Ops Desk

Author: Ogre

First off, this happened in October of 1969, so "as memory serves" is applicable!

I had completed UPT about three weeks early and was relegated to the Ops Desk. My IP comes in about a week later and tells me that, when they scrubbed my training records, I was 0.6 hours short on solo time... YGBSM! And then he adds, "You’re going to take off, fly to the aux field, shoot a touch and go, and then get your butt back here, and you better NOT log over .6 - clear?" Yup.

Luckily, my helmet and G-suit were still in life support, and using a borrowed checklist and local area booklet, I headed for my assigned White Rocket. Got strapped in and suddenly realized that I had ram dumped a lot of the finer points...had to follow the checklist line by line, got it fired up, taxied out, and was cleared for takeoff.... now then... to get to the aux field (if memory serves) if you took off runway 14L, you maintained RW heading, cleaned up, climbed to 1500 feet AGL and turned left 45 degrees.... you'd held that heading to intercept the 25 mile arc off the RND TACAN and fly that to the entry point for the aux field. Okay, I'm cleaned up, doing the after-TO checklist, and noticed that the controls were a lot more sensitive than I remembered... and the arc was coming up sooner than I remembered... I then discovered that I was in min burner and hauling ass across Texas, right near a huge chicken ranch... Idle, the 25-mile arc shot by, and I'm now in a 70-80-degree banked turn, pulling some healthy Gs... I saw 28 miles but also saw the entry point. By the time I got to initial, I was pretty close to 300 knots, pitched out, did my touch-and-go, and RTB'd to RND. Logged my 0.6, turned in my life support stuff, and returned to the Ops Desk.... the Ops Chief was on the phone....seems someone out in Schertz was a little pissed off about the sonic boom that occurred not long ago......