Transcripts For CSPAN3 Topgun - U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School 20240713

Smithsonian associates. Now is the perfect time to turn off your cell phone or anything else that might make noise during the program. Thank you for doing that. This past march marked the 50th anniversary of the u. S. Navy Fighter Weapons program. We are thrilled to welcome the programs founder, dan pedersen. He entered the u. S. Navy in 1953 and went on to become the senior officer in the group of nine men who formed the navys legendary Top Gun Program at miramar in march 1969. He served in combat during the vietnam war with the flying crews on uss hancock and three on uss enterprise. He retired as a captain having accumulated 6,100 flight hours and 105 carrier landings while flying 39 types of aircraft. For those of how know pedersens story from the 1986 movie top gun youll be happy to know that jerry brook heimer is producing top gun maverick a sequel scheduled to be released in 2020. Pedersens book top gun is available for purchase and signing following this conversation. And here to keep the conversation moving is larry burke, curator of u. S. Naval aviation at the air and space museum. So now please join me in welcoming dan pedersen and larry burke. Are you ready to go . Okay. Im going to take about ten minutes and just set the stage here for larry and i to go back and forth and final preparation for the questions coming from you. The assuming tonight is knowing how many of you have actually read the book . Good. That gives me free play especially with a couple squadron mates back here keeping me honest. Anyhow, ill tell you about how the back came about, the 50th anniversary on the 3rd of march of this year. Top gun was conceived on that date 50 years ago. Thats a long time. It tells you something about how old i am. Jim, my literary agent, has four bestsellers of his own and he came to me along with the famous condor darryl gary you see in the pictures up here. Then sea said were getting close to 50 years. Its time to put the legacy in writing. Id been fighting with the brits. I can show you letters i get from london newspapers and somebody over there says, yeah, we started top gun and the americans took it over. Of course that would ruffle your feathers, which it did. It was time to tell the story, and i happened to be the one who was drafted by the average eight guys because i was a senior. I ended up being the boss man during the initial phase of this and well get into how it was done and who did it and so forth here shortly. One of the benefits of writing this book was it allowed me to think back and i do a comparison with what i know today, and im older. I dont know it all. But i compare what i see and whats in writing about the navy as it exists today, where we are with airplanes and so forth and think it did a pretty fair job based on the reaction of the book and the reviews. One of the things were most proud of are the reviews weve gotten. I started out in 1953 working two jobs going to college like everybody in those days was doing and the draft was breathing down my neck, and so i went in the reserves as i was assigned to a world war ii squadron and i was a mechanic. I worked, and here is the first good one of the night. I was working for a chief named brown and he was my mentor. Mentor will be a key word you hear from me. I carried his toolbox and got his coffee whenever i wanted and he spent an inordinate amount of time teaching me how to maintain those airplanes. How to maintain those airplanes. We then went on, it was right down here, los alameda, california. Want right down here. Im in d. C. Tonight. Forgive me. I do make mistakes. But mentor number two, young lieutenant. We had some tv2, twin cockpit, front and back, and it had flight controls in the backseat. And he said, you know, youre learning to be a jet engine mechanic. Chief brown was still over my shoulder every minute watching me. And he said, why dont you go fly them with me . So i went flying a few times in the backseat of the first jet airplane i had ever been in. And i thought, boy, do i love this. So, over the course of a few months, and he said, you know, he said, youre really pretty good at it. He pretty near taught me to fly that airplane. I diplomat ladnt land it very i could fry it pretty well. So anyhow, he said, would you consider going to Flight Training if i helped you take the exams and prepare you . And i said i talked to my folks. My folks said, thats an honorable profession, naval aviator, we really support that. And so, make a long story short there, i went through Flight Training, pensacola, like we all did. 1956 and 57, 18 months. I did very well. And i think a lot of it has to do with that young lieutenants inspiration that he gave me. He set the stage. He later went on to be head of the fbi in the Western Region of the United States. Hell of a guy. God, what a great man. So, and then we come out of Flight Training, grades are good. That guy down there had some amazing good grades. And i end up with roommates in north highland, famous north highland, san diego, in a Fighter Squadron. First set of orders is to the fleet. And we were we had a special mission. The squadron was amazing when i got there. I dont remember when ron got there, but i know we were very close. But we had a lot of world war ii guys were our seniors in that squadron. And mentor number three, geno valencia, howard addy. Howard addy found the japanese at the battle of midway. He was flying a patrol plane. But we were surrounded by great talent from world war ii in that first Fighter Squadron. We had 60 airplanes, four different kinds. The old guy said, weve done it, we want to stay home, drink a little whisky and take care of mom and the kids. So, they did. And they encouraged us to fly. And so i had all the flight time. This is a key point of where you are today in america. We had all the flight time that we could handle as young pilots. Its not true today. Ill talk more about it later on. But success from that day on, mentoring is the reason. I dont think intuitively i ever knew what ultimately i was capable of doing. I think it was being exposed to great americans. Geno valencia had around 28, 23 victories in world war ii and he was ready to rest a little bit. But his enthusiasm carried over to five or six of us that checked into that squadron. And it was it was good. I went on from that squadron. We had probably 1,500 hours more than any of our contemporaries because of the abundance of flying that we had in those days. And the only way you really get good in Tactical Aviation is to fly a lot. You got to love it. It isnt airline flying. Its combat flying. And you got to set your mind to it. Thats my background. Thats where i got. I went on from there. Dr. Larry knows weve had some time together and he knows a good bit of it. He wants to ask some questions and then well go to questions from the audience. As you can see, we have a stack here, probably more than i need. Well see how it goes. I do actually want to back up a little bit. Is there anything in your background that led you to join the navy in the first place . Is it something you always wanted to do . Or was it something you just kind of you know when, i got exposed when that lieutenant strapped me in the back of that airplane for the first time, after about four or five times i mean, you got to remember in those days, airlines, there werent airliners. There wasnt anything fancy but the jets. It was brandnew and exciting. And those of you who fly i know there are a couple naval aviators sitting back here. Its hard to explain to people who havent been there how absolutely beautiful flying can be. Combat maybe, but, you know, flying flying over the United States i came across california yesterday and i had a window seat. And it was one of those days when i got to look out all the way across the country. And i thought, my god, what a beautiful, beautiful country we live in. And a longwinded answer but, yeah, exposure to it. And im of the personality that i loved it. Id go back and do every single day of it again if i was young enough. Unfortunately, time grabbed me. I hope that gave you an answer. All right. So, youve already sort of mentioned that you go from there. You go to basic Flight Training in pensacola. Yep. And you absolutely loved that. Yeah. Marine dis made believers out of us. You know, you go through essentially a boot camp, basic Flight Training. And then you go to and then you go on to advance. If you do well enough, you get jets and you get tactical jets. And you got to realize, those of you particularly for the ladies, there wasnt very other than korea, there wasnt a lot of male expertise in flying tactical jets. It was something new and really exciting. In advanced training down in texas, i got to fly the same f9, f2s that geno and these guys and Bill Armstrong and that had flown in korea. And its a need ticket ride every day, and they pay you to do it, you know. Thats why. I think i was born to do it and i enjoyed it that much. Longwinded answer. All right. So, actually, regarding the panther, so you started out in a prop trainer in basic, and then you went to, what, the tv2 . No, no. That that old thing up there covered with oil . Thats really that wasnt staged. That was a typical airplane in our day. Snjs and flew t28 after that and then of course i went to advanced training in texas and got to they bring you along pretty fast, you know. Six months six months youre going to cover the spectrum of airplanes. And if youre good if youre good and safe, you got to live through it. Remember that, thats the number one prerequisite. You got to live through it. And i think when i finally got foxy, when i got out of the navy, i think of the original 17 guys in my class, 7 of us were still up and kicking. Its pretty in those days, you know, you didnt have a lot of jet experience. Maintenance wasnt nearly what it is today. Could you just Say Something more about your first experiences in the panther. So, this is the first time oh, yeah, its in the book. Getting into a front line front line airplane by the book. Its in the book. Its in the book. Those of you that dont have one, should have one. Anyway, the f9, f2, these things down in beeville, you could see where the bullet holes had been covered over on them. They covered over them and airplanes were repainted. It was just dynamite. It was a total eticket ride. Number one, youre flying by yourself for the first time. And theres nothing more thrilling than that. And this airplane, it had guns. Oh, do i like guns. Its also in the book. The guns are the primary weapon of choice today, 50 years later. And they always have been. Sadly, when you read the book, youll find the f4 never had a gun. Industry and washington decided not to put a gun in the airplane. I could have saved so many guys on the ground from being ining p. O. W. S. I got called in a couple, three times when somebody got shot down and they were captured by the guy on the ground. If i would have had a gun, i had no other weapon in the airplane. Thats the downside of it. Im sorry. Panthers thats fine. Is dynamite to fly. So, again, in the book you describe take couple of instances in advanced training that really reinforce the fact that you are on your own in that cockpit. Would you care to tell our audience about those . You mean the trip to dallas in the low level . Three, four of us in a division fly a wedge, if you will, and and part of the syllabus was to go from beeville to dallas. Regas there and fly back down to beeville. Thats only several hundred miles, 3 1 2 by car. But in an airplane doing 450, 500 miles an hour, its a handful. Particularly on a day like and they wanted us through Flight Training. There wasnt any weather it wasnt like the weather today, well cancel. We went. And we had about 600foot overcast this particular day and we went, four of us, trying to keep track of each other out on the wings and we swapped the lead back and forth. And were going up to dallas. We do pretty good except coming back, come back and were probably a little bit misaligned on the exact track coming back to beeville. All of a sudden goes between me and a wingy is a red lit tower. And the towers there, we later found out, 1,500 feet. And we were cruising along. We were cruising along 400, 500 feet, just below the clag. Man, that thing went by so fast. The red light on it caught my eye. And i thought, you know, thats a reality check. Its a damn dangerous business if you and a lot of things you cant plan for, no. Thats the only one. And those of you i dont know how many old aviators there are, no one my age, but remember radio range, when we used to fly the radio range, before we had all the modern technology we have today. You have to be able to fly in the soup and navigate using just code, code letters. And in 18 months of training, i got it down. I hated to admit it because i had great grades, but i flunked going into victoria. Instructor in the backseat of a tbird on a radio range approach in there. I got disoriented and weather right down to the deck. It was just terrible. But no excuse. Youre a naval aviator or a two solo bar nav cad at that time. And you were supposed to be able to do that every single time. I didnt. I got it back down. I walked into beeville, grabbed a cup of coffee with my instructor. I thought, boy, this is not good. Youre in trouble. And i was. He gave me a down. First one i had in 18 months. He said, its a good lesson in humility there. I took that with me quite aways beyond that day. Paid dearly for it, but i made it through. Got orders to Fighter Squadron 3 at north island. Yes, sir. All right. So, actually i was going to go to allweather Fighter Squadron 3 next. You get me going sometimes. So, youre assigned there. What was it that made this squadron so unusual . Well, it was all veterans. We probably had the best flight leaders. We were broken into four different flights. The pictures of the guys in leather jackets flying sky race, we probably had the four besz Instructor Pilot leaders i ever flew with in Fighter Squadron, except for maybe in the war. But it was you cant help, when you fly once, twice a day, or as often as you feel like it, truly, thats what we did in that squadron. Thats why we ended up with so very much flight time. Youre around these guys. We stood watches, alert watches. We were air Defense Command working for the air force. On a hokie mission. But somebody in those days, we had to do it. We got really good at it. We won the wadf awards every year that we had that duty. But the benefit to the young ones like me, i was in that Fighter Squadron, an abundance of flying. And i associated with like kind jos, guys that were same mindset as i was. And our mentors and teachers were all the cream of the crop from the second world war. Thats what we ought to be doing today. We need to mentor more young ones in todays Naval Aviation. Therein lies part of the story of top gun. Did you ever find out how this lone Navy Squadron came to be part of norad . No. I didnt care as long as i got to fly. I really didnt. Im not much of a politician. So the other thing is, of course, you were flying the sky red, the douglas f4d, also named the ford because of that designation. What was that like . Because that was the that was the hot rod of the day, wasnt it . God, that was fun. That was fun, challenging, never in the history of my flying career, i never flew anything that had the climb characteristics. And thats where i learned to dogfight. Wed go out there in the book it describes a place. It was illegitimate. It was hell to do it, but it was the only way we could keep dogfighting alive back in 57, 58 and 59. People were trying to revert back to missiles and radar and all the magic stuff, and we go out and dogfight. Friday afternoon go out to San Clemente Island. Area 51. Thats all true in there. We would have gotten courtmartialed if anybody ever but were pretty quiet guys. When you know youre doing something you probably shouldnt be doing. But im not sure that im not sure that our bosses in that great Fighter Squadron didnt look the other way a lot. Which brings us to something. The f4d had guns but did not have a lot of rounds in its guns. It was primarily intended to use guided missiles, which were just coming into service at this time. Rockets. They had 2. 57 rockets on it. Incidentally, if you doubt my statement on the mentality, you change to very sophisticated, expensive they taped off the gun ports. Took all the guns out. And they taped them off and they eventually just covered them all. So even at that day and that time, we never got to use the guns. Never got the fire guns, did we . We won the allweapons meet that year. One of our great friends, don lawler. Don was killed on the kitty hawk. Were you with him on that cruise when he was [ inaudible ] on a night carrier landing he had an engine failure in an a7. But he was as good as they got back in the days. And careerwise, he really did well. But sometimes you roll the dice and you dont win. I write about him in the book. Sir . So youve already brought up this practice of hassling, as you describe it in the book. Makes me nervous. What about it makes you nervous . Its an art, okay . All those of you see a set of wings on a gentleman. Hes nodding. Its an art to dogfight, you know. I got original guys and i, we came up with some sayings and one of them is, second place is dead last. And thats what happens when you dogfight in combat for real. If you dont win, chances are your in a parachute or worse. And the movie did it injustice to us in that regard because it painted us as a bunch of cowboys, you know. And my original guys were all ph. D. S, at least. Intellectually, they all had two combat tours in vietnam. They were of 15 that i had to choose from, they were the 7 best i knew. The picture of mel holmes up there, the guy in the nice hat and all that, he lives in a flight suit. Mel holmes in those days, and ill include the israelis. Ive been flying with the Israeli Air Force guys a good bit. Mel holmes is the best in the world in that airplane. I put that in writing. His wife gave me a big kiss. So but mel was that good. I enjoyed telling you about this, larry. Mel what makes a guy that good . Well, maybe its a god given talent, but mel would strap in the f4 and when he was out engaging somebody in a dogfight, would never look back in the cockpit. He had that kind of perception. The airplane became one with him. Now, out of the seven or eight guys i picked top gun, the original, he redefined the envelope of the f4. He wasnt agreed as an anything academically, but he knew that airplane. He knew what it would do. I got a lot of trouble with Mcdonald Douglas because we flew that airplane way beyond. Foxy probably remembers some of that. We flew that airplane way beyond what it was designed to do. And we never killed anybody and we didnt wreck an airplane, so you get away with it. Pretty soon the kill ratio goes from two to one in vietnam to you probably want to ask me this, but got to tell it. Two to one is the reason, after five years of war, top gun got started. At the end from from 3 march 1969 to the end of the vietnam war, top gun was going putting guys in the fleet, teaching the new tactics we designed. Guess what the end kill ratio was . 24 to 1. Thats a whole lot better. You can hold your head up high when you come back and get out of the airplane. Anyhow, im sorry. Thats okay. I probably preempted you on that one. Well come back to it. But i did want to ask, so you sort of brought this up about flying the f4 beyond what it was designed to do. Yeah. And, again, one of your themes is the bean counters restricts whats possible. In this period of time you write about the fact that the navy actually restricts or prohibits air combat maneuvering, dogfighting, as to not put strain on the aircraft. And combined with this idea that its all going to be missiles so you wont need to dogfight. You go up, youll shoot, especially once we get the seekers, the sidewinder and the sparrow and the navy thinks its all going to be longdistance shots, you wont need to maneuver. Do you think this practice of hassling grew out of that restriction or do you think it would have happened anyway . You can blame it on the guys, the older guys with us, like the w3, the mentors. Those guys knew because they had been there. One guys advocating it. Theyre not going to they were all senior. Full commander at the time. Youre not going to publicly tell washington what he really thinks except that he can draw on his 28 kills that he did himself. He probably more of authority than there was sitting back here mandating the new way of doing it, if you will. And we listened to those guys. Theyd been there. They were the they were the idols we had. And so we we went along with it. Thats who i blame it on, if you can blame or congratulate him, whatever you want to say. But it worked. Stress in the airplane, acm, or air combat maneuvering, dogfighting, the way that works, and its i described it in detail in the book for you. Me and my wife even understood. Two guys go up alongside. Were at the fight club, area 51 correction. Out of San Clemente Island in a restricted area out there. Two guys, youd go out there and you fly eight, ten airplanes. Everybodys ready to get it on with each other. Theyre going to fight each other. You go out there. So, you pull up alongside somebody, look over, check them out. Okay. Break away, a few miles, come back at it. Youre doing 500 knots apiece, 1,000 miles closing rate. And this is called the merge. And thats what real combat is like. When you see the enemy currently and in vietnam, mcnamara mandated a rules of engagement on us that we had to see the enemy before we could shoot at him. That totally negated the concept of guided missiles. Because at that closure rate, 1,000 miles an hour, the other guy is pretty close to you coming at you before you can identify a little tiny mig. So, anyhow, it doesnt work the way it is. Thats one of the things, ill be candid right now. Thats whats wrong today in some of the current fighting positions this country finds itself in. We got the wrong people writing the rules of engagement. They dont trust they of dont trust the combat experience leadership to set the rules of engagement. Were going to end up i cant think of anywhere in the world that were not going to end up dogfighting when we try and go there or engage, whatever the enemy happens to be, were going to end up dogfighting them. Thats me personally. Hows that . All right. So im going to try to skip through the next one quickly here so we can get to the good stuff and not run out of time. So from the f3 you go to the f13 aboard the uss hancock and flying the f3h demon. Mcdonnell built the forerunner to the 4. It was a beautiful flying airplane except it had no power. And when we first when we first put them on the fleet, we killed five guys in one day. And out off japan, they happened to come down through a radar, wasnt quite as good as it was today. They come down through a thunderstorm and lost five guys from miramar in one slick afternoon. And what would happen this is really interesting. The water would come in intake and it would surround the engine. And when you cool metal, it tends to shrink, right . It would shrink around the turbines and the engine would seize. So, all these guys came down fat, dumb and happy. Went through a thunderstorm coming down to the boat to land. And all the engines quit. And it was so, they you know, major, major fix to get it repaired. What they did is they just went in and they cut a very small amount off all the turbine blades in the engine, so when the engine went through water, it would close down, but it wouldnt stop. But the downside of that is, you lost a great deal of power. And what it did to us mentally was, it scared you flying that thing. Beautiful airplane. But so bad powerwise. I told larry tonight, the phantom was so much better in the sense, it had power beyond anything ive ever flown. Ive flown an airplane at 2. 47 mach. Thats 2. 47 times the speed of sound. And she would heat up from frictional heating of the air flow over the airplane. And the wing would come on and say, no faster. I dont like this. And, boy, i tell you, i come out of burner and slowed her down. But it had phenomenal power. Thats why top gun worked. Im tell you more about that. Okay. So you go from the demon, your next tour at sea is with silver kings and now flying the f4 phantom off the uss enterprise and the enterprise, you report on board and the enterprise goes to vietnam, yankee station. Yeah. What was your experience of vietnam . 1967 i joined the squadron miramar very briefly. I had been to 121 teaching tactics and so forth. And luck of the draw, i ended up i ended up in a great squadron with the leader, the man i the man i respect most in combat, probably kept me alive a couple times, skank rems remson. What made him such a great leader was he had a phenomenal natural ability, charismatic man. And whenever the Hard Missions oh, no. I shut that thing off. I told her not to call me. Forgive me, please. Anyway, skank skank always took the tough missions. Therein lies leadership again. He had programs quietly of bringing the young guys up. He never put anybody into combat situation that was going to get them hurt until they were ready. And i think foxy probably knew skank as well as i did. But ive had some experiences. I dont know if we have time to tell you about, but i loved that man. I was with him the only remson story and you dont know it. I wasnt with him on this mission, but hes in there wandering around North Vietnam and he gets shot, rifle got him. Rifle bullet through both legs. They went through the fleshy part of his legs. And so being the cool hombre he is, he goes down and brings the regular restraints we have leg restraints from the ejection seats. They keep your legs from flailly. He puts them above the wound and makes tourniquets and flew 160 miles back to the carrier. Made the carrier landing. The medics brought him out of the airplane. I ran up there to see him. And lifted him out of the airplane, put him down in surgery, sewed him up. Two weeks to the day he was back flying in North Vietnam with us. Now, thats my measurement of real leadership. I got Better Stories than that about him. Go ahead. Im sorry. No, no, thats fine. So, just as a bit of background, then, and weve sort of talks about this, i just want to put it all together for our audience that, you know, part of this idea that the navy had at the time that its all going to be Straight Line flying and firing longrange guided missiles at soviet bombers to protect the United States or protect the carrier group, and you find yourself in a very different war in vietnam where you are prevented from shooting anything until you can visually identify your enemy. Key point right there. You design an airplane as an interceptor to shoot missiles. Got beautiful two different kinds of radar in the airplane. You paid for it, incidentally. And when you get out there, the rules of engagement are so stringent by maximara and lbj, you cant fire your weapons because the rules of engagement are mandated. Theyd courtmartial you if you break them. And none of us we were all obedient children, so we just kind of wing aloent along with right . But, god, thats why it didnt work. So, top gun top gun, frank alt, its the start of top gun. 1967 i came back on the enterprise, having experienced my best cruise of my life with skank. And im teaching at 121, teaching a tactics phase. 15 guys in whites up here you see. Those are some pretty good drivers. Really good sticks. A and 121, for the audience, this is where youre training everyone whos about to go out in the pacific for the f4s. That squadron had 1,600 enlisted guys. We had over 100 airplanes and they were going night and day, somebo somebodyd get wasted in vietnam and wed send a replacement and replacement airplane. Frank alt, the great frank alt writes a 400page report unsolicited. Hes so fed up with it. He sends a report back to washington. We had some great people in washington during the war, but they were drove by mcnamara. Thats about as close as ill get to politics. But they were controlled by people, and naval officers couldnt do what they wanted to do. But they said in one one of that 400 number of recommendations in that 400 pages was two things. We have got to get a good a get well program done very rapidly and we need to rethink the sparrow and sidewinder missiles that dont work. It shot over 600 of them and they had less than 10 success rate. And those are expensive. So, cno blessed it. We knew it was going to come right back out to us, and they did. Came to 121. They said tactics phase they offered the job to me. The downside of it was, 60 to 90 days you can have the first class ready, cant you . This is graduate school. This is above and beyond what theyve been teaching the whole time. How do you put a graduate school, you know, a Teachers College for teachers . How do you put it and youve got to be credible. If it werent credible, foxy never would have believed us. So, when you stand up, youre at the podium, you better pack the gear and the information better be tactically better than the guys youre lecturing to know. And you got 90 days to do it. So, i handpicked i handpicked the guys you saw up here. They were brilliant. The only thing everybody always says, how much did you learn from the israelis . The only thing the israelis taught me was how to pick your people based on their intuitive or their academic background technically. I did that with every one of these guys. Jimmy rulafson, who you see up here, many people know him in washington, is a brilliant, brilliant man. He knew more about the f4 radar and the missiles and he took that job on with a guy named wally laws. And three months later, they were teaching a way of firing. And mel and i did the we learned instead of fighting in a horizontal, we used all the power the f4 had. And it worked. And every guy, including we had no building to start with. We had no classrooms. We had nothing. He says, just dont kill anybody and dont wreck my airplanes because i had to borrow airplanes in order to have to put a flight syllabus toelg. So the first thing we did was we needed a place to meet and write and study and talk. So, a guy named steve smith, just dynamite personality guy. He says, ill do anything you tell me to do. Hed make a list every morning, by dark hed have it pretty well. I said, steve, weve got to find room to have the classroom and have an office kind of place. So hes wandering around on friday afternoon and its in the book, youll just break up reading about it. Coming down the street is this big crane and its got this 40 foot by 20 foot building. Its an old its an old probably salvage, was going to be destroyed. And he talked to Civil Service crane operator into bringing that down there on friday afternoon with a case of scotch. It cost me a case of scotch to get the building. So, over the weekend steve had them deliver home depot delivered the new flooring. We put a new floor in it, painted the outside an atrocious red trim. I said, steve, why the color . He said, nobody would ever think we stole it if it was painted red, and it was. Anyway, thats how we started. We wore out you got and thats not in the book. You get extra value for being here tonight. You think about the times 50 years ago, there were no laptops, no computers, no cell phones. We had a couple typewriters. Fighter pilots dont type very well, let me tell you. But we had typewriters. We burned up two xerox machines copying the curriculum we did. We rewrote the entire air combat maneuvering syllabus. We incorporate the Mcdonnell Douglass tac manual. We rewrote each individual flight profile and how it was to be conducted. I wrote the mandated safety requirements, you know, because i knew if we killed anybody or we wrecked an airplane i had to borrow the damn airplanes. And if we if it didnt work, you know, schools over, clyde, go home. And so but it worked. Every guy pitched in. I make this statement, and i want i get the credit. I get to write a book, they asked me to. But i wrote a good book, i think. I get to go on foctionz news and do all the pr work, making the book go. The book is a legacy to all of the top gun guys, 560 of them on may 1st of this year attended the 50th reunion in san diego. We had 42 skippers there. Were they good . We got a fourstar admiral in the mix. Got five or six threestar admirals. I dont even count the twostars but the guys are good. Those who got out of the navy have made a real success of their civilian lives. And im really proud of them, all of them, as you can tell. But had we not had any single guy, had he been not part of the equation in the beginning, it wouldnt have got done. Jimmy lang, who you see pictures of the ejection, jim lang ejected twice over there. Got a mig, shot a mig down, and and the other one is smash nash, whos in the picture. Those of you that have been around Naval Aviation know john nash, his reputation. He didnt get that call sign because he was gentle with airplanes. Call sign was smash. And he got a silver star for saving jim langs life. In North Vietnam. And the brotherhood, the brotherhood is real. It exists today. It was in san diego on the 1st of may. You see them after 50 years. And the only reason the school has gone on and grown to what it is today, internationally now they have the reputation, bar none inta Tactical Aviation. If you get up torino, go and see it. It belongs to you. You paid for it. They got their problems right now with politics and same business. Its almost gone full circle from when we started. Got an airplane you dont really want, dont know how to use. Its late. But we wont go into much of that. It worked. The schoolworked because of the individual. And heres heres my last comme comment. Its not the airplane or the Weapon System that wins in combat. Its the individual. Its the man or the woman driving the airplane who is professionally excellent at what theyre doing. That isnt the way we buy airplanes anymore either. Anyhow, thats my billy graham for the night. So, you come back, youre at 121, youre shown the alt report. Co says, i want you to take this, but we have no facilities, we have no money. We have a vague instruction that the navy should establish a school to teach fighter tactics. Whats your rank at this point . Im lieutenant commander, 31 years old. My youngest guy was the famous condor. And he was 22. Had two combat cruises under his belt. Jimmy lang had two. Mel had two. We all did, as a matter of fact, as far as combat exposure. And common trait among these guys is deadly serious about what they were doing as professional naval aviators. There was nothing of what you saw in the movie. They did the flying for the first movie, incidentally. The top gun guys in 1985. They did the flying for the movie. But my guys were ph. D. S, at least, and the pace was the schedule was so tough. We were now they dont believe us. We were seven days a week. We finished the night at the club and had a beer together and critiqued. Many of the guys slept in their cars. We didnt have any bunk room or anything else. Some of them over at the boq, you wake them up and start the next morning at 4 30 every morning. And but when youre dealing in human life, the only reason the school was started, the only purpose we had and everything we were doing was guys are still fighting every day in vietnam and theyre losing, and theyre losing because they were trained the wrong way. And they just dont and so the sooner we can get it all packaged and back out there, thats what our students were doing. They were going out and teaching their squadrons the new tactics. If i may, its an important point to make. You dont just you know, i dont have infinite wisdom. As i said, it was the collective work of eight guys. But one thing we pulled off thanks to vx4, the Test Squadron at point magoo. Dreamland area 51. Mel and i went up there. We didnt really know where we were going. They tell told us to go to mellis. We went to mellis air force base. Next thing im going somewhere had in a transport. They park the airplane, get out, look around, never seen this place before. And go in the hangar, heres these beautiful Little Silver migs. A half hour, a pretty famous guy, test pilot, vx4, chief of projects, he says, come on, dan, lets go flying. He climbs in one, puts me in a mig, sits up on the front canopy looking over. He says, dan, dont worry about the instruments. He says, as long as theyre in the green everywhere. Try that one on. So, anyhow, 30 minutes after we landed, i was strapped in a mig and we want rolling down the runway. The hardest thing about flying a mig is taxiing. I wont get into it, but its very difficult. The only mistake the engineer made. But we got to validate the tactics that we had all come up with against the real thing. So, graduation day, the first class, i said, i got a surprise for you. I put them all in the airplanes and said, follow me. We went up to area 51, the students took on migs, unbriefed, unknown, the real thing. You hear them on the air i wont tell you what they said, but, geez, where did they guys come from . And they get they get to prove their knowledge, if you will. Nice way of putting it. Anyway, we validated the tactics. The last pit in that story is jerry shot down the first migs after top gun graduation. It was the first victory we had after the school got going. And he now owns a bed and Breakfast Hotel over in scotland. And he came to the reunion and told the story of the whole thing. He didnt have to listen to me. He was pretty happy about it. All right. So top gun is established in 69. Yeah. You graduating your first class is out there. But the real test kind of comes in 1972, right . Well, yeah the first time you really get to see what happens and 1972 in vietnam, North Vietnamese Army Launches a massive attack on the south. President nixon authorized operation linebacker so now the navy and the air force are going to go in, bomb places in North Vietnam previously off limits. Also changes the rules of engagement. Yeah. So that was the key thing. So you no longer have to have visual. And how did that go . Well, you know, it went as rapidly as the migs dare come out. It went up to 24 to 1. And thats simply stated. The tactics worked. The guys got their momentum back and their pride back. Thats a top gun since you help set it up. Yeah. Obviously youre interested in the success of this thing you created. How has it changed since you founded it in 69 . You got to go to see them. Beautiful setup up there. A lot of airplanes. The young guys i was up there in may for a day and when you watch them fly, they are so good. And intellectually they have a picture board up there. Im the number one picture. It goes across. Row after row after row instructors. Theyve taken pictures over the years. Probably the best collection of photography youll ever want to see. And they are just absolutely the best of the best still. We like to think we were good. And we go up there and watch these guys. The only problem is theyre walking the fence politically now to try and keep everybody happy and try to keep up with the new, sophisticated airplanes. Its a pretty big challenge. All right. So, you mentioned that you and your other original bros mostly loved the 1986 top gun movie . Its mixed . I had somebody the other night say, hey, maverick. I look at them, dont call me maverick. And so, anyhow, the movie sold a lot of tickets. It really helped the volunteer navy. You know, the navy had 300 backlog in pilot training. It was that sensational. The top gun guys in 1985 did the flying for the movie, along with civilian cameramen and so forth. All that was good. I love the sound, i love the music personally. The rest of it was hollywood glitz. And im very worried about the new picture. I havent had a thing to do with the new picture. And so i think the last thing i have for you before we turn it over to the crowd here, in your final chapter you write that basically theres something some fundamentals about fighting in the air that really never change. And you sort of imply these were lost after the second world war. You kind of had to rediscover them for top gun. Yeah. You know, my guys, all of them had great individual egos but you couldnt let them fight each other. I kept them apart. If they fought, there wouldnt be a school, period. And thats true today. And great satisfaction in the bros. I mean, these guys in the pictures up there, the four the four of us, were like of the same parents. So proud to be together. And the navy is a great profession. If you get the right get the right mentoring, you can just fly jets, boy, thats really a good way to go. The navy takes good care of you. I had a great career. I skippered the carrier ranger. I had a big supertanker before that. Same rules applied. Dont run it aground, dont hit anybody with it and it may be in the ballpark for one of the carriers. I went through Nuclear Power training and that was very difficult. Really tough math. But i got to carry i had the privilege, the privilege for 2 1 2 years of skippering the uss ranger, the big Aircraft Carrier. And thats that was the original or the original ranger number one ship, was John Paul Jones flagship. There have been number two, three, four, five. I had number seven and during eight years of sequestering, cutting back financially, they sold it for 1 to scrap. That happened. You didnt know that. And the other day i was up in new york doing a tv appearance, and i met a couple interesting people. And talked one of them into trying to get some power going down here to name one of the new carriers ranger and carry on the tradition. So, thank you so much for listening. We can go to questions and whatever. I hope im kind of longwinded. Well, i was prepared i lived it, you know. I was prepared, if you werent. I will say there are lots of Great Stories in this book that we did not have time to get to tonight. I encourage you to get your hands on a copy. All right. We have a question down front here. Yes, sir. Thank you for your service and also for the book. Very interesting presentation. Im wondering wondering. Okay. I am wondering how aware were you of what john boyd was doing, and how aware of you were in bringing back dogfighting. I know john boid, and he is a brilliant academacademian, and been very influential, but we did not have time, and we had a couple of meetings with him, and mel holmes and my aerodynamics guru if you will. He didnt get along with him, and his argument comes down to taking john boyd trying to make a mathematical equation of what the airplane and the fighter pilot, and we found that going at it in a couple of meetings in big, big audience. Mel says that you cannot quantify what the human being driving the airplane is going to be like, and that is really true. Remember, i told you that the pilot is always the key factor in every one of those dogfights. And that is where the disagreement was. We are friends. He would buy me a drink. Excellent presentation. If you may go back to the movie top gun for a second, and in parts of the movie, you hear the guys in the room saying that is the gutsiest things they have ever saw and Something Like that, but i have heard rumors thatm to cruises character is basically mindy cunningham. Can you clear that up . Well, i dont know if it is true, but i have heard that somewhere. I dont really i dont have any author er woity or kno of that, and what tom cruise does with the movies and his money is his business, as long as he does not hurt my navy. Yes, maam. Sir, thank you very much for your service, and for Great Stories to night. I also appreciate your comments about mentorship. Thank you very much. I am interested in how did you choose that first class . Did you get to choose the students or were they nominated by commanders . You know, that is a really a great question. First of all, if you want to multiply out of the benefit of it, you have to bring the best ones n a s in, and they have to back to the squadron to teach at the graduate level and teach very quickly, and we had to argue that there is a war going on, and let me tell you that the guys of the squadron commanders out in the hall have proven that it is an upstart group, and we will have great publicity and average, but we start calling around and then getting in the building, and get him on the phone. And then you can find out, and say, geez, even suggest that some of the guys say, what do you think that you know what we dont know . We are out here fighting the war. They hang up. Then we had to go to washington and we had one magic phone call from somebody in washington, a Wing Commander on the east coast and one on the west coast and all of the sudden, it changed. It wasnt a voluntary change. It was probably survival of themselves, because you are going to do it, and just get on it. Then when the kills started coming in, topguns reputation grew, and then they were standing in line trying to get the education. Anybody who was going back to fight in combat wanted to pick up what they had not been exposed to prior to going back. One back in the middle. The one in the back first. I can see you. Thank you, captain. I am joe gavin from the family, and i hope that we have a few grum mond peop grummund people here today, and there was a flyoff between the f14 and the f15 and i wonder if you could tell us anything that you know about the results that you took away from that experience. You know, believe it or not, try i to stay out of the political. Im a big fan of grummond iron, and i miss your company right now, because it is the competitive factor that balanced the equation. Grummond notoriously built airplanes in korea and the war, and their reputation for aviators was very good, and then along came some others and we all know what happened with the 14. And the a6 i might add, and so i dont think that tonight is tonight to go into that, but i wish that grummond was back and competing and it would not take 26 years to bring a new air fleen fairplane to fruition. That is all ill say. There is a question over here. And one right here with the little person there at the mic. Thank you. Did the air force pilot participate in top gun or did they have their own program . Well, i will tell you we got rolling in the vietnam war, and then as i told you, and the air force, we, their Senior Leadership in that latter phases of war, they wouldnt change to the fac ticks. I actually got and brought the great general himself, and i idolized the man. A great pilot. We brought him down to flying and snell and j. C. And the guys on one weekend, and he is living proof of what should have happened. They should have used somebody like him and joined in. And then they used a couple of very good sticks on the plant and the thing is after they got started, the general who controlled them retired or something, but the air force came along and joined in with topgun and today, i wont say they are joined at the hip, but they are sharing information and they are both american fighter schools. So they share information. They will end up sharing airplanes. And the f4. Yeah. But, air force, and i never said a bad word about them. I dont know how many of you e know lee fliponui who built several of them the book, and that is why i had Barrett Tillman in the book for research, because they lost 340something airplanes and the era of vietnam. That is a tragedy, because those guys were as good as anybody the world. Yes, sir. Right here. Microphone, sir. Please. I salute you for your service and thank you for that. They said they took the bullets out, and did they take the bull lelt bullets out of the infantry did you understand that . I think that he is asking about the question of the navy took the bullets out of the sky ray and he is asking if they took them out of any of the aircraft that were supporting doing the Ground Support over in vietnam . Oh, no. The navy never had a gatling gun. You squeeze it, and i guarantee you that even today, it is the weapon of choice in combat. I dont care whether i have any missiles, and i will take a couple of the time biters, but if you give me a gatling gun on site, and some good radar from the carrier or support ships, ill go anywhere, particularly against a sophisticate and the really oversophisticated airplane, and the reason that i am against those without getting into politics is number one, they take too long, and too expensive and the bells and the whistles built into them overload the pilot. In combat. In combat areas and active duty there, you are just not in combat and you dont look inside and otherwise, they will check your fuel gauge once in a while, and if you are looking inside and they may get you. So, no. I dont, and that is the way it works in combat. You have to look outside, and what you dont see is what kills you you. That is a handoff. I have had a friend in marine corps Flight Training and they are telling him that he is the last generation of manned planes. What are your thoughts of that . Yeah, you know, again, you get into the industry selfairplanes, drones. The drones have a reasonable mission, and Certain Applications of them. Im not sure that on a 30plane strike that i want somebody at nell lis or somewhere controlling the armed drone in the middle of it shooting the missiles, and just strikes me wrong, you know. You can get hosed that way. That doesnt work. So my point is, my point is the pilot, the human will always be the key factor in a win of aerial combat, and some of you may not believe that. But take a look at the volume of airplanes in china or russia or north korea. They got a lot of them. We do not want to find ourselves numerically inferior to any of the countries. Those are deterrents. I dont want any more combat. I dont want them for you young ones. I dont want to see it again. In my lifetime, i hope we never vit, b have it, but you have a deterrence and you have to have the ability, and another thing, one more thing, in the ranger, i had 400 guys on ranger with me, and anybody want to venture the average age . 19. Somebody hit it right on the head. The average age of the volunteer force of the Aircraft Carriers and the beautiful nukes out there, 10, 11 of them out there now or will be soon, and that is the greatest deterrent in the world. Dont let anybody tell you that they are really vulnerable, and i wont in a group like this, and if anybody wants to debate that with me, i can tell you how to disappear with an Aircraft Carrier and it is going to work every time given the weather, and the electronic working on two screws and drop in behind the super tankers and so many ways. People are putting out a lot of the bravo sierra, you know, to sell airplanes. I am sure they will find a good use for drones, because they are phenomenal for the air to ground work, but i personally dont want them on the Aircraft Carrier. Good answer. Good question. And a followup question. The latest aircraft is this joint strike of the f22 or the f35 or Something Like that, and would you care to comment about how that aircraft compares with the current supers that we have on the Aircraft Carriers . Well, i will only tell you that i saw the day i was up at fallons, they had 100 missions that day that were flown, and airplanes from all over the world there. Different, and a little bit of mix of everything, and let me tell you what they did. Skipper of topgun right now is a phenomenal young guy. Youth is where it is. His name is pops. They call him pops. Early that morning, all of the pilots met and they drew the times and piece of paper, and they all went around and drew this. What that drawing was, they drew a range sign to be out, and somebody else drew that same sign and they had no idea who they were fighting whether it is a f22, f35 or f5, and ilessened iless i listened to a lot of the debri debriefs and the hornet guys, and i dont particularly, but it is a great little airplane, the super hornet is, because it has better legs. The reason i didnt like it is that it caused the carrier time to be more because they didnt have much gas. But they went out there in the Super Hornets waxed the f22 and the sophisticated airplanes that day. The taiwanese brought in the f5, no, f16 and the hornet guys held their own, and i will put Naval Aviations in the simple reliable airplane, and when you are reading the last cham ter, a chapter, and if i were king, and you quote it in the book, and when you read it tonight, it is simple and reliable and carrier maintenance guys are only 19 years old, and that is the abundance of them, and that is the reliance of the chief of the first class and second class and maintain the planes. If you dont maintain them right, you kill somebody, and that is unacceptable. Right now, somewhere in this town, they are talk g aing abou keeping in the pilots so they dont go to air lines. And let me tell you why they are getting out. Eight years of sequester and the transition time now, they have not had any real flying. The guys at top gun, and i used to talk to pops and the boys and they are getting 10 hours a month, and that is barely enough to know what you are doing. There wasnt any money for flying and now it is a lot better. When you are really looking at the originally, and i told larry this earlier, we got 40 hours. 40 hours was enough working as hard as we were and i could not have handled much more physically, and familywise i couldnt have handled much more, because i was not home. And the great condor saand his most hours atopgun was 60 hours, and that is the most. Flying is the reason that aviators stay in the service. Simple. So simple is better, and if you are going to bonus anybody, bonus the chiefs and the first class and the enlisted guys. I spent quite a bit of time with the captain of an Aircraft Carrier talking to our ombudsman people about the poor, and i mean this in a loving way, about the poor enlisted guys wives at home with their kids who had no money. That is not america i know. You know. We all drive nice cars and we should be able to take care of the guys maintaining the big expensive airplanes. That is my second billy graham of the night. Do we have time for one more question . One down front here. Yes, sir. And v25, and built them and sunday punchers and 75 off of the kennedy and i saw the great pictures up here and i wondered if you could run through and talk about the pictures and the great people. Would that be all right . You got five minutes. Incidentally. Incidentally, i had lunch, and i spoke at boston at the Yorktown Museum two weeks ago one night to a group about the size of this, and i had brunch the next day with jimmy flatley, your skipper on saratoga and he had just, a good naval aviator and he had a right hip replacement two days before, and shows up to host a brunch for me. I could not believe it. He came in, in a wheelchair. All right. So that is, i cant walk anywhere with this. Nope. And so, that is who i went through basic training with. There were hundreds of them, and great airplane. I soloed that for the first time on a grass field. They cut your tie off on solo day and i still have that tie in the scrapbook. You have one, too . Yes, sir. And do you wear ties . Yes, but i dont have it though. And this is, this is the squadron that ron and i were in. Hell of a great airplane, and so we built that sky raid and of all of, i love it, because we lived through 3,000 hours in it, but that airplane there was fun. Now, some great friends are there, and you want to have some reality check, and i looked at the picture today at the hotel, and there are eight guys left. That is the reality. A lot of it wasnt necessarily brought up by performance, but in those days what they did with the airplane was pretty risky. That is a terrible airplane on the boat. Laterally and unstable on the boat, and in lexington, when we were together, they tried tonight qualify that plane on the lexington and lost a bunch of guys. That is the newspapers pick up on this story almost daily, the russians and the americans are at each others throats. Let me tell you, this is average day on off of the sea of japan. They come out of vladivostock everyday. I have had my back seater hold up something, penthouse or the playboy and the guy in the turret would hope up his ploybploy b ployboy playboy and it would be more current than ours. And so i would have guys coming up on thehe bow and you dont wt to do that again. So i would turn up the gain on all of the sensors, and he would probably blow every fuse on that trawler. Dont do that again, im telling you. So that is enterprise and i love this shot, and i dont know if i am on that cruise or not, but she has the beautiful mantle and remember the radar on the island and someone in the infinite wisdom said to buy the lady a new hat, and they took that beautiful ray off there, and they made her look like everybody else. But there is only one enterprise and right now they just took the core out of it and the Nuclear Power plant has been removed and she is in salvage and they dont know what to do with it. Oh, boy, that is a tough decision. That is a great ship. Theres the phantom in the sister role of dropping the 500pounders. When you get to the book of the y yankee flying and kasokason. I went to kason, and so dropping those kinds of bombs, and they had it up and going straight down. So a few closer to kason and that is when i learned to love grunt green. I never saw an american kiss that brake. That is a whole different story. Those are mig drivers, and some vietnamese. They have sense been over here, some of the guys, and ho sent them over here in san diego and some of of the guys trying to settle the mental situation, and i never cared that much, so i didnt go. And theres the originals. John nash on the right, and jimmy is the second one on the lower right. I was the third one. Hank cowland who took all of the risks. God, man. I would go into him and complain about something, and he would s say, get out of here and go do it. And we had no aid. And those of you here in washington in business, we never had a consultant. [ laughter ] i dont mean to hurt anybodys feelings, but we had no consultant in all of the years. And there is great jim lange. And he is chairman emeritus of john, i want to say bernie, big Real Estate Company in san diego. A wonderful guy. And you know, the image painted in the movie, this guy is going to Catholic Church every morning, and devout, and i think that he did that even before he was flying with us. And he is one of the great guys i had the pleasure to serve with, and he is fearless. Go ahead. That is jimmy. They had just taken a large dose of flak and both engines were quitting and the second seater got out quickly, and we needed double exposure, but we didnt get it. There is the great mao hung, and these guys are talented and i mean it, he was the best in the world. I know who the ten best were and i would put him up top. He went out and started microasia airline and a risktaker, and incredibly talented people. There is the famous condor. He is like my son. Only, i have one problem, my wife is in love with him. He is movie star good looking, and so successful and a developer big time and a prince of a human being. And that is the other one. Incidentally, condor was the back seater in the beginning of topgun and i found out just how much of a troll i was, and soy found out that we were flying the two ofseat a4s and i would be looking for him, and hed be gone. Hed be in the air, and he would be talking the rest of the guys into putting him in the a4 and they taught him to fly. And so, it comes to me later on up and running well, and so i want to become a naval aviator and go to Flight Training, and he said, i already know how the fly. He is so confident. I said, okay. Send an application in, and i will endorse it. I did. And he went through and just aced the Flight Training and he came right back to topgun as an instructor right out of the training command. I think that in his career, condor has been at topgun four time, and that is called insurance policy to have the talent around you. It is always the guys around you. Lets see. This is the big pollock jerry swarowski. He is known for bending airplanes, and he and mike gunter were a match set. They were both good. They started the adversary program, and they had to be able to fly like the russians, and so he put the program together inside of topgun, and he flew on both sides. He would fly the american side one day, and the adversary side later on. And how this evolved and right now, there are four squadrons that are dedicated adversaries in the air force, and somebody asked the air force a question, and the air force just funded 25 or 30 f5s to a dedicated adversa adversary squadron, and i noticed in the press that they took the f35, the new ones from tindall that was devastated by the hurricane and moving that up to nellnellis and they are goin try to form an adversary squadron out of those plane, but try to figure that out. That is the building. That is home [ laughter ] and theres the a4s. We started a study and we painted each airplane a little different camouflage. Went around the world and took a look at the various color schemes. Some of those airplanes were so good that you could not see them from a mile away, you know. Then you think about the merge coming headon 1,000 miles per hour. Anyhow. There he is. That is the guy i borrowed the a4 and that guy in the back is j. C. Smith. He is pretty famous. He relieved me to be in charge of topgun, and he got the first mig of the war, the first one shot down before the school even started. He a wild man. He is from san angelo, texas. And this is going to break you up. I cant believe it either. He owns two cadillac agencies in texas, and funeral parlor and a country club and i think that he is a deacon in the church. Anyhow. Mig 21. Great airplane. They are still flying. The chinese are still building these. They have 2,000 of them. And theres the boat going off of the catapult. And that is the most dangerous occupation in the world working that flight deck. Condor wrote a chapter in there for me that as a lieutenant, he had been asked to brief the last mission on the carrier corral sea sea, and i believe it was over saigon in the exodus of dragging all of the people out, and so in these pictures were the boat people coming out trying to get on the carrier. That is one of the few times i have ever seen him totally sad. You know, he said, i cant believe it. We are leaving. I cant believe that we are leaving these people the way we are. That will give you an inside look at him. Thats a typical classroom. And you can tell by the long hair what period it was. That is one of the beauties. A two place one and the one i was telling you about to look up and find out in the debrief that condor was in the front seat and one of the pilots in the back, and he is getting a private pilots lesson. Little risky. That is the airplane that i talk about in the last chapters of the example of what i would buy right now. I would take one of boeings defunct factories they have in america right now, and they are not using them anymore and i would build 2,000 or 3,000 of these and be able to fly them for under 10 million apiece. And that is cheap up there. The cost per hour is the thing. The cost per hour is how the pilots get back up to 40. So america has to end up with airplanes they can aftered for in large numbers, because you have to beautiful Aircraft Carriers, and you have to have airplanes to put on them. My question is what can we afford . I would build a lot of cheap ones, and that one in the hands of a good driver would take anybody on. And theres the f14. That is my wish. I wish we had them. I wish we had them, but somebody saw fit to destroy all of the jigs and the history of that airplane. So we cant rebuild it right now. But i sure would like to have about 1,000 of those to put on the Aircraft Carriers there. And there i am. If you behave yourself and you are a good guy, somebody will give you a boat. Big mother. That is a wonderful 600 feet long, and maybe 50,000 tons, and the crew, i had 14 officers and a crew of 1,400, and the best story is that my supply officer. When we went to the indian ocean. I looked at the invoice of what we had on board so i would have an idea when i docked, the other captains that we were resupplying and i would look at the invoices, and 3,000 turkeys. He said, we are going to be gone thanksgiving, christmas and new years, and if you want to have fun, we will negotiate with all of the ships in company, we will able to negotiate the turkeys. So we got known as the big turkey out there. And that is the ranger boat out there on top, and how we refuel at sea. And theres mama. That is the love story in the book. I met her on the 14th birthday and i didnt date anybody else. Then i went away to serve my country and fly. I didnt see her for 32 years. She married a College Football player, but there was a time in our life, both of us, and i dont want to tell you all of it. You have to read the book [ laughter ] 32 years later, i met her, and married 27 years, and she is just my soulmate. That is mary beth. Ah, the penguin. I didnt put the other picture in there, the one of beth and i in there. Is that it . That is it. Thank you very much for your patience. [ applause ] all week, we are featuring American History tv programs for what is available on cspan3, the lectures in history, american artifacts, reel america, the civil war, oral histories, the presidency and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. This week, American History tv is on cspan3 everyday with the primetime features each night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight, the year 1969 with woodstock, free speech and the gay rights movement. New years day, wednesday, the 30th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. Thursday, the forgotten battles of the civil war. And friday, the 75th anniversary of the battle of the bulge where adolf hitler launched a surprise offensive against allies. Watch American History all week on cspan3. American history tv products are available at the cspan online store. Go to cspan store. Org to check out all of the new cspan products. Each week, american artifacts is going to take viewers into museums and Historic Sites around the country. Up next, we visit ae aeronautical museums. And we will have our guide to tell us how the quest ofi