Posted on 09/10/2004 12:11:25 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Edited on 09/11/2004 7:31:29 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON (AP) - George W. Bush began flying a two-seat training jet more frequently and twice required multiple attempts to land a one-seat fighter in the weeks just before he quit flying for the Texas Air National Guard in 1972, his pilot logs show. The logs show Bush flew nine times in T-33 trainers in February and March 1972, including eight times in one week and four of those only as a co-pilot. Bush, then a first lieutenant, flew in T-33s only twice in the previous six months and three times in the year ending July 31, 1971.
The records also show Bush required two passes to land an F-102A fighter on March 12 and April 10, 1972. His last flight as an Air National Guard pilot was on April 16.
Meanwhile, questions were raised Thursday about the authenticity of newly unearthed memos purporting to have been written by one of Bush's commanders in 1972 and 1973. The memos, which were publicized by CBS News on its "60 Minutes" program, say Bush ignored a direct order from a superior officer and lost his status as a Guard pilot because he failed to meet military performance standards and undergo a required physical exam.
The network defended the memos, saying its experts who examined the memos concluded they were authentic documents produced by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.
But Killian's son, one of Killian's fellow officers and an independent document examiner questioned the memos Gary Killian, who served in the Guard with his father and retired as a captain in 1991, said he doubted his father would have written an unsigned memo which said there was pressure to "sugar coat" Bush's performance review.
"It just wouldn't happen," he said. "No officer in his right mind would write a memo like that."
The personnel chief in Killian's unit at the time also said he believes the documents are fake.
"They looked to me like forgeries," said Rufus Martin. "I don't think Killian would do that, and I knew him for 17 years." Killian died in 1984.
Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software. Lines, a document expert and fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, pointed to a superscript - a smaller, raised "th" in "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron" - as evidence indicating forgery.
Microsoft Word automatically inserts superscripts in the same style as the two on the memos obtained by CBS, she said.
"I'm virtually certain these were computer generated," Lines said after reviewing copies of the documents at her office in Paradise Valley, Ariz. She produced a nearly identical document using her computer's Microsoft Word software.
The Defense Department released Bush's pilot logs this week under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press. The logs do not explain why Bush was flying T-33s or why he twice needed multiple approaches to make landings.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Thursday said he had no information on the reasons behind the multiple-approach landings or the surge in training-jet flights.
"He did his training and was honorably discharged," Duffy said.
Former Air National Guard officials contacted by the AP said there could be reasons for the trainer flights and multiple-approach landings which have nothing to do with Bush's pilot skills.
Bush could have flown T-33s so many times because his unit did not have enough F-102A jets available that week, for example, said retired Maj. Gen. Don Shepperd a former head of the Air National Guard. Another former Air National Guard chief, retired Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver, said he saw nothing unusual about Bush making more than one landing attempt.
"It doesn't mean anything to have multiple approaches," Weaver said.
Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service became a focus of Democratic criticism this week amid a flurry of new reports about his activities. Democrats say Bush shirked his National Guard duties, a claim Bush denies.
Republican critics have accused Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, of fabricating the incidents which led to his five medals.
Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, serving more than a year on active Air Force duty while being trained to fly F-102A jets. He was honorably discharged from the Guard in October 1973 and left the Air Force Reserves in May 1974.
The first four months of 1972 are at the beginning of a controversial period in Bush's Guard service. After taking his last flight in April 1972, Bush went for six months without showing up for any training drills. In September 1972 he received permission to transfer to an Alabama Guard unit so he could work on a political campaign there.
That May, Bush also skipped a required yearly medical examination. In response, his commanders grounded Bush on Aug. 1, 1972.
Bush's pilot logs showed regular training in the F-102A until Feb. 9, 1972, when he flew 1.4 hours as the pilot of a T-33. After seven more flights in the F-102A, Bush made eight more T-33 flights between March 9 and March 15, including the four as co-pilot.
He flew an F-102A on March 12 and eight more times in April 1972.
AP-ES-09-10-04 0229EDT
Because Bush's unit was transitioned to a training unit in 1970!
The unit George Bush flew for was taken off active fighter-interceptor duty in 1970 and was transitioned to act as a training unit for the ANG.
Bush told C-Span some time ago that the last jet he flew was a T-38 Talon, not the T-33.
The F-102A was already obsolete at that time, in fact, was obsolete years before 1970! George Bush's unit had F-101s coming in to replace the F-102s. Later, the unit also flew F-105s.
Why would George Bush be flying F-102s if it was going to get yanked soon?
Since George Bush's unit was now a training squadron, it makes perfect since why he was flying T-33s (or T-38s). That is the aircraft that the new pilots will train in, and those who would help train wopuld have to keep their proficiency up in that aircraft.
The key points that the main stream media continue to avoid (on purpose) is that the F-102 was obsolete and the trainers (T-33s and T-38s) would have been utilized more and more since, after all, the unit had become a taining squadron.
Done!
Shall read this while I get over crying over Sept. 11 - for the umpteenth time... (sorry, I live in Australia now, and we get Sept 11 on OUR Sept 11, and again on our Sept 12, because of the time difference...)
I saw a comic tonight that said "Stopping smoking is easier than beginning flossing."
We really appreciate the Aussie "brotherhood".
So far away. Yet so "close" to one another!
What's your take on the firing of the two NWA pilots who landed at the AFB outside Rapid City?
Has it happened before in your knowledge?
BTTT!!!!!!
I think they probably deserved to be fired. They were flying under part 121 (Airline Transportation) of the FARs (Federal Aviation Regulations), which require them to make the approach using the ILS System. Had they tuned the proper frequency and identified the station, and flown the ILS, they could not have landed at the wrong airport.
When the landing occured the local news said it was about the third time it had happened.
<< Neither was John McCain! >>
The essential difference being that the admirable McCain WAS featherbedded through Naval Aviator training although everyday and in every way demonstrating a lack of talent and ability not matched until Lt jg Holtgreen came down the pike -- with similarly disastrous consequnces when the rubber eventually hit the road!
The 'RATS' psychopathological projection and attempted impugning of President Bush's record, in fact, reads as if copied from Holtgreen's records.
Or FRom McCain's!
Best ones -- B A
Cheers.
KaJac (of a Royal Australian Air Force family, in an RAAF town, hearing F-111s overhead as we speak).
<< A pilot in a trainer is occasionally told to do a "go-around" as a maneuver to avoid (or to practice avoiding) a conflict on the runway. It makes the pilot go through some mental gymnastics to get out of the routine landing mode and deal with a whole new set of circumstances. I do that to five-thousand hour pilots during flight reviews. >>
If, with now more than thirty-three and a half thousand hours TT, I could have a Hundred Bucks for every time I've either elected to and/or been directed to "go 'round" I'd be off the Hawaii for the next month.
[Except -- having seen way too many of the McCain and Holtgreen-like pilot-costumed cardboard cutouts hired these days to give the paying public the impression the pilots' seats are being used by other than other passengers [Unless related to Air France Concorde ops -- or SQ's Boeings -- the accident reports make no such errors] -- I hate to fly as a pasenger!]
Best ones -- B A
The best living singer (Farnham) and the two greatest living guitarists (Emmanuel/Marvin) live down under.
You have more than 'roos down there.
This whole situation is too funny.
Don't I know it! The screen-name is an injoke with a Freeper who has passed on... (see my profile)
I read. Bless ya!
As an Air Force Air Traffic Controller for 20 years this is an area I know a lot about.
Unlike civil aviation (specifically the airlines) the military practices all types of landing manuevers resulting in low approaches and touch and go landings. Quite often a go around will be directed by ATC and just as often it will be pilot initiated.
During the approach phase of entering the terminal environment the pilot will request the type landing if other than a full stop. Sequencing and seperation by ATC is based on the (known) type landing ie LA, T&G or FS. If for any reason: lack of anticipated seperation between arrivals, slow departure, clear runway (when required), wake turbulence, another aircraft with a Declared Emergency and any number of other variables makes a landing unsafe..."Go Around"!
From an ATC viewpoint a pilot initiated go around is interesting in that it suddenly places a new, and unexpected, player in the unfolding dynamic that comprises the terminal environment. One other thing I forgot to mention...many aircraft will take off and enter the local pattern and make multiple LAs and T&Gs for training or proficiency purposes.
The MSM and the dim libs seem to always make much ado about nothing when it comes to trying to find fault with Dubya. Maybe they should try to correct their vision and thinking about why he is so obviously popular with most of the people in this country.
God bless the 'Strines. We sold them that beastly thing, and they're still standing firm with us. That's loyalty above and beyond the call.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
They should have asked Campenni, but earlier in the war (about 1965) they actually tried it. They discovered that it didn't work worth a rat's rump, which is like discovering that a hammer makes a lousy screwdriver or vice versa.
Strange as it may seem, the F-102A actually did fly some close-support missions over the South, even though the aircraft was totally unsuited for this role. These operations started in 1965 at Tan Son Nhut using the 405 FW alert detachment. Operating under the code-name "Project Stovepipe", they used their heat sinking Falcon missiles to lock onto heat sources over the Ho Chi Minh trail at night, often Viet Cong campfires. This was more of a harassment tactic than it was serious assault. They would even fire their radar-guided missiles if their radars managed to lock onto something. The pilots were never sure if they actually hit anything, but they would sometimes observe secondary explosions.The F-102s soon switched to a day role, firing the 12 unguided FFAR rockets from the missile bays, using the optical sight. 618 day sorties were flown, the last one being flown at the end of 1965. One F-102A was downed by ground fire during one of these rocket attacks.
There were some later missions flown, especially in Mayday emergencies when the 102's were the fastest response available in the South (2 1/2 minutes over the fence, far faster than the F-4).
(Source: Joe Baugher's authoritative history of the F-102A).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I interviewed for it, but Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf and some clown from the Boston Globe beat me on experience.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
PS Future home of Dan Rather: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/C30/
Air defense weapons systems - and their operators, including GW - bump.
I happen to think they kick ass, and I have the results of a number of biannual bilateral military "exercises" to prove it.
In fact, I have it from a highly-placed USAF source that they regret selling off all those F-111's... with the avionics upgrades they have had in recent years, they are still a keen mean fighting machine, and one I am proud to salute each time one comes within visual range.
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