Summary of Colonel Steve Ladd's From F-4 Phantom to A-10 Warthog

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Air Force was able to produce 3,500 pilots in 1967, and I entered the service in 1966. My road to an F-4 cockpit began in 1966, my final year at the University of South Carolina, where I was enrolled in the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps.

#2 I had passed the five specific areas of the Air Force recruiting test: pilot, navigator, academic aptitude, verbal, and quantitative (math). I was excited to be a potential candidate for pilot training and a chance to wear the coveted silver wings.

#3 I was ordered to Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta, Georgia. I was disappointed that the base wasn’t conducive to the debauchery and uninterrupted hell-raising I had planned for my pilot training experience.

#4 I rewarded myself by buying a shiny new British racing green Austin Healey 3000, which I could not afford. I set sail for Moody Patch, where the road to aviation fame and glory began in a classroom. I was introduced to the delights of flight theory, aircraft systems, and flight planning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822525481

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Insights on Colonel Steve Ladd's From F-4 Phantom to A-10 Warthog

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 21

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Air Force was able to produce 3,500 pilots in 1967, and I entered the service in 1966. My road to an F-4 cockpit began in 1966, my final year at the University of South Carolina, where I was enrolled in the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps.

#2

I had passed the five specific areas of the Air Force recruiting test: pilot, navigator, academic aptitude, verbal, and quantitative (math). I was excited to be a potential candidate for pilot training and a chance to wear the coveted silver wings.

#3

I was ordered to Moody Air Force Base near Valdosta, Georgia. I was disappointed that the base wasn’t conducive to the debauchery and uninterrupted hell-raising I had planned for my pilot training experience.

#4

I rewarded myself by buying a shiny new British racing green Austin Healey 3000, which I could not afford. I set sail for Moody Patch, where the road to aviation fame and glory began in a classroom. I was introduced to the delights of flight theory, aircraft systems, and flight planning.

#5

The Air Force way was not for everyone, and we lost a number of students who couldn’t stand the pressure to fly within precise parameters in a small single-engine aircraft. Some were excellent pilots, but others were not.

#6

Afsar, a student pilot, flew far beyond the limits of his training area. He was brought home by instructors, who explained to him that he had twelve minutes of fuel left in his tanks.

#7

The 6,000 Pound Dog Whistle was a jewel of a basic jet trainer: side-by-side seating, two turbine engines, fully aerobatic, and spinnable. It had all the right credentials to turn a newly Air Force-indoctrinated Bug Smasher pilot into a fledgling jet jockey.

#8

I had learned to hit the ground by performing a parachute landing fall from a platform 6 feet above the ground. The standard here was described by the instructor as: jumper’s feet first, then the side of the calf, then the side of the thigh, then the side of the hip, or buttocks, and then the side of the back.

#9

The training program for new T-37 pilots was extremely rigorous. We were separated into groups and assigned primary instructors, who would guide us through the program and encourage us when we needed it, but also kick our butts when we screwed up.

#10

The process of flying the Tweet was a delight, but it was also an ordeal.