south, make a low slow pass overhead with the gear and flaps down, generating a lot of crowd-pleasing noise and smoke. Then we would 'clean up' the jet, retracting the flaps and gear, and return to the airport from the north at high speed. We would pull the nose up from a low approach and roll the
beast toward the crowd so that they could see the top profile. After this 'pass-in-review' maneuver, we would climb out at maximum power, bathing the airport in thunder. Chief Master Sergeant Charlie Watson and his student engineer scrutinized the plan with concern, but I assured them that we could do it safely if we all stayed alert and did not exceed certain parameters. Pink was beside himself with excitement.
At 1:25 we contacted the show coordinator and were informed that an aerobatic act was ending and we were cleared to come in. Peering out of his window like Kilroy as we passed, Pink was stunned at the size of the crowd and the variety of show planes parked on the field. This was truly a big event for his hometown. The pass- in-review maneuver went as planned and as we climbed out toward Oklahoma, satisfied that the crowd had been amply impressed, the happy Pink remarked that he would get a copy of the videotape of the show.
Curiously, weeks went by, but my promised copy of the tape was never produced. I kept reminding Pink, but he conveniently kept forgetting. Finally, after incessant cajoling, he gave me the copy.
It was beautiful beyond expectation. The deep southern drawl of the narrator, Jim Burris, could clearly be heard, his booming voice echoing and reverberating across the airport on the public address system. As we approached on the high-speed pass, the experienced Jim anticipated the maneuver and warned the crowd.
'This is your camera pass, folks. Have your cameras ready.'
As the image of our Starlifter passed in a graceful, turning arch and started its climb-out, applause could be heard, and Jim's voice boomed again in tribute to the town's native son.
'Beautiful! Beautiful pass. There he goes folks, Greenwood's very own Lieutenant David Floyd, the
Dave would return and do the show again in a couple of years, this time as the aircraft commander indeed, and again he would do the town proud.
I have never let him forget that. But maybe I won't press it this morning. He looks burnt out. I can see it in his eyes. In a little while Dave and his crew will be in the bunks we so reluctantly left, and we'll be in the seats they gladly vacated.
Another trip downrange faces us like a relentless taskmaster. We will throw our backs again into the harnesses, but our pyramid seems to have no taper. We've built it higher than any other, but still there is no end in sight.
After a long hiatus, we find ourselves coming back through TJ again. With Zaragoza to pull away some of the traffic, TJ has settled down a bit. The Wild West atmosphere is long gone. Our pistols are now checked with the security police armory before we leave the flight line. Thankfully, we're down to only two to a room.
The base services officer has finally recognized that some crewdogs, like jet engines, must spool down. She has ordered the erection of a beer tent on the lawn in front of the billeting office. The activity under it has waned with the cooling of the weather, but the 'inbounds' still congregate under it before turning in. Last night there was some sort of a fracas out there. A lieutenant is walking around this morning with a great shiner under his eye, delivered, reportedly, by a sergeant from our unit.
Weather forecasts and flight plans in hand, we leave the operations room and start for the bus, but ahead is a face that rejuvenates me. I was hoping I would cross paths with him, and now there he is, looking like he's back in Jackson, weathering out another dull drill weekend. He leans against the wall in the hallway of the command post facility, hands buried in the pockets of his flight jacket, gazing passively but not unkindly at the antlike activity around him. He nods at familiar faces and waits, like a neglected but patient puppy, for a passerby to linger for a bit of flying talk.
The epitome of a dashing aviator he's not. He wears his hair and his mustache a bit too long for Uncle Sam's austere taste. He always seems to have a five o'clock shadow. And it seems to me that he wears a flight suit a couple sizes too large. His appearance is deceiving to those who think great pilots ought to look like square-jawed, steely-eyed Steve Canyons. He cares not and in fact enjoys the illusion. He doesn't talk a lot and isn't inclined to discuss abstract or philosophical things. Born in an aviation family, endowed with an innate talent for flying, and possessed of a passion for the wing, Tom Wallace is my kind of flier. He's the quiet, confident type who knows he's good but doesn't try to convince the world of it.
I watched him once while the squadron was going through its annual small-arms refresher training. While half the group was popping away with the pistols, the rest of us lounged lazily a distance away. Tom had fetched a chair from inside the shooting range shack and was leaning back in it, arms folded, legs crossed, eyes gazing out to nowhere in particular. His pose looked like that in old photographs I've seen of Civil War soldiers. A small pocket of chat about taxes, politics, and other such paltry topics was in progress near him, the voices rising and falling to stay afloat over the din of the volleys. Quite suddenly, someone started talking about a new airline engine modification. Tom's ears perked. His head swiveled toward the crowd. He uncrossed his legs and listened to another sentence, then sprang from his chair and joined happily in the discourse on fuel flow efficiency and power-to-weight ratios.
And his skill matched his knowledge. He had once been dispatched to fly to the large regional air show in Birmingham, his mission being to place the jet on public display. Arriving at the show site, he put the big Starlifter through such a graceful suite of maneuvers that the air show officials marveled and awarded him the esteemed arrival show trophy. Incredibly, he had outshone some of the world's newest and most sophisticated fighter planes.
To Tom the brotherhood of fliers is not all-inclusive. He cares little for those who settle for mediocrity or less than absolute dedication to the profession. He's especially disdainful of those who use wings purely for monetary or political gain. Those people are like putrid smoke in the pilot lounge, driving him out into the purity of the flight line.
I tell the crew to hold the bus while I greet Tom. He is inbound and I'm outbound. There's not much time, but we catch up with one another as best we can, and he is eager to tell me about the mission to Riyadh he flew a few days back. It seems that Tom's devotion to the brotherhood was severely tested on that trip. He faced what might have been a dilemma for some of us but not so for Tom. Fellow pilots were in trouble. He knew what to do.
The airlift control element (ALCE) staff were people under tremendous daily pressure. The flow of the huge jets was unceasing. The ALCE controllers had to see that the jets were parked, unloaded, serviced, fixed if they were broken, and turned back uprange as soon as possible. They worked twelve-hour shifts, around the clock. They were blamed by their superiors when things didn't flow well and were subjected to the grumbling of aircrews when servicing went afoul. Few people envisioned an airlift operation of this magnitude. There was not enough forethought, knowledge, or hardware to handle this smoothly. Mindsets were not prepared for it. The controllers had to innovate and experiment. When they guessed wrong or miscalculated, they caught flack. Nerves were strained to the limit, and as the months went by, the fatigue, the endlessness of the operation, and broken promises of relief brought on despair. Of all the people in the Persian Gulf operation, none were driven so severely and continuously as those who anchored the receiving end of history's greatest air logistical tail.
And there was no outlet for their tensions and frustrations. There was no officer's club or NCO club at which to unwind. There was nothing to do or see around town. Indeed, much of the time people were restricted to the installation. It was a lousy existence, especially for fliers, which is what they were. The ALCE jobs required pilots, loadmasters, and engineerspeople who wanted desperately to be doing what we were doing.
The commander of the Riyadh ALCE had found two of his pilots drunk, or at least he suspected that they had been drinking. Alcohol is illegal in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and our military leaders had declared that U.S. forces would honor the host country's laws. Officially, booze was taboo. Many commanders looked the other way, but some took the policy seriously
It wasn't clear where the guys had procured the booze. They certainly couldn't buy it in Saudi Arabia or on the military base. But occasionally aircrews coming down from Europe would carelessly put a six-pack of beer or a bottle of some sort of firewater into the aircraft's cooler. I know this happened again and again with my crews, and I had to severely discipline them for being so negligent. I considered it my duty to inform the ALCE discreetly when I
