AIR FORCE NOW

[Music] It is with great personal pleasure that I extend heartiest congratulations to you on your selection to compete in William Tel. You represent the finest of two excellent teams, the United States Air Force and the Canadian Armed Forces who will be required to demonstrate skills developed through long hours of dedicated training. As you begin your competition, my very best wishes for success go to each of you. Signed, General John D. Ryan, Chief of Staff, United States Air Force. [Music] to come. Welcome aboard. Glad to be here. How's the flight? Just fine. Great. How you doing? These are all good people down here. all good pilots and being one of them why is a matter of personal pride and to be able to do better than any one of them of course uh really put a man on top of the world. This is what we're all trying to prove which fighter power is the best fighter power and we think we have a very good chance of winning. There is no reason why we why we won't win it. Yes, I I think we're going to win the thing. The other people are good but we're better unless lady luck goes against us. It's an overwin. I think we're going to win it. We are going to win. Basic organization of the Williamt Tell Me is uh three categories. The 101, the 102, and the 106 categories. The only way to score well in Williamtell is a is a combined team effort. Uh these teams are dispersed because the GCI controllers are located in a radar site. The pilots are at 40,000 ft over the range. And of course, the weapons, loading, and maintenance crews are here on the ramp. When the competition is going on, it's uh pretty hard to think about anything but what you're doing. You're working hard. You're working fast. Even all the people that were around, uh I couldn't see them. They they were just blanked out. We check everything over beforehand. And we're sure when we load that thing on there, we're sure that we've done everything we can as loaders to ensure that that missile takes off and aims right at the target. We know what everybody's doing at what time. And uh we know how they're going to do it. We know what'll help them if we do things certain ways. There's definitely a team feeling. There is no doubt that it's a sporting event. It's a it's king-size hunting expedition. Yes. Uh I think that it was a natural for wide world sports. Bill, how would you compare the uh competitors in this event with uh say the traditional athlete? George, I'd like to have four of you interceptor fighter pilots in the same backfield. I think we'd really have some. I mean, if you took a couple of your weapons loading uh personnel, made tackles out of them, you'd really have a football team. But that would really be the closest coral area. I think I think too I think you fellows who fly have these instantaneous reflexes that that have to be right. After all, at speeds of 1500 mph, there isn't any margin for error. It has to be like that and it has to be right. We want to be cranked up by about one five path. We'll crank a little early to get some of the moisture out. Plan on getting that beauty aired out good and then we'll make our takeoff time to pick up the extra points and put the dot in the hole. Well, I'll see you when you get out. [Music] Tango tell 01 you have one target varying 29. 9 0 15 miles tracking 15 0 angles 3 five front attack 01 roger 0 one clear hot okay tango hotel 01 clear hot 01 arm hot roger target now 12:00 at 12 miles 12:00 12 contact stop canceling target now 12:00 15 miles make that 11 Roger [Applause] contact fire [Music] 01 m3. Okay, we'll move on now to the category 3 competition, the F106. The highest scoring team is the 71st Fighter Interceptor Squadron, Malston Air Force Base, Montana. Units which appear to have the highest state of readiness and put them in a competitive atmosphere to try to bring out the best. And the fact that we do have a capability to intercept and if necessary destroy an enemy, I think is uh something that we're all entitled to know. After all, we're paying a lot of money for it. You were trying to bring out uh how he felt and what more or less what you could do. Talk, listen, tell it now. at Fairchild Air Force Base. Rap sessions with a younger generation aim at a better understanding. Whereas the good the good people are getting out and and the uh not too sharp ones are staying in. They're the ones that seem to make a career. Well, I mean, okay. In general, not everyone. I get your message. Okay. I've seen a lot of sharp people in the Air Force, too. anybody that uh has any kind of ambition at all is getting out of the Air Force because they don't demand anything of you. This whole ideal that, you know, you're you're a good, you know, patriot if you salute the flag and do all the, you know, the nice little things that you're supposed to do, the outward signs, but generally, you know, you're you're not being, you know, in the sense you're just doing the, you know, you're playing a role in a sense. You're just doing what's expected of you. And you do you serious if you seriously believe it then people don't really have to have this outward show someday let's accept the fact that you probably will get married the chances are pretty great that you'll get married uh you'll have children or your own now how are you going to feel when you put the the shoe on the other foot our topic tonight is are blacks at Dongmong oversensitive why are they oversensitive is because they no longer or want to be considered that black boy out there, that black airman over there. I mean, they want to be the man. Black rings and black necklaces and wristbands. Uh it seems to me that we don't all agree on what they mean. You think any base commander would want to have a ride starting on his base because of uh wristbands or necklaces or headbands? Colonel, what's his name? Flyer didn't. Yes, sir. I don't think he's wearing black man, but he made lieutenant colonel now and he's somebody. He's a big black and everything. No, no doubt about it. Colonel Fista got where he did through education and and and not by wearing a black armband. And they're not only just afraid of the black man, they're afraid of the Indian, too, because they know that he's getting tired. He's becoming educated. His intelligence is going up and his tolerance is going down also. And reluctantly around the world, open forums like this also make use of the rap session technique. Talk, listen, say it like it is. Tell it now. [Music] 0 degrees at 1 Z 4.9 time 42 correction time 43 over 33 standby. [Music] The runway RCR [Music] 17 position and hold [Music] acknowledge position hold tax position and hold acknowledge dark position [Music] [Applause] [Music] Make it one clear for [Music] takeoff. Heat. Heat. [Music] Captain Steve Richie has become the first Air Force ace of the Southeast Asian conflict by downing his fifth MiG21. Captain Richie's commander, Colonel Scott G. Smith of the 432nd Tactical Fighter Reconnaissance Wing commented that to shoot down a MiG 21 is quite a difficult feat. To bring down five of the Blue Bandits is an unparalleled achievement. Far away. Would you like to describe how you got the fifth MIG? Well, this was a a pretty long and involved engagement. Uh we started out about uh 80 miles away from the bandits and Chuck picked them up picked them up a good ways out on the radar. From then on, uh it was a problem of getting them in sight. They were quite a bit higher than we were and Chuck followed them right down the radar and I be began to make a a stern conversion, what do we call it, when they got in close. Uh picked them up high at 11:00 uh on almost a head-on pass and from there maneuvered into 6:00 and fired a few missiles and was lucky enough to get a kill. When did the reaction sink in that you got the fifth? Well, when when I saw the fireball, I I knew it was the fifth. I was pretty excited at that time. Of course, the job wasn't over then. We were still in a pretty hostile area and I knew there was another MIG uh behind us and uh so we had to get uh we had to get the rest of the the force home and of course our four airplanes and and again there was a possibility of another MIG engagement and some pretty heavy defense on the way out and fuel's always a consideration. So, there was a lot to do from that point on. We didn't get real excited about it until we got out of the area. How good does it feel? Great. Really great. And uh, of course, the thing I'd like to emphasize here is uh this is probably the greatest team effort of any job that I know of. [Music] Heat. Hey, Heat. [Music] Clear [Music] one. Let's go get another [Music] bullseye. One of the hot spots in the United States is the Hila Bend Gunnery Range in Arizona. Larger than the state of Delaware, it provides a tactical training area for fighter bomber pilots. Here, pilots utilize several types of ranges to develop and perfect their combat skills with the complete weapon [Music] system. Here in the 550th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, we take pilots and navigators from either undergraduate training or other commands and in the course of a six-month training program, give them the basic skills necessary to make them a combat ready air crew member in the F4 aircraft. In the case of Lieutenant Granninger, we have taken a pilot from undergraduate pilot training and added to his basic skills that he learned while in pilot training. In the initial phases of the training here, you learn to fly the airplane. You learn to handle the airplane as it should be flown. And once you get to the ground attack and the ground attack tactical phase, flying doesn't become second rate, but it almost has to become second nature. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] I think the ground attack tactical and the ground attack phase are very demanding on a student pilot and that he's put in a new dimension that he has never seen before. For instance, in the 45° dive bomb pattern, the first time I ever flew it, it was a very unique experience in that you come down the chute so rapidly, you have to pull off four G's in 2 seconds, make a 180° turn. In addition, there are switches to be set, mill settings to be changed, and by this time, it's almost time to roll down the shoot again. It comes very fast. Roger, Connie, Range 3 is cold at the present time. You're cleared in 23 hits, one ceasefire, 20,000. Modern electronic equipment in the Hila Bend range towers score the student pilot's hits instantaneously, enabling the range officer to relay the results to the pilot before his next pass. 22 hits to cease fire 2200. I had 52 ms in there. Okay, take it back to 48. [Music] 18 hits three ceasefire 2300. I'm really going to hose one off this time. Fizz in target one two high 90 knots 400 knots speed set angles 15 390 knots 12° 400 ready fire 22 hits two cease fire 2200 I think the F4 RTU training program in all aspects has prepared me excellently for a combat situation. But the most important thing that no training program can give me is actual experience in a combat situation. [Music] It's 3:00 a.m. at Hoffen, Iceland, and the personnel of the 667th aircraft control and warning system are at this moment tracking a Russian bomber. The 667th motto is where the action is. My name is Airman Wy. Some of my jobs that I do as a ACNW operator is plotting behind the big board we have here. I have an IP at 285 or 130. We plot all the tracks that uh radar picks up so we'll know where they are at what times and so we can identify them to be friendly or hostile tracks. All right, second move on that IP. It's at a 285 or 119. [Music] All right, that IP is slow gen 10 and is at a 282 for 107 24 hours a day. We're always uh watching the skies. The scopes never go down and uh we have men on on duty all the time. Okay, track 619. Is it at 24 fire for 90? Sometimes I think about the job I'm doing and I I feel sort of important to myself because uh I know we are one of the early warning systems for the United States and if the Russians did pick this way to come that we that could warn the United States that a enemy is threatening our homeland. 1 Z target bearing 30 [Music] 03 1 Z expedite fourth turn for target. Target now 8 miles from bomb release line 1 Z target now bearing 290 2 miles in [Music] range. Roger one zero Judy. we get the word we have zombies coming in and you wonder I wonder every time, you know, are they coming this time or, you know, are they just playing with us again, we're always on the lookout for them in case one day it's not a game. In my spare time, I like to go down to the beach and uh they have a lot of seals out there. Usually they're off on a big island off the coast a little bit, but lots of times you catch them in feeding on small fish and stuff. They're really fun to watch. They're a real curious animal. like you can uh uh make noises and stuff and they try to come closer to see what you are. They're just as interested in you as you are in [Music] them. We also have a lot of other activities like bowling. I really enjoy bowling. Uh it's one of my favorite sports. So, I'm not very good at it, but I like to I like to bowl. [Music] I heard some guys talking. I believe it was Doc Wayne said, uh, even though we're isolated here, uh, I've been able to make the time pass by getting out and trying to explore the surrounding area. We have glaciers, glacial lakes, a fishing lake which many of the people make use of and an awful lot of very interesting terrain on which to either hike, climb, rock hunt. We've got quite a variety of rocks to be found up here and also quite an abundance of waterfalls. As a commander of the 667th ACNW squadron at Hoffen, Iceland, I have a great responsibility as far as the detection and tracking of Russian aircraft. We're on the end of a chain of American radar stations that runs from Alaska to the eastern coast of Iceland. The surveillance mission is one at which we must always be ready. [Music] Hey Jim, it's Fat Albert. The mechanic's not referring to someone else on the flight line. Fat Albert is the name used by a lot of flight line people when referring to the C5. Having the largest load capacity of anything flying, the name really fits. With only one refueling stop, Bat Albert can transport more than a 60 ton load from Travis Air Force Base to Saigon, a distance of 7,600 m. Operating cost of the C5 in cents per ton mile is considerably less than the most efficient Air Force airl. The C5 can deliver virtually anywhere in the world, completely equipped combat units, support forces, and all types of supplies, including large and heavy weapons never before [Music] airlifted. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] During my duty with sack, I have been involved with both the nuclear and conventional readiness mission. I'm Lieutenant Billy Davis Jr., 22nd Bomb Wing, March Air Force Base, California. We've had to deploy to sea on short notice to beef up our B-52 force. For many of us, it's meant more separation from our families and a few more sleepless nights. But the mission is to remain ready, and this demands just a little bit more of each one of us to get the job done. [Music] Okay. All right. [Music] Sophisticated aircraft. The best trained pilots and crews and dedicated support technicians combined to fulfill the Air Force mission of remaining ready for any threat to the nation. The ability to remain ready will continue to depend on the standards of excellence that make the United States Air Force second to none.