Tiger Start! Class 61-C/D

Author: David Dale

I wrote my flying stories last year in a memoir called “Aviation Therapy”, but want to tell you about my uncle: Jack Sanders started UPT at Webb AFB in Class 61-C, the third UPT class in West Texas to fly the new T-38. Once I started flying the T-38, he asked, “Do they still use the Tiger Start?”

I said, “ I don’t think so. What’s that?”

He said that the T-38 had unreliable engines and an engine would flame out in cruise for no apparent reason. He would be flying in formation and suddenly start losing position as one engine rolled back and his IP would shout “Tiger start! Tiger start!“ It was the Mil power/AB setting to relight the engine. Once the engine re-lit he would regain his formation position.

His solo flight was a short-duration record: His IP knew a GCA controller near El Paso and during training flights, they would ask to run intercepts on airliners over West Texas. They would pull up behind the airliner without the passengers knowing and then break away. So during Jack’s initial T-38 solo he saw a B-58 Hustler cruising overhead. He dialed up GCA and asked if he could run an intercept on the B-58. The controller said “Sure. If you think you can catch him.“ Jack lit the afterburners and went supersonic but couldn’t catch the bomber. He landed 25 minutes later. His IP asked “Why are you back so soon?“ Jack replied, “I was out of gas!“ They lost so many training flights due to unreliable performance of the aircraft that it took his class 13 months to graduate. Every UPT class was rolled back one letter and Jack graduated in class 61D. His UPT yearbook was a T-38 Tech Order cover with “Change 1” noted at the bottom. There was a slash through 61C, and replaced with 61D. He went on to fly F-100s in Vietnam, leading the first 4-ship raid into Laos, then flew the A-7, and was an early Warthog pilot in the new A-10. He retired after 30 years in the early 90s.