Base to report to the 779th Tactical Airlift Squadron. Pope would be a new beginning for us. Doreen and I had both been born and raised in Philadelphia and had not had an opportunity for traveling much other than going to the Jersey shore. One of the reasons I chose the C-130 assignment was because of its mission: worldwide tactical airlift. To a 22-year-old kid right out of flight training, the “worldwide” part was very appealing. Our flight instructors at Little Rock had been in the C-130 for several years and had been around the world a few times. Their stories only fueled our desire to experience what the future held for us.
Chapter 3
Doreen, Krista and I moved to North Carolina the September of 1970. Pope Air Force base is where I would be stationed for at least the next three years. As an officer with a family I qualified for officer housing on base. But there was no officer housing available on this busy Air Force base. Instead they offered us housing at adjacent Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg housing was not very impressive but the only other option was to rent something off base. Without much money saved up our choice was clear. We chose a home at Fort Bragg.
As we drove into the neighborhood and located our new home, we noticed a housing unit about 300 yards down the street marked with crime scene tape. It was being patrolled by several Military Police (MPs). It turned out to be the home of Dr. Jeffrey McDonald whose family had been found murdered. Dr. McDonald claimed “crazed hippies” had killed his family. Being that Fort Bragg was an open base, there was fear that a group of crazy hippies could come into the base and murder other unsuspecting families. Home security for my family became a high priority and I decided to look for off base housing as soon as I could afford it.
The first pilot I met in my squadron at Pope was Irv Ashton. Irv lived just two houses down from Doreen and I in Fort Bragg. He came over and introduced himself as we were moving in. Irv seemed like a nice guy. My first impression of Irv was that he was regular and easygoing. I would learn in the months to come that Irv was one crazy motherfucker.
Irv was very friendly and he invited us to his home to meet his wife, Cynthia. We showed up at his door with a bottle of wine, which he placed atop his fully stocked bar. Our bottle was merely a drop in the bucket among all the other booze Irv possessed. It turned out that Irv loved to drink. I’m no teetotaler but Irv made me look like a man doing an impression of John Calvin. I didn’t even try to keep up with him.
Irv had a state of the art quadrophonic stereo system. He picked up the system on his last temporary duty (TDY) to Taiwan. It was a beautiful, top of the line system, but all he had to play on it were old, scratched up 45s from his college days at the Citadel. He picked out “Louie Louie” by the Kingsmen and threw it on the turntable. The resulting noise from this four-speaker nightmare prompted calls from angry neighbors. Irv listened to their complaints and promptly took care of the complaining neighbors by cranking up the volume. A visit from the MPs however, convinced him to turn it off.
Like most new squadron couples, he and Cynthia furnished their home from college leftovers and yard sale specials. Their dining room set was a folding card table with matching chairs. It was simple but cozy. We ate dinner seated on the folding chairs.