VonoTemp

"Come with me!" My aircraft commander was pointing his finger and gesturing at me, his co-pilot. This was when I was the co-pilot on an elite stan/eval crew at Beale AFB. Some kind of interesting extra duty had just surfaced. As I hurried to catch up Captain Jackson said, "We've need to check out the new DNS mod. We just got our first bird back and it's up to us to OK it."  This was all news to me. Some agency in the USAF had decided to install radar doppler navigation systems on our KC-135Qs? "They've been putting them on the a's. Now it's our turn, I guess." He said. We made our way out to the tarmac and up into the cockpit. He was just settling in his usual left seat when Jackson frowned. He looked over at me and said: "OK, what's wrong with this?" The box had been rigged between the pilot and co-pilot in the exact spot where the radar display usually sat. We use that radar to keep an eye on our fellow aircraft in forma...

I have greatly enjoyed reading Charlie's blog, and when I read his first post that commented on refueling F-4's, I suggest that I might write a post from the point of view of one of the F-4 aircrews that he frequently used to tow around the sky.  He agreed, and then I promptly procrastinated on submitting my post, so I finally decided to correct that oversight. Charlie has been listening to my stories for about 45 years, ever since we were both roommates at the Air Force Academy, and from among all my many tales of thrilling heroics, he requested this one. In the early eighties, I was stationed at George AFB in the 563rd Tac Fighter Squadron (TFS) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/563d_Flying_Training_Squadron), which at that time was one of the Wild Weasel defense suppression squadrons in the 37th Tac Fighter Wing (TFW) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/37th_Training_Wing#George_Air_Force_Base ) at George flying the F-4G Phantom II.  I flew in the back seat of the F-4 as an Electroni...

I was a cautious, safety-minded aircraft commander when I flew KC-135 tankers. I read all the pilot bulletins and Strategic Air Command safety magazines, so I knew how a moment of inattentiveness could lead to tragedy. And if my aircraft went down, it would not just kill me, but also my crew, others on board if we were hauling passengers, maybe the aircraft we were refueling, possibly people on the ground. I combated inattentiveness with a few tricks including good habits. If you do it right each time, no matter what, then when you are in a hurry you will do it right. For instance, the old tanker was a “water wagon”. It needed de-ionized water injected into the engines at take-off to get off the ground. During the aircraft commander’s walk around, one of the things we looked at was a fan recessed into the engine cowling. I would give that fan a twist at each engine to make sure it would turn. Sometimes, in very cold weather, that fan could freeze and that would mean no water and no ext...

Dad, outside his Jewelry Store, circa early 1950’s My Dad had quite an interesting life. He was in many ways, the typical American of his time. The following single paragraph is a very shortened version of his life.   His parents were Thomas (father, Luigi) and Concetta (Christina) (parents Cataldo and Elizabeth Pantuso) Vono. They were Italian immigrants, married in 1906 or 1907 in Iowa. Dad was born in 1914. Concetta died in 1918 of the swine flu shortly after giving birth to brother, Charles. Thomas (Tom) could not support the children and they needed homes. Tom died shortly thereafter in 1927, apparently in some sort of dramatic circumstances. He was most likely a member of the local Italian organized crime outfit (Mafia? Black Hand?). The other children were Catherine, Mary, Clara, Christina (widowed and then later, murdered), and Louis. Concetta was basically giving birth to a child each year. Not untypical back then, Catherine and Louis died in childhood. As an orphan, ...