3
After he finished gunnery school, Horner intended to apply for a regular commission, the type academy graduates got; but before he could get his paperwork together, the Air Force changed the procedure. In the new dispensation, a board selected the ones they wanted instead of letting people apply directly. Later, while he was stationed at Lakenheath in England, Horner was called into his squadron commander’s office one day and asked if he would accept a regular commission, since a board had selected him for one. “Sure,” he answered. And so he was resworn into the Air Force in 1962.
4
In World War I, World War II, and Korea — even though some fighters carried bombs — the fighter’s primary weapon was its gun, and most fighter actions were gunnery actions: air-to-air and strafe of ground targets. Hence, when a young pilot went to school to learn how to be a fighter pilot, he went to gunnery school. There he would also learn to drop bombs, even nuclear bombs, and shoot missiles.
5
The mechanics had installed one of the pulley reels upside down, so both ailerons moved in the same direction. This made them flaps and not roll controls. And this made the rudder the only roll control the pilot had. His aircraft was going too slow, however, for it to generate the control moment he needed to use the rudder to keep the wings level.
6
An Immelmann is half a loop with a roll on the top. The roll allows you to return to level flight after you’ve reversed your direction. If you want to make the loop smaller, you pull more Gs in the climb, but that means your airspeed at the top is slower.
7
When Horner entered the Air Force, there were about 900,000 people on active duty, of which about 130,000 were officers, and about 70 percent of those were rated. Today there are about 350,000 in the Air Force, with about 70,000 officers, of whom about 20 percent are rated.
8
FACs work on the ground with Army units as liaison with close air support fighter-bombers.
9
The NG stands for “new guys.”
10
If MiGs got into a bomber fight, the bombers would jettison their bombs and fight them. Even if the MiGs didn’t shoot anyone down, the bombers still jettisoned the bombs… which meant they were ineffective. In order to counter this air-to-air fighter threat, the practice was to dedicate a few fighters to patrolling the area, so for insurance a few fighters were designated MiG CAP (Combat Air Patrol).
11
That is, he set himself up with relation to the flight leader’s plane so that the leader’s wingtip light was on the star painted on the side of his jet. This means Horner was flying in the right position fore and aft and up and down. Then all you had to do to make sure the flight stayed in close formation was to hold this position and keep the same distance out, usually so his wings didn’t overlap.
12
Fortunately, Tastett bailed out and lived, then spent years in the Hanoi Hilton.
13
Roger Myhrum, we should mention, is now retired. After the war, he went on to fly with the F-5 squadron at Williams AFB training Saudis and Iranians, but after that Horner lost track of him.
14
For combat awards, the Air Medal stands below the DFC, but above the Air Force Commendation Medal, which is usually given for excellence in job performance to company-grade officers. Though it isn’t really a major award, at the time the Air Medal was highly respected. Since the last war was Korea, by 1965 very few medals had been handed out since the early 1950s.
15
