Bush flew F-102A fighters in his National Guard wing.
Here's a picture of a couple of them flying back before the world turned color in the early 1960s:
First built in 1952, the Convair F-102 series was a hopelessly outdated jet some twenty years later when Nixon was already returning troops to the US under 'Vietnamization'. There was simply no chance Bush's Air Guard unit would have ever been activated.
Bush's unit was flying thoroughly obsolete and barely-supersonic interceptor jets, characteristics which really don't amount to much of an 'interceptor' at all.
"There was simply no chance Bush's Air Guard unit would have ever been activated."
I've read this a lot but, IIRC, there was a squadron of F-102A's that was based at DaNang in 1966(?). It seems as if it would have been (remotely) possible that an ANG unit flying 102's could have been activated and sent to Vietnam.
A minor date quibble -"The F-102 made its initial flight on Oct. 24, 1953 and became operational with the Air Defense Command in 1956."
USAF Museum
"First built in 1952, the Convair F-102 series was a hopelessly outdated jet some twenty years later when Nixon was already returning troops to the US under 'Vietnamization'. There was simply no chance Bush's Air Guard unit would have ever been activated.
Bush's unit was flying thoroughly obsolete and barely-supersonic interceptor jets, characteristics which really don't amount to much of an 'interceptor' at all."
147th Fighter Interceptor Group (FIG) History
On May 16, 1958 the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group (FIG), with its five new squadrons, was formed to support the 111 Fighter Interceptor Squadron. In August 1960 the unit was one of the first to transition to the F-102A all-weather fighter-interceptor and began a 24-hour runway alert commitment as part of the North American air defense network.
The 147th earned its first Air Force Outstanding Unit Award in 1966 when it was proclaimed, "The most combat ready of all Air Guard units."
From 1968 through 1970, pilots from the 147th participated in "Palace Alert" and served in Southeast Asia during the height of the Vietnam War.
With the continued draw-down of air defense units in the United States, the 147th FIG came off runway alert on Jan. 1, 1970 to start a new mission: training all F-102 pilots in the United States for the Air National Guard.
http://www.seanet.com/~johnco/bush102.htmSomehow, Bush avoiding Vietnam to stay out of danger and then climbing into the cockpit of the 102 never made sense to me.
Being a fighter pilot -- for that matter, simply taking off in a single-engine jet fighter of the Century series, such as an F-102, or any of the military's other marvelous bricks with fins on them -- presented a man, on a perfectly sunny day, with more ways to get himself killed than his wife and children could imagine in their wildest fears. -- Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff.
