Dean Hess, a retired US Air Force Colonel and fighter pilot in World War II and Korea, died last week at the age of 97. Col Hess was a preacher who left the pulpit to become a fighter pilot, and he was a little-known key to the development of the South Korean Air Force. He was most famous, however, for helping rescue orphans during the Korean War: Read more
A South Carolina-based US Marine Corps F/A-18 crashed in Georgia near the end of February. Both of the crewmembers ejected safely.
The F/18A Hornet was conducting low-altitude tactics training when it crashed…
The two-man crew parachuted from the plane…The Marine Corps identified the men as Maj. Roy Nicka, the pilot, and 1st. Lt. Robert Reynolds, the weapons system officer
As with other such incidents, Read more
Jason Ladd
Ladd Publications
The title and cover imagery of One of the Few: A Marine Fighter Pilot’s Reconnaissance of the Christian Worldview recall the iconic slogan of the US Marine Corps: The Few. The Proud. But the book is about far more than the US Marines. One of the Few is also about “one of the few” Christians and fighter pilots in today’s society.
One of the Few is not a traditional book about fighter pilots. The three-part book does chronicle US Marine Jason Ladd’s journey to become a fighter pilot, and his flying as a fighter pilot in combat. More central to the book, however, is the story of Ladd’s journey to becoming a Christ-follower, a journey that only starts with Ladd’s tortured admission he was living as an atheist for many years.
Ladd comes to that realization through Read more
In a relatively rare occurrence for the big bomber, the US Air Force un-mothballed a 50-year-old B-52 from the storage base in Tucson, AZ, and flew it to Barksdale AFB:
The 53-year-old Stratofortress, tail number 61-1007, nicknamed the “Ghost Rider” had been in storage at the desert in the care of [AMARG] since 2008…Ghost Rider, after upgrades, will become the first B-52 to return to duty from the Boneyard.
The plane was reportedly revived to replace Read more
Last October’s midair collision between two Oklahoma Air National Guard F-16s was blamed on pilot error:
The pilots…were flying in formation, conducting tricky combat maneuvers, with a third F-16 role playing as an attacking enemy. The two pilots lost sight of each other before their right wings collided 16 seconds later in clear skies.
The instructor lost control and ejected; the student returned Read more
Update: Franklin Graham describes the faith of Louis Zamperini here. Notably:
He found a Bible that had been issued by the air corps and began reading.
Seems some documented good came from the US military issuing Bibles during World War II.
Unbroken, the Laura Hillenbrand biography on Louis Zamperini (which made the 2012 CSAF Reading List), has been made into an Angelina Jolie-directed movie to be released on Christmas day.
A small controversy is brewing over the movie’s admitted generalization of “faith,” despite the importance of the Christian faith to Zamperini’s life story. Ultimately, this should be little surprise, given that the book Unbroken (reviewed here) similarly spent very little time on the topic — while Zamperini himself devoted a substantial portion of his autobiography, Devil at My Heels (reviewed here), to his conversion and faith experience.
Christianity Today columnist Alissa Wilkinson noted Unbroken seems to lack the “redemption” from its “Survival. Resilience. Redemption.” tagline (the same conclusion reached here about the book). Without knowing the actual story, one might think Zamperini’s inspiring story was one of self: Read more
While “spouse groups” in the Air Force are technically gender-neutral, the fact remains they are often perceived as re-labeled “wives groups.” They are made up almost exclusively of women who are married to male military members. That leaves male spouses as a potentially underserved minority.
A male spouse at Aviano experienced the results of that long “history”:
Spouses are often assumed to be women and at a commander’s convention with his wife, Lt. Col. Rosie Duarte, the 31st Force Support Squadron commander, there was no exception. When spouses received their gift at the end of the event, [John] Duarte got what every spouse did — a broach.
Duarte decided to found a new group — which is explicitly male. He Read more
The Air Force announced Tuesday that Capt William DuBois was killed when his F-16 crashed “in the Middle East” in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. Officially, the crash was declared not combat related and was said not to have occurred in Iraq or Syria. CNN reported it occurred in Jordan.
As with all such incidents, the Air Force will investigate the cause. The crash follows another recent fatal crash out of Tyndall AFB just last month.