The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer swing and play to the confined powers. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

The Journey

As a newly minted Naval Aviator, I attended a few weeks of Maintenance Management School in Memphis. Completing that short course, I then spent a few weeks on leave at home with my family in Iowa, before finally embarking on my journey to NAS Miramar in San Diego, and my post graduate F-4 training.

It was a very long drive (1900 miles) from my Iowa farm home to San Diego, California. I made it an even longer drive (2600 miles) by driving by way of Houston (while visiting a friend there, my car was burgled, and I lost all my personal belongings) and through San Antonio (to reclaim some property loaned to another friend) before finally setting course for San Diego.

The highlight of this 2,600+ mile drive was topping a long grade through a rock-cut along Interstate-8 in Arizona, and having two F-4's blow by suddenly - no more than a hundred feet above me – and at amazing, blazing speed in the opposite direction. They might have been Navy or Air Force F-4's . . . it made little difference. I knew I was getting ever closer to being one of "them" with each passing mile.

As I finally descended from the last mountain range into the glowing lights of San Diego, I began to realize how incredibly fortunate I was, and how unlikely my life's journey to date had been.

Another Tragedy

Once again, as had happened in each of my four previous duty stations, there was another tragic incident the week of my check-in to VF-121, the F-4 training squadron known as the 'RAG'. An F-8 had lost its engine on approach to NAS Miramar. Although the pilot ejected safely, the stricken craft slammed into a hangar, killing and injuring quite a number of navy maintenance personnel who had been working in the hangar.

The Delay

Once established at my new duty station, I learned there was a large backlog of students going through F-4 training. Training that normally would take six months, now stretched out to over a year. So after a week of difficult and unpleasant SERE training , and a few weeks of refresher instrument training with VF-126 in the TA-4J, I ended up in a 6-month pool, awaiting F-4 training. Although I was eager to commence F-4 training, I can think of no better place to be than San Diego in the spring, and living once again in an oceanfront beach house, to thoroughly enjoy my sabbatical.

Eventually, my F-4 training would begin in earnest. Those were heady times at VF-121. Naval Air was then in a major process of totally revamping F-4 fighter tactics, after some earlier, disappointing experiences in Vietnam. The superb, veteran fighter pilots who were then establishing the Navy Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun) from scratch were my instructors. Veteran Israeli and British fighter pilots joined us in sharing their expertise, and in learning the new and developing tactics. For a fighter pilot, these were exciting times.

Of my year at VF-121, two more things stand out: EW training, and Night Carrier qualification flights.

EW Training

Throughout my training, the thought of actual combat was always remote - well "beyond the horizon." Yes, we did practice air-to-air, and air-to-ground 'combat' tactics, daily. But we did so for the enjoyment, the learning, and for the grade given for that training flight. It was never a life-threatening, exigent situation. Moreover, our simulated combat training was mostly "offensive" and rarely "defensive" training. It was all, great fun. But our attitudes all changed, late in our training, when the EW (Electronic Warfare) Officer came into class to give his "secret" lecture.

Our colorful EW Officer walked into class with his infamous, "suitcase" EW trainer. It was a large, unfolding box that held all the classified electronic instruments that were too secret to be in our "training" F-4's. We had never seen them. These instruments could tell a pilot if the enemy had him on radar, had him locked-up, were going to fire at him and with what weapon and from which direction, and if they did indeed fire... The EW's Officer's suitcase trainer showed us the many simulated, yet scary red warning lights and directional strobes of people shooting at us. It also included the loud aural warning tones of enemy missiles racing toward you. It received everyone's attention. Our perspectives all changed. We knew, from that time forward of the immensely serious business and challenges that lie ahead.

F-4 Night CQ

I have often thought that, knowing what I know today, I might never have night-qualified in the F-4 aboard an aircraft carrier. I did, of course, and am thankful for that. But had I known what I was doing - the difficulty and the risks involved at the time - I might not have.

Though always challenging, landing an F-4 - or any Navy aircraft for that matter - during the day and in good weather, can and should be fun.

However, landing an F-4 at night on a darkened carrier - especially in those earlier days of very few ship's lights, no HUD (Head's Up Display), no precision guidance "needles", and little guidance other than a spastic RMI needle, an LSO, and the visual "ball" - can sometimes (often? always?) be terrifying, be it your first or even your 300th night trap.

The Tailhook Association has two excellent movies of carrier landings - one day, and one night. Comparing the two is very enlightening.

The prospect of this CQ (carrier qualification) would become especially and extremely challenging for me. It would not be conveniently close-by, off the coast of my California home, but instead off the distant East Coast in the Atlantic. Then suddenly, my "field-carrier-landing-practice" (FCLP) training had to be unexpectedly cut short so I could attend the funeral of my father in Iowa. Then later, I had to attend to a number of family matters. Finally, although short on CQ training, and without ever returning to NAS Miramar following the funeral, by my own choice (and as my father would have wanted it), I went straight to NAS Oceana, VA for the challenging CQ on the USS Forrestal, CVA-59.

Despite the difficult circumstances, to my surprise, I did quite well. But my friend beat me out for the top landing grades. Once again, I was fortunate. His top landing grade sent him immediately to the Gulf of Tonkin where he joined at sea, a returning squadron. My grade sent me to a squadron getting ready to deploy - VF-151.

In surfing terms, that meant I was in the perfect spot to catch the perfect wave - to join a squadron early in their cyclic wave of shore duty, work-ups, and deployment to Southeast Asia, at the most opportune time.