Tag Archives: robin olds

General Welsh Declares Official Air Force Mustache March

At the 2014 Air Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium, Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Mark Welsh decided the Air Force should have an “all-in,” MAJCOM vs MAJCOM official Mustache March.  With a nod to the MAJCOM commanders in the front row of his audience, Gen Welsh said

In just a few days, its March. Now, I don’t know, but I don’t think we’ve ever had an all-in Mustache March, have we? So I’m putting the smackdown on you guys: Air Force-wide Mustache March. MAJCOM competitions. [Laughter] You identify your winners, we’ll check the imagery to make sure nothings been doctored. We’ll find our Air Force winner and I’ll figure out a way to honor…him.

At that point, Gen Welsh seemed to become aware that he had to say “him.”  Read more

Mustache March: Grow Big or Go Home

An official DoD article notes the fighter pilot tradition of Mustache March:

It happens every March like clockwork—men from all across the Air Force, who may otherwise normally be clean-shaven, grow out their cookie dusters, much to the amusement of many around them.

As noted here, the tradition is linked to BrigGen Robin Olds,

Olds was frequently at odds with senior leaders, and had his ways of defying the establishment—most famously (or infamously), the decidedly out-of-regs, heavily waxed handlebar mustache Read more

Mustache March has a Website

The fighter pilot tradition of Mustache March has a website.  Who knew?  Of course, it’s a charity awareness website that seems to be unaware of its use of the military tradition most often attributed to USAF fighter pilot Gen Robin Olds.

Of course, the fact it’s a fighter pilot tradition doesn’t stop others from joining in — even the space community, famously known as blue-zipper-suited, leather aviation jacket wearing silo sitters.

Air Force Chief of Staff Reading List Includes Fighter Pilot Tome

Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz recently continued the annual tradition of publishing a recommended “reading list.”  The service’s first non-fighter/bomber pilot chief included a fighter pilot memoir in the “military heritage” section:  Fighter Pilot: The Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds, which was previously reviewed here.

Another interesting recommendation is Red Eagles: America’s Secret MiGs, which reportedly details the stories of the top secret US acquisition of foreign fighters, and their clandestine use in training US fighter pilots.

Most Air Force bases stock the Chief’s reading list in a special section of the base library.

Review: Fighter Pilot, Memoirs of Legendary Ace Robin Olds

Robin Olds
St Martin’s Press, 2010

Robin Olds is a legend in the fighter pilot community, though he may not be recognized outside of it.  Many people may remember, for example, the famous Operation BOLO during Vietnam, which used F-4s to impersonate F-105s and succeeded in destroying a third of the North Vietnamese MiG-21s in a single mission – but few know then-Col Robin Olds was responsible for it.  Fighter Pilot is his story, and it is explicitly delivered as a memoir, rather than an autobiography.  Thus, it is not a detailed birth-to-death retelling of his life, but a first-hand recounting of the things he wishes to convey.  (The book was completed after his 2007 death by his daughter, Christina Olds, and Ed Rasimus, himself a retired fighter pilot.)

The book starts off somewhat slowly, almost as if (despite its status as a “memoir”), Olds (or his co-authors) felt obligated to include some stories from the early parts of his life.  He mentions his early pilot training days and a few significant events briefly, but provides little detail or introspective.  For example, he casually mentions, without further insight, that he attended the Air Corps Tactical School, which would ultimately form the basis for all air doctrine in the Army Air Forces and eventually the independent Air Force.  He also covers his entire training, from his early wartime graduation from West Point through becoming a pilot, in a scant 20 pages.  Some of the lack of detail may be for a very understandable cause: he simply didn’t remember much from those early days.  Another may be more pragmatic: Olds is known for his time in Vietnam, not pilot training.

Unlike some other fighter pilot books, Read more