Pilot Training Part 1
Upon college graduation, I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force and had orders to go to Reese Air Force Base near Lubbock, Texas, for the rest of my pilot training.
A week after getting my gold bars, I would marry that Lakes High alumni girl and we would be together for the next 50 plus years.
In August 1974, my bride, Jody Andrews, and I arrived at Reese Air Force Base.
Flat, red dirt, windy, and almost no trees. Because the Vietnam War was winding down, the need for pilots was also winding down and the classes were downsized so much that I had to take a non-pilot job for 9 months before a pilot training class would open up for me. In that time, we lived on base in a two bedroom 800 square foot home. Jody would wipe the red dust off of the white appliances one day and with the next high wind (every other day it seemed) it would need dusting again. She was not happy and I didn’t blame her.
I was a Supply, Services, and Sales Officer. I worked for the Commissary Officer for a while, then ran the Bachelor Officer and Visiting Officer quarters, and finally as Mortuary Affairs Officer.
As the Mortuary Affairs Officer I was only called on once to investigate the death of two pilots in training. They were both bachelors and had rented a Cessna 150 to take a ride in. The night before I was called they had crashed and the next morning a team of us went to the crash site.
When we got there, I thought there had been a mistake. I didn’t see any airplane on the flat plains where we were parked. My boss got out of the car and I followed with 5 others towards a small mound no larger than a gopher mound. That small mound was the remains of two bodies that had burned so bad they had shrunk to unrecognizable masses. The plane was completely consumed and had burned so completely that no piece of it was sticking up to disrupt the flat landscape.
The small radius of the plane and the complete destruction led to the conclusion that the plane had been traveling straight down at a very high speed. From a stall or trying to do a loop too low to the ground, God only knows.
The largest pieces were the gear which was buried two feet into soil the hardness of concrete. The bodies were just above that. We formed a team and did a concentric circular pattern to pick up pieces (human and airplane) up to about 100 yards from the crash site. A lot of photos were taken and finally the remains were handed over to my team and were put into black bags with handles. They were sadly light to lift. We took them to the base morgue and it was late night before I got home. I gave Jody a long hug before bedtime.
It was a stark reminder that flying is an unforgiving mode of transportation. Lose engine power in a ship or motor vehicle, you will probably survive. Lose all power in an airplane in the sky, you have about 90 seconds to make a decision that may or may not save your life. The images that day stuck with me and made me very particular in planning my flights for fuel needs, terrain, and proper navigation. Oh, and no horseplay.
As my instructors used to say, "There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots."
