Yes....and then you were worth your weight in gold...

The Vietnam saw the rise to prominence of ECM's....and therefore the Pilot was no longer the omnipotent entity..

"State your height and position"

"I'm six feet tall and sitting in the front of the plane"...

[My all-time fave aircraft is a Thud, BTW]...

You might want to check one of my walls I have up, here...couple a Thuds....originally a water-colour I did about 30 years ago, since 'modded' in PSP...
One reason I have for one day getting to the US is to catch up with a Thud in the flesh...

I got out of USAF in '84 and don't recognize the acronym.
Short summary:
Tactical Air Command, Special Operations (Spectres) 15 months
Strategic Air Command (B-52s) 10 years
Detachment of HQ SAC (Simulator s/w developer) 2 years

Not very exciting I'm afraid!

I'm sorry yeah you were it wasn't a seperate command yet. Now its Air Force Special Operations Command. You were classified as an air commando. Does that ring a bell? Hulburt Field is headquarters for the spectres now as part of AFSOC. The reason I was asking is I'm part of air force spec ops. I've got a dx zoomer out the and a logon screen with the new air force logo That you may like to have. Thank you for serving in the greatest air force in the world. Yeah cheesy but sincere.

Thank you Zachary, that is indeed another great wall! I have lots of wallpapers I made from gunship photos, a few from B-52s (I pretty much hated the awful beasts), but nothing really good of the 105's. Until today! We did all of our gunship predeployment training at good ol' Hurlburt Field, but weren't considered Air Commandos back then. The four F-4 fighter squadrons at Ubon hated us passionately. (The gunships would rack up more Battle Damage Assessment every month than all four F-4 squadrons combined, and we were the only people on the flightline allowed to wear black baseball caps ). Spec Ops has a great tradition, and I wish you the best of everything as you carry the flag for us now.

Jafo,
There's a small air museum at the business airport in Addison, Tx. (Dallas suburb). The owners acquired a 105 about 4 yrs ago and restored (sans engine). That is one big airplane yet ver sleek and beautiful. Way ahead of its time.

Hi Doreen! Thanks MichaelO - that's only a few hours from me, and I'm going to take a look next time I head north. The 105 really is bigger than it looks in pictures. I got one ride in a Thud. The takeoff roll was rather lengthy, and when the afterburner kicked in it seemed to go from no-burner to full-burner in one big jolting bang. The pilot had mentioned that before takeoff so I wasn't too surprised. The 105 handled beatifully at normal speeds, but mushed somewhat pulling out of steep dives. This one had a modified center of gravity ( they were working on the dive pullout behavior), and we did steep dives/pullouts for the first 30 minutes (not fun, I wasn't wearing a G-suit!). The rest of the ride was great fun.

5.25 floppy! I'am not sure if I still have any of those. If I do, I don't have a drive for them.

Zachary, your profile says South Carolina. Which is it. I'am in Ft. Worth. By the way, there are quit a few Texans on this site.

jcg, do you still have your boat? There's a storm comming your way, so they say. I guess you've dried out since the last one.(I hope)

My wife is stationed here in South Carolina at Shaw AFB USAF. However I was born and raised in Texas and I still am apart of the Texas Air National Guard at Ft. Worth at Carswell. I travel back and forth once a month. Here in South Carolina I still proudly fly my Texas flag in the front yard.

Negative on the XB70. We have a radically modified Gulfstream II jet with Space Shuttle Controls and flight instruments in the left half of the cockpit. All of the flight controls and the engine throttles are controlled by computers onboard, and the student shuttle pilot is in effect playing a video game while the computers fly the plane. The computers make the Gulfsteam do exactly what the Shuttle would do with the given control inputs. The Shuttle is a 200,000 lb glider with nasty handling characteristics, and a shuttle pilot will often fly several hundred penetrations and landings in our plane before he/she gets to land the real thing. Mission Control, and our shop are the only ones outside the astronaut office who get crew mission patches for each mission. Fun job most of the time.

The museum at Wright-Patt really is a "must see".