Category Archives: Fighter Pilot

The Collection of Commander’s and Challenge Coins

The awkwardly named Pentagram, the community paper for Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, has started a series on the tradition of collecting “coins” in the US military:

For active duty and retired servicemembers, it is the currency of past days of deployment or of military milestones. This custom-made currency is awarded through a discreet handshake following a job well done or in a moment of appreciation.

They are called commander’s coins by Read more

Time Blog Misquotes ChristianFighterPilot.com

Mark Thompson at Time Magazine’s “Swampland” blog has made an occasional habit of bagging on the Air Force or US military.  Yesterday, he recapped the USAFA “so help me God” Cadet Honor Oath issue in a somewhat sarcastically tinged blog noting

the Colorado Springs, Colo., academy has decided to make the “so help me God” coda to its cadet oath optional after a complaint from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (not surprisingly, the Christian Fighter Pilot group denounced what it calls a “dramatic change” on its website).

It would seem Thompson has become the latest “journalist” to fall victim to Read more

Farmer Buys WWII Plane, Fixes and Flies It

Ed Wuerker, a 74 year old New Jersey Farmer, fulfilled a lifelong dream when he bought a TBM Avenger in 2005.

Wuerker…plunked down $60,000 and bought it. It has taken eight years to restore and to get the FAA approvals for the plane and his own certifications needed to fly it, but Wuerker recently got it airborne for the first time since it was used to fight forest fires in Canada.

The Avenger is the same aircraft President George H.W. Bush flew — and was shot down in — in WWII.

The plane is more functional than Read more

Doolittle Raiders Final Toast will be Live to World

The Air Force has announced that the November 9th final toast of the Doolittle Raiders — an event closed to the public — will be broadcast live on the Pentagon channel.

The remaining Raiders will join for the final time and open the ceremonial bottle of cognac from 1896, the year Jimmy Doolittle was born.

The event is occurring at the National Museum of the Air Force and will include B-25 flybys, a wreath laying, related movies and a book signing.

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USAFA Pulled Poster of Fallen Ace Robbie Risner’s Plane


General Mark Welsh, US Air Force Chief of Staff, announced that retired BGen James Robinson “Robbie” Risner passed away this week.

In a cruel twist of timing, the poster pulled down by USAFA last week (because it offensively said “so help me God”) was of BGen Risner’s F-100F, the “Spirit of St Louis II” — in which he crossed the Atlantic as Charles Lindbergh did, but in only 6 hours.  (The aircraft remains on static display in front of the USAFA Prep School.)

BGen Risner is probably most famous for his time as a POW in Vietnam’s infamous Hanoi Hilton — where he roomed with other well-known men like Col Bud Day and LtCdr John McCain.  BGen Risner, then a LtCol, was the ranking POW and the leader of the men in the prison — and it turns out he might have had an opinion on that “God and honor” thing going on at USAFA [emphasis added]:

When asked what kept him going throughout his imprisonment, Risner said in a 2004 interview on CNN Larry King Live that his survival was due to exercise and his “faith in God and Read more

Air Force Could Save Billions by Cutting A-10

Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has lifted her hold on the nomination of Ms. Deborah Lee James to the position of Secretary of the Air Force:

An Ayotte aide told Defense News on Thursday that Ayotte will no longer stand in the way of Debroah Lee James’ nomination after carefully reviewing data provided in response to question she submitted to the Air Force.

Part of that data included responses from the Air Force that it could save “billions” of dollars by cutting an entire fleet, rather than “millions” by reducing it or making cuts elsewhere.

General Mark Welsh, Air Force Chief of Staff, provided some personal insight:  Read more

Need an Airstrike? There’s an App for that.

The Air Force Times highlights a smartphone app that could conceivably be used by troops to direct airstrikes:

Draper Laboratory of Cambridge, Mass., is working with the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y., on a new program called the Android Terminal Assault Kit, or ATAK, that it said will transform the way troops request air support.

The application will allow troops in the field to open a map and, with a few screen taps, label the locations of enemy troops, civilians, friendly forces and potential evacuation points, and then securely transmit the data to inbound pilots or operations centers.

However, they’re not developing the app for the iPhone, because “the security was better” on the Android OS.

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Moral Consistency? NASCAR Driver Fined for Homosexual Slur

NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Nelson Piquet Jr was reportedly fined and ordered to “sensitivity training” for using a “gay slur on social media.”

The [NASCAR] Code of Conduct in the rule book says a driver “shall not make or cause to be made a public statement and/or communication that criticizes, ridicules or otherwise disparages another person based upon that person’s race, color, creed, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, religion, age, or handicapping condition.”

Interestingly, Piquet’s apology included a statement that  Read more

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