I graduated from Navigator School in early November 1974. I wasn’t a great student, but I wasn’t at the bottom of the class either. I was the epitome of the word average. As a result, I got an aircraft that was neither spectacular nor dreaded. A C-130 to Dyess and then on to Combat Talon (MC-130E) in the Pacific. One day the dudes from MPC showed up and suggested I put down Nav School as an Instructor, but I probably wouldn’t get it since Talon Navs were in short supply. THEY LIED!
So, in July 1980, my family and I found ourselves back in the Sacramento Valley where we would spend the next four years. One of the first things I noticed is how many of my old friends from both Dyess and Kadena were also there. After doing all the ATC instructor training and qualifying in the T-43 they decided I was best qualified to teach “Nav Procedures” or as I referred to it “Teaching people to add sideways.” I also got to play with a 6-ft tall MB-4 computer as I taught history majors how a slide rule worked.
I was aided in this endeavor by an advanced simulator that consisted of a Video Cassette Player that projected rudimentary instruments onto simple black and white monitors in about 20 individual stations that were also equipped with the essential chair, table, and sextant all navigators of the day needed to feel empowered to actually navigate (or in our case) document where the videotape said they were.
As a qualified IN (Instructor Nav) I also taught in-flight and the T-45 sim on all the other segments of the curriculum which included Basic Nav (Radar and Nav Aid), Day and Night Celestial, Low Level, and occasionally Advanced Nav (for those going to heavies). I was also qualified as a Naval Flight Officer instructor to help the Navy students. I had a pretty varied (as was the standard of the day) weekly schedule that kept things interesting and not too demanding. What follows are snippets of my four years at Mather that remain from my time nearly 40-years ago.
My first thought on returning to Mather and seeing the beautiful Sierra-Nevada Mountains to the west was this would be a perfect base for Special Operations. We could do the before low-level checks as we passed Folsom and hit some spectacular low-level routes as we wound our way into Reno. But those thoughts gave way to the routine of taking off in a jet that climbed to FL 300 in almost no time at all. Watching, as students struggled to keep up with all the new senses and tasks that lay before them, and seeing the light bulbs of awareness come on for so many as they discovered they could do something none of them had really envisioned before they arrived at this little jewel of a base.
Not Everyone Sees the Big Picture
Believe it or not, at least when I was there, there was no fixed or expected attrition rate. Rumors always floated around about it, but as an instructor and flight commander, I was never told that a certain number needed to pass or to fail. There was a time, with a certain Wing Commander when it was damn near impossible to wash someone out, but I think that came more from the Commander’s personal experience than from any directive down. Rumor had it he had met a flight evaluation board as a student and was allowed to continue and since he was now a successful O-6 (with a shot at O-7) clearly if he could make it others could as well.
I had a student in NP that had been through that class three times before he reached me. I was his fourth NP instructor. Needless to say, he had some issues. He had met two faculty boards already and the Wg/CC had reinstated him despite the board’s recommendation. He was brilliant in class since he’d already seen the same material so many times. Each of his practice missions in the NPL was excellent. His log keeping was exemplary as you would expect from someone who had seen the same videotape three previous times. When it came time for the check mission, we were in somewhat of a dilemma. There were only three different tapes and he’d seen each of them once already. We decided to use the first one he had seen since any of the three would be fair to the other members of the class. When it came time for the check it was as if everything he had learned when right out the window. He could not perform when it really mattered and the pressure was on. He was finally allowed to leave the program and continue his Air Force career somewhere else.
Speaking of Facility Boards! The FAC Board was one of the checks and balance tools used by the school to determine whether a student having difficulty should stay or leave. In the event, a student failed a segment the decision to continue rested with the flight commander for the first failure and then escalated with subsequent problems. At some point, a struggling student might be recommended for elimination by the squadron. It was at that point the FAC Board came into the picture. There were normally three members plus a non-voting secretary, who had nothing to do with the student or the squadron recommending elimination. If I recall correctly it was chaired by a field grade officer and had two instructors who were serving as flight commanders or evaluation officers. The Board's job was to review the records of performance and make sure the student had been given a fair shake. In the process, they would convene to interview the student. The student had three choices: they could make a sworn statement under oath, telling their side of the story, they could make an unsworn statement, or they could defer to the board without comment.
As a board member, I always preferred the sworn statement because it allowed us to question the student and see if there was something not captured in the records to explain the problem and lead to a way to perhaps correct and retain him/her. The unsworn statement could not be challenged and stood on its own. Students who chose this route often painted themselves in a bad light as they second-guessed the whys and wherefores of their problems that brought them to this point. What follows is a case in point.
There was a student who had reached his third failure in the BN flight check. His performance had been up and down. Good in the early phases, a small hiccup in the tweet rides, okay in Nav Procedures, but busted the NP check. Okay in BN academics, but had busted the BN check twice. His flight commander had good documentation and we were told he wanted to stay, and would make a sworn statement about what was going on. When the board actually met, he chose to make an unsworn statement that explained he decided he didn’t like Nav School, because “it wasn’t challenging enough” and he had decided his abilities would be better utilized in some other aspect of the Air Force. He thought being a Combat Controller would be a better fit for him. When he said “he hadn’t really put forth any effort here at Mather” he sealed his fate with the board. Having worked for 5 years with Combat Controllers in Airlift and Special Ops I was able to tell the other board members the demands of that career field and if he hadn’t put forth any effort here it was unlikely; he would survive the initial qualification for that career field. At the end of the day, the board recommended elimination from both Nav School and the release from the Air Force. At the end of the day, I don’t know what actually happened, but in this case, the student’s arrogance worked against him and he didn’t return to the program.
Learning not to be a complete asshole.
As I pointed out earlier, I was an okay student but in the course of my flying, I had developed confidence in my ability. I also had a dry and often harsh sense of humor. That sense of humor often worked against me. Students who had met me in the class had a chance to see that humor as I taught from the platform and knew I wasn’t intentionally making fun of any individual, but rather trying to get them to see the humor of the simple mistakes. Students who only saw me on a single flight didn’t see that, and I am afraid I would often come across as a complete jerk. It took me the better part of three years to realize I needed to adapt to the students, they didn’t need to adapt to me.
For those who knew only my "Mr. Hyde's" personality, I am sorry.
There is one particular trip that stands out in my mind. I was I1 on a trip to Randolph (a BN) flight. I had a student who was struggling to keep up with the airplane, we had some VIP pax on board and my attentions were split between keeping us on track, answering questions from the DVs, and helping the student. Unfortunately for that young man, my priorities were as I just listed and his training suffered as I became short and loud with him, putting him under even more pressure than he already felt. I still think back and wish I had been a better instructor with him.
Pilots Make Mistakes Too
One day we took off on Overland Northeast. The weather in the valley, heck! the weather in the entire west sucked that day. Ceilings were low but the tops of the clouds were somewhere about 14,000 feet if I remember correctly. We were monitoring the center when we heard a small aircraft talking about being VFR on top and looking for a vector that could get them below the weather so they could find a place to land.
I listened in as Center talked with them and as they scrambled an HC-130 out of McClellan AFB to join up and try and lead him to safety. You could hear the growing panic in the pilot’s voice, but we soon left the frequency as we moved along our route. A couple of hours later we were back on the freq and the HC-130 had just joined up with him. I assume they were successful in leading him down through the weather to a safe recovery. I watched the news for the next couple of days to see if they had any reports on the crash or the save, but never saw anything. That is usually the way it goes. Unless there is something spectacular to report the AF goes quietly about its work with little fanfare.
Squids and Jarheads
When I was at Mather, we had three semi-different Navigator Schools. The Air Force program and its allied students, the Naval program for Naval Flight Officers going to patrol and airlift squadrons, and the Marine Corps program for enlisted navigators for the USMC KC-130s.
Each program had its own sets of instructors, although several AF personnel would be dual qualified to work with both the AF and the USN personnel. The USMC pretty much kept to itself, and as far as I saw their personnel was every bit as competent as the AF and Navy students. There was, of course, some petty rivalries.
One day one of the Ensigns in the program made some kind of disparaging remark about the Marines who were sharing one of their overwater flights. The USMC CWO instructing the young Marines looked up from the mission planning table and responded back with some kind of friendly rebuke about Navy Squids. What the Navy Lieutenant said next sticks with me to this day. “Chief do you know what a squid is? It’s a higher form of Marine life.” That put an end to the back and forth.
Not All Instructors are Created Equal
As I mentioned earlier, I taught Navigation Procedures or NP. I came to discover this was where they stuck the instructors, they didn’t think could navigate at the higher sub-Mach numbers the mighty T-43A cruised along at. Even though I came from the most sophisticated aircraft ever built by Lockheed (excepting, maybe, the SR-71, U-2, and F-104) they stuck me with all the other C-130 types teaching people to add sideways.
The way the program worked is you would be in academics as a primary instructor when your flight’s class was in that phase. NP was about a three-week course if I remember correctly. At the end of the course, the students were given first a written test and then sent into the NP lab to demonstrate their competence under pressure (pressure being a relative measure). At the end of the class, instructors received two types of reviews. The most important was how well did the students do in the course? The second was the “student suggestions for improvement.” I generally had about a 90% pass rate in my course so that was good. As I noted earlier the suggestions for improvement were mixed. Some liked me, others thought I was a jerk. That slowly improved as I learned not to be a jerk.
When you weren’t needed as the primary instructor you would often be scheduled as a “ratio” to help another instructor cover the students as they practiced.
Our squadron had one instructor who actually did have some problems with a) navigating by himself, and b) communicating his knowledge to his students. His first-time pass rates hovered around 60%. I remember going into his class as a ratio to help as they practiced for the upcoming exam. After one three-hour block, he and I chatted about how the students were doing, and how he was doing as an instructor. The things that stood out for me were how he jumped around the various tasks before the students so they had a hard time grasping the flow of record keeping. That is the feedback I provided him. When I got back to the squadron his flight commander (who was a friend) asked me how the class went. The only feedback I could give him was “He confused the hell out me, and I knew what was supposed to be going on. If a student passed the upcoming test it would be despite the instruction, not because of it.” As I recall he was moved into some other position shortly thereafter.
At the same time, we had some instructors who could take an obscure concept and explain it so clearly, even I could understand it and for some things, that's saying a lot. There was one RF-4 WSO who was at Kadena AB, Japan at the same time I was. He had arrived a year ahead of me and was a low-level instructor. I used to enjoy "ratioing" in his class because I loved low-level navigation, but he was a great speaker and instructor. He went up to Beale AFB once to interview with the SR-71 squadron, he came back and said they didn’t seem that interested and had told him “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” He made Major 3-years below the zone and they called him back.
In the four years, I was at Mather our squadron had at least one Captain every promotion cycle make grade below the zone. Our Commander took care of those who performed.
Competition Among Equals
Within the post-Vietnam Air Force of my day, the performance reviews were changed so Commanders couldn’t say everyone walked on water. There were three (actually more but only folks headed to Leavenworth got less than a three) grades the Commander could give and there were percentages allowed for each grade. I think it was like 15% could get the highest rank, 35% the next, and 50% the last.
Within the C-130 world of Military Airlift Command, most of the top ratings when to the Pilots (at least that was the rumor common among the disgruntled Navs). In hindsight that was really because most of us Navs were happy letting the pilots do all the heavy lifting for mission coordination and planning. We were happy drawing our charts to get us from point A to B and doing whatever supplemental job the Director of Operations (DO) wanted to assign us.
When I got to Mather, I discovered a whole new world where you couldn’t blame AFSC bias on your failure to get a good review. If you wanted to succeed you needed to step up your game, especially if you came into the squadron with an average record. There were all sorts of opportunities to impress (or not). I think my time at Mather actually set the tone for the rest of my career. I came to realize I was the person who controlled my future. I could lead, or get passed by. Some remained simple instructors for their four years and wondered why nothing seemed to change. Others came into the Wing with great records and were put into high visibility jobs so they would continue to have great records. Then some found ways to improve and were recognized with more and more responsibility. I like to think of myself in that last category. By the end of my time, I was a flight commander where I got to decide how best to get my students their wings.
When I left Mather and went back into Special Operations, I was shocked by how little it had changed, and Nav’s neither stood up to take the most demanding jobs nor were they expected to. That slowly changed as the years went by, but SOF was among the last of the mission areas to expect officers to lead regardless of their AFSC.
Some rewards went to those who would volunteer for the jobs no one wanted. One of those jobs what the Combined Federal Campaign. I did that two years in a row and was pretty successful. Our squadron raised more than everyone else. I had a simple marketing pitch. “You all are making more money than you know what do to with, so why not donate to those who need it most?” The young officers always came through…
As a result, my Commander allowed me to go on the semi-annual good deal trip to Edwards AFB where for a week all we had to do was sit in the back of the plane while student test pilots and test Navs practiced real flight test maneuvers to determine if the AF should buy the T-43. Being a Navigator Wing, we had a rule that anytime the aircraft left the local area it had to have a qualified Nav on board (Union Rules). We took enough instructors that we only had to fly on one or two test missions and had the rest of the time to explore or be hosted by the TPS program (which included a flight in either a T-38, AT-37, or a glider). I had about 20 hours of glider time, so I opted for the T-38 so I could say I had flown faster than the speed of sound. After our little dash beyond Mach 1, we did shuttle approaches, where we fell out of the sky, pretty much like a rock.
How to Get a Wing Commander Fired
One Saturday morning my wife woke me up saying the Squadron Commander was on the line. I grabbed the phone and he asked if I had been drinking the night before. I assured him I had not and he asked if I was free for the day? I said I was, so he said to grab my nav stuff and head down to base ops. There was a no-notice trip to Chanute AFB to pick up the Wing Commander and some friends. Chanute didn’t have an active runway so we were actually going to some civilian field nearby.
I headed down to base ops, met the two pilots and we planned the airways flight to and back. We’d need to get gas at the Airport, but they saw enough AF aircraft they had a contract and our gas card would be honored. Off we went box lunches and all.
We arrived at the airport, whose name escapes me now, and had to wait an hour or so until a bus with the Wing/CC and 12 friends showed up. We loaded up and headed home. As a C-130 guy, this seemed perfectly fine with me, and although I was gone for almost 12-hours I never considered filing a travel voucher for a simple two sortie day. The copilot did and was quite upset when he was told no. So, he filed an IG complaint that ultimately uncovered a pattern of abuse by the Wing Commander where he had used the sorties to Randolph to transport his daughter’s stuff, including wedding flowers, and furniture down to Texas. Apparently, on our sortie, the Wing/CC had logged IN time, despite not having any students on board. The lesson here is T-43s are not supposed to be used for your personal benefit. Who knew?
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