Former Air Force F-15 pilot Roy “Deacon” Qualls shares incredible stories from a 38-year aviation career that includes scrambling to intercept Air Force One on 9/11, crash-landing a burning OV-10 at McCarran Airport, and taking NFL legend Drew Brees for the ride of his life.

In this episode, Deacon reveals:

• How watching Top Gun literally changed his life in four days—from graduate student to Air Force recruit

• Landing a flaming OV-10 off-runway in Las Vegas after being given the wrong winds

• The Vice President’s authorization to shoot down aircraft on 9/11 and what it was like scrambling to intercept Air Force One

• Transitioning from F-15s to Boeing 777s—his first landing of anything bigger than a fighter was a triple seven at Charles de Gaulle with 290 passengers

• Why Drew Brees asked to pull MORE Gs and what made him such an incredible person to fly with

Deacon just released his book “Pilot’s Edge: Think, Train, and Fly Like a Pro” with 25% of profits funding aviation scholarships for the next generation.

Happy Flying,

Justin

Episode 344 of the pilot the Pilot Podcast takes off now.

The Pilot the Pilot Podcast is brought to you by Ground School from the Finer Points, the indispensable training app for new and experienced pilots.

Visit learnthefinerpoints.com justin to save 10% off your first year hey, it's Justin.

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Roy Deacon Qualls.

Most people call me Deacon.

AV Nation what is going on?

And welcome back to the Pilot the Pilot Podcast.

My name is Justin Seams and I am your host.

Today's episode is with Roy Deacon Quails.

He's a military pilot and he's currently flying a triple seven for a major airline.

We scheduled this interview within 10 days of him emailing me because I read the kind of the bio he sent me and I was like, oh wow, 911 scrambled to intercept Air Force One.

That's awesome.

First landing anything bigger than F15 was a triple seven.

That's crazy.

Flew drew breeze around in F15 and a couple of emergencies that you're definitely want to hear.

I really hope you enjoy this episode.

It's a lot of fun talking with Deacon and I'm very excited to release this.

He also has a book and he's into mentoring.

So make sure you listen all the way through and buy his book to try to help out some other pilots.

Avia Nation, I hope you are having a great day.

There is some cool stuff coming out.

Something that me, Nick, we've worked very, very, very hard on countless nights.

Nick's probably tired of hearing me talk to him and email him, but it's going to be really cool.

I think it's something that you're not going to be expecting.

It's something that we're all really excited and cannot wait to share.

So make sure you sign up for our email list which is on our website.

Follow us on Instagram.

We're going to be announcing it hopefully sometime soon.

But AV Nation, I want to give a new shout out to a brand new sponsor that we have and it is Textron Aviation.

Full circle moment for me.

My most of my career has all been in Textron Aviation and I flew probably 4 to 5,000 hours in the Cessna Citation Latitude.

So I've flown it from a 152 all the way up to one of their nicest and best jets that they have outside of Longitude.

So I'm very excited to bring on Textron Aviation.

I look forward to this partnership and who knows, maybe one day you'll be seeing me in a 182 or even better, a 206 or maybe Mustang.

Dream big, right?

Let's dream big.

Let's get a Mustang, a pilot to pilot Mustang.

Yeah, we'll keep dreaming.

But AV Nation, I hope you enjoy this episode.

Without any further ado, here's Roy.

Deacon Quails.

Roy, what's going on?

Welcome to the Pilot the Pilot podcast.

Or I should say Deacon.

You said most people call me Deacon.

Yeah, yeah.

Thanks for.

Thanks for having me on, Justin.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, anytime.

I'm excited to have you on.

I'm excited to share your story.

Military flying is something that's pretty foreign to me.

Well, I shouldn't say foreign anymore because I've interviewed a ton of military pilots, but I love the stories.

I love the opportunities you have and what you can do flying in the military.

And it's not always, you know, it's not always going to shoot down people.

It's.

It's flying in hurricanes, it's doing cool mission support on the ground.

It's supporting the air.

It's just.

It's really wild what you can do.

So I'm excited to dive into that.

The first thing we'll do, though, is kind of just touch on why you got into aviation in the first place.

Yeah.

Interesting story.

I was 24 years old, going to graduate school, working as a lifeguard in the summer.

And a buddy goes, you want to go to an air show?

And it was.

I go, sure.

So I was just trying to get away for a little while.

Went to an air show, saw the Thunderbirds perform.

That's pretty cool.

It's not like I hadn't been around aviation before.

I grew up near Naval Air Station Corpus Christi.

But I saw the Thunderbirds go.

That's cool.

Next day, I went to a bookstore, just.

I like bookstores.

I was just walking around, I saw a new book, book by Richard Bach called the Gift of Wings.

Had a story about people who fly, A little short story, and it kind of motivated me a little bit.

But, man, I was eating ramen noodles and Mac and cheese, trying to put myself through graduate school, and flying was not in my budget.

Not even close.

And then two days later, the same guy that invited me to the air show asked me to this new movie that was out, little blockbuster starring Tom Cruise's Maverick.

And I literally.

I left the movie and I walked in the recruiter's office and I said.

I said, hey, I want to fly jets.

And he looked at me and he says, did you just see Top Gun?

I go.

I go, I did, like five minutes ago.

I did.

And he just rolled his eyes and he said, how much flying time do you have?

I go, I've never flown a plane in my life.

And he says, this is a quote, dude, that's not how it works.

And I said, well, do you have a test?

I test pretty good.

So he reluctantly set me up for this test.

I took the test, did pretty well.

And he kind of acted surprised.

And he said, yeah, you're going to get a pilot slot.

And about six months later, I was in officer training school and on my way.

Within a year, I was flying T37s.

You know, first plane ever flew in my life was an Air Force trainer.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

No, I would love if they had the stats of how many pilots were produced because of one movie.

You know, like, if Tom Cruise and the people that made the original Top Gun really know the effect that they had on a whole generation of pilots and aviators in general.

Because I'm sure it would just be insane.

Yeah.

Most guys probably won't admit it, but, you know, but.

But it was.

It was the truth.

Literally left a movie, went to the recruiter, and never went back to school.

And it.

It was life changing for me.

And I'm sure there.

Sure, there's a lot of guys that are in the same boat.

That's crazy.

So, obviously, there's kind of like a timeline of events that happened.

Right.

Like your buddy said, let's go to an air show.

You read a book, you saw the movie, you.

Do you think just seeing the movie would have been enough to push you forward?

Or do you think that because it followed in those series of events that it kind of.

You're like, I think this is something I need to do.

You know, I think it was cumulative.

It was all the things combined.

And the Richard Bach book, honestly, was powerful.

He told a story about meeting a guy on a plane who'd been in the war in World War II.

And the guy had said, anyway, I've been with this company for the last 23 years.

And then Box goes on to say.

He goes, man, this guy had just summed up a quarter of a century with, I've been with this company.

He said, if you talk to pilots, none of them sum up a quarter of a century with, well, we'll go with this company.

There's always more to it, you know, and that's.

That's a paraphrase.

He said it much more eloquently than I could ever say it, but it was.

I went, man, I don't want to sum up a quarter century with, yeah, I've been with this company, you know, and so that's.

That was.

It was.

It was cumulative.

Maybe I'd have done it with just the movie, but the other thing certainly helped.

Absolutely.

Would you go to the air show?

What air show was it?

Yeah, it was just an air show at what was in Carswell Air Force Base.

Now I think it's Navy Fort Worth.

Cool.

You know?

Yeah, I went to the air.

I went to the air show.

First book was about two days later or the next day, and then it was all within four days.

Oh, wow.

Dang.

Yeah.

It's crazy how fast life can change.

You talk to yourself five days before that, you have a time machine.

Like, you're gonna be a pilot.

You're like, no, I'm not.

Right.

Literally.

Never thought, had never thought about it before that.

Yeah, what, what kind of support system did you have?

Did you tell your parents, tell your friends, girlfriend, whatever, just like, hey, I'm gonna go be a pyro?

They're like, how, What?

Yeah, I think I was, I think I was dating some of the time.

But my, I told my parents, you know, my parents, it was nothing serious dating.

Told my parents, they were very supportive.

Yeah.

Said, you know, whatever, whatever you want to do, you gotta.

I don't think anyone initially thought my chance would be very good because of, you know, because of I'd never flown before.

And most people don't understand the, the, you know, the path to get to be a pilot.

Sometimes they just think it's insurmountable.

Including myself, to be honest with you.

I was just, I was sure they weren't going to let me.

I was just going to run with a football till he tackled me.

You know, I was like, I was the 98 pound lineman.

I mean the 90, the lineman running for the, with an interception.

Just startled to find myself in the, in the end zone all of a sudden.

Yeah, that's really funny.

If you didn't have the support from your family, if your parents would have been like, hey, this is kind of strange.

Why are you doing that?

Do you think you still would have done it, like, or was it too late at that point?

You're like, hey, I already signed up, it's gonna happen.

No, I hadn't signed up yet.

I still would have done it.

And my parents were just never gonna say that.

There was not, you know, they were, they were fully supportive of whatever it was, you know, whatever honorable activity I was gonna follow.

Yeah.

And you mentioned that you were just going to run with the football as far as you could until they tackled you.

Was there a point or.

I guess I'm sure there was.

Was there a point when you were like, whoa, all right, I might have signed up for a little bit too much here.

Or were you always just like, no.

I never thought I'd sign up for too much.

I was, I thought I wouldn't get through the physical.

I had some eye problems that I talk about in this, in this book, Death Perception.

And I couldn't get through the initial depth perception test.

I had to go back a second time.

And so I was just, I was certain I wouldn't get through.

Right.

And I just made them.

But they said, well, we'll Test you again, come back in a couple of weeks.

And when it was really, when I got through that and they go, yeah, you're good.

And I walked out the door from that physical and I went, holy cow.

You know.

And a couple weeks later I got a class date.

It was sometime in the future, but got a class date for ots and I mean, it was off to the races after that.

It was, you know, non stop OTS and pilot training and then the, you know, the replacement training, what they call in the Air Force.

And that was, that was 38 years ago.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Was there, I guess what was like the moment like of finally flying an airplane for the first time?

Was it everything you thought it was going to be?

Was it more than you thought it was going to be or was it kind of like, huh, it was like driving a car.

It's not bad.

No, I would say.

So.

The first plane I flew at the Air Force at the time, if you didn't have a private pilot's license, you started out in T40.

They called it a T41 Mescalero.

It's a Cessna 172.

So that was the first plane I flew.

I think we got about 11 hours in it, enough to solo and then went to ots.

And that's really just to see if you can learn at the rate that the Air Force teaches, pretty fast pace and if you're get airsick and they try to weed that out early at low cost.

But I was so, I think I was just so engaged and you know, try not to wash out doing well that I never really had that moment probably until later, you know, maybe T38s, maybe solo cross country in a T38, you know, you're sitting in a supersonic trainer by yourself.

Yeah, I forgot where we went.

I think Tulsa or somewhere from Lubbock.

But I think when you're solo by yourself, no instructors around, that was when, that's when it first kind of, you know, kind of went, wow, this is happening.

Can't believe, I can't believe they're letting me do this.

Yeah, I've talked to a lot of military friends.

They're like, how did I end up here?

Like, who let me fly a supersonic airplane by myself?

Absolutely.

There was a lot of that looking over my shoulder going, am I okay?

In a camera.

They actually gonna let me do this.

Yeah.

Talk about the training though.

Talk about.

I mean, obviously we talked about flying a Textron Aviation Cessna, which what they said they called a T41 T41 Mescalero.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can't just call it a T172 or anything like that.

Gotta have your own damning system, right?

Yeah.

Gotta have something on it.

That was pretty rapid fire.

I mean, again, I think we got.

I think we got 11 hours total.

Yeah.

But it was designed to be pretty tense.

Designed to stretch out a little bit, make sure you could handle the stress.

And again, just the pace at which the Air Force teaches the syllabus.

And it started with the morning stand up, which is always little.

And that went all the way through pilot training.

Start off the day with instructors up at the front and says, you're out there flying in the area.

This happens.

What are you gonna do?

And he looks around the room, finds somebody, points at him, and go, you know, officer training quals.

You have the aircraft, and you stand up and you rattle off what you were gonna do.

And if you don't do it right, they have a seat, and have a seat means you messed it up, and they pick someone else and they keep going until you get it right.

And, you know, day starts like that with a good safety brief, and then it's off the race.

It's just fast.

I would say the proverbial fire hose exists.

Yeah.

And it stayed that way for a while, I bet.

Yeah.

I don't think it slows down.

It only gets faster, probably.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Only gets faster.

Talk about those.

Those kind of roll call moments.

Like, was that something you had to get used to, or was it.

I mean, 172.

You know, the.

The actual procedures aren't too crazy, but first time in an airplane, it could seem intense, it could seem crazy, it could seem like a lot.

The roll calls themselves, was that something that was a big stressor?

Was that something you just had to get used to?

And then all of a sudden, like, you kind of knew how to look.

You knew how to blend in.

Maybe don't look like.

You don't know with your head down.

Right.

So we call them stand up the morning stand up.

I don't know if they still call it that or not, but, you know, and T41 is, like you said, a pretty simple airplane.

It's not like a T37 was a comp.

You know, extremely complex, either.

And I would say most of us, you know, we studied so much, and by a month in, I felt like I could build a T37 out of popsicle sticks and toothpicks.

So you knew it.

There weren't a lot of surprises as Far as emergency procedures, they could throw in there at you.

But nonetheless, you know, it was.

The standup was designed to kind of simulate the stress of an airborne emergency.

You need.

There's some immediacy to it.

You're in front of everybody.

You don't want to look like a clown, that kind of thing, you know.

So, yeah, you kind of breathe a sigh of relief when it's not you that gets picked.

But do the math.

I mean, there's 30 of us in about 30 of us in a class.

So about once a month and a half you were going to get.

They're going to call your name and you're going to do the.

And most guys did it fine.

I don't, you know, there was maybe once a month someone would bust it or whatever, and they sit them down and then you hope you're not the next guy called.

Yeah.

What came next after the 172, the.

T41 T37s at up.

So.

Well, T41.

Then officer training school for, I don't know, four months.

And then right off to.

I went to Reese Air force base for T37s.

Then, you know, that's about five months, I think about 100 hours, 90 hours in the T37 and then ride to the T38.

And you know, when people ask me about training, I always tell them I thought Air Force pilot training was designed to make me feel like an idiot because, you know, first you fly a T37, you're in a jet for the first time.

I mean, it flies downwind at 150 knots.

It's not too fast or anything, but, you know, you get to where you can land it and do patterns since a basic acro.

And they go, let's throw you under a hood with these archaic instruments on the, on the tweet.

And then you start doing some formation.

And then, you know, next thing you know, you're at 90 degrees of bank, tucked in on leads wing going, hey, I'm feeling like somebody.

Then they go, hey, why don't we go fly the T30 for a while?

But I just figured this out.

Yeah, right.

Exactly right.

So about.

I found that it's about the time I felt comfortable with one activity.

They moved to another one pretty quickly.

And the T38 was really, you know, downwind.

Instrument pattern was flown at 250 knots.

I can remember a no flap, heavyweight landing immediately after takeoff.

You're on final at 190 knots.

That's, that's cruising me and my, me and my 90 hours of tweet time suddenly doing, you know, 190 knots on final.

With the.

With the wing, you know, very small wing.

An airplane that is notoriously close to the stall in the final turn.

You know, the.

The difference between success and failure in the final turn that IPs would teach you because it'll buff it.

And they would say, okay, you want it.

You want rats dancing on the.

On the wingtips.

If you start feeling elephants, that means you've stalled it, you know, and so you're riding the edge between.

Between, you know, max performing it and stalling it and.

And yeah, there's a lot of folks that killed themselves in the final turn of a T38.

I bet.

I still find it remarkable that we ever bought it as a trainer because it's such a. Yeah.

Relatively unforgiving airplane.

Seems like a design flaw.

It's a beautiful airplane.

It's a beautiful airplane.

It was so fun to fly.

I loved it.

Haven't flown it since, you know, I don't know, 93 or something.

But what a.

What a beautiful airplane.

Has trained a ton of Air Force pilots through the years.

Oh, for sure.

And you mentioned.

Not the same story, obviously, but you mentioned coming in to land at 190 knots and just that how much faster.

That wasn't what you're used to, right.

From what you're flying.

Before I transitioned to the airlines, I flew a Citation almost at a longitude.

I flew a Citation latitude.

And our final.

Our ref.

Speed was anywhere from 99 to 105 knots, 110 knots.

And then I go up to the 7 3.

And I'll never forget the very first time I was looking down, I was like 150 knots.

I was like, holy smokes, I'm flying way too fast.

We got slow down.

It just.

It felt just what you're used to, Right.

Like whether you have 100 hours in it or 4,000 hours in it.

When you are just used to doing something a certain way.

When anything changes in the kind of, like, your flow, you're like.

You just feel uncomfortable until you.

Until you.

That absolutely.

Well, hell, I can remember the first time sitting in the jump seat of a triple seven, and the guy started to flare.

And I would have sworn we were at pattern altitude.

We were so.

We're so high up.

Only thing I'd ever flown prior to that was an F15.

Yeah.

So, you know, I. I literally was shocked at how high, you know, and how high we were when we started.

Always start to flare.

Cause I had so many years of so many years of something different.

That's really funny.

I. I had a problem with the sight picture too coming because the.

The latitude sat way lower to the ground than what the 7:3 does.

So just figuring out where the wheels were and.

Same thing I'm guessing you're talking about.

It's like, where are.

Oh.

Oh, crap.

There they are.

Everyone felt that one.

Right?

Right, Right.

A plane's a plane.

You figure it out eventually.

The radar.

The radar altimeter doesn't hurt any either.

Yeah, that helps too.

Trying to gauge like 50, 40, 30.

Right.

Okay.

Power.

Don't flare too much.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's awesome.

Going back to military for you.

So we're transitioning.

We're keep moving.

Obviously, when you are flying in the military, there's different paths that you can go on.

There's fighters, there's more cargo carriers or there's bigger airplanes.

When did you know that you wanted to go the fighter route and kind of did that line up with how you're training and what you're pushing for?

Yeah, so I knew I wanted to go to the fighter route about three minutes in a Top Gun, right?

That was when I.

It's kind of like when, you know, I was listening to Ryan Graves.

When you interviewed Ryan, and he said he joined the.

He joined the Navy to land on a carrier.

Right.

And that was really me.

I wanted to fly fast and upside down.

Right.

So I knew then I want to go fly fighters.

And at the time in pilot training in the Air Force, Everybody flew the T37, T38.

Regardless of where you're going afterwards, there was no separated GPT like they have now.

Okay.

And so I knew I had need to graduate near the top of my class.

You have to get that time.

They called it fighter attack or reconnaissance rated.

You had to get far rated.

All the IPs got in a room and decided who was going to be qualified to fly it.

A fighter or attack or reconnaissance airplane.

And if you didn't get that rating, then for the rest of your career you weren't going to fly those.

Oh, dang.

Yeah.

So I knew going into pilot training that's what I wanted to do.

You know, there's.

There was not a doubt in my mind.

I think it probably made it a little bit more stressful for me because I.

It wasn't that I had to graduate.

I had to graduate near the top of my class or I wasn't going to get the airplane that I want to fly so that.

That, you know, incentive to perform.

I mean, it helped.

There's no doubt it helped.

But it was also sitting on my shoulder that, you know, and I'm sure, look, I'm sure I would have been.

I would have been happy with however it ended up eventually.

Yeah, right.

But at the time, that's what I wanted to do.

And so that kept me in the books, kept me preparing, you know, that was just that I was determined.

I wanted to fly fighters.

Yeah.

I mean, you did say it brought a little bit more stress on you, but it also could have kind of lit the fire.

Right.

Like you were actually training for something where some people are kind of like, eh, I don't know, you know, maybe.

Maybe you have a little bit of edge rhythm because you know what you want and you know what you're going.

For 100% and a lot.

You know, most guys, when pilot training starts, you know, they'll ask everybody in the class, what do you want to do?

Most guys, not everybody, 80% will say, I want to fly a fighter.

You know, I want to fly an F15, F16, whatever is the time.

And then T38s roll around.

And that's kind of the great equalizer.

Some guys get to T38s and they go, yeah, I probably need to not be flying fighters.

Or maybe they just read the handwriting on the wall and knew based on class standing and stuff they weren't going to.

But for me, look, I had a blast at pilot training.

I was roommates with a guy, a class behind me.

So we weren't competing, Right.

We weren't competing for assignments because we were in the same class, which was great.

He ended up graduating first in his class.

But we had a ton of fun together.

But come, you know, Friday and Friday and Saturday, that was for relaxing.

But by Sunday afternoon, man, I'm back in the books, you know, And I was just.

I was determined that I was gonna, you know, that I was gonna graduate near the top.

Yeah.

And that definitely.

Yeah, so it definitely lit a fire and it definitely affected how I trained.

I bet.

How do you manage?

Kind of like a balance of having fun because it is important, right?

It's important to step away.

It's important to kind of clear your mind.

But there is a limit how much you can actually do, right, because you have to study, you have this goal, you wanna achieve this.

How'd you balance that?

And did you.

Did it take a while to kind of find a happy medium to where you're still having fun?

Like you said on Fridays and stuff, Saturdays, but Sundays are back at it.

No, you know, I'm kind of a goal setter and set goals and work from there and baseball.

What my goals were, I just always allotted, you know, that Sunday was always going to be the time we started getting back in the books and didn't really go out during the week very often.

More so, I guess as time went on and as we started to striate in the class and you know, I felt maybe some more comfort with my positioning in the class, the ranking in the class.

But for the most part it was just sheer willpower, which is not necessarily my forte all the time.

But in this case it was because of, you know, because of the ramifications of not getting where I wanted to get to.

So for me it was just scheduling goals, set objectives.

I got to be back studying here on Sunday afternoon.

So that means I need to be doing this, you know.

Yeah.

When did you find out, when did you find out that you were actually going to get the plane or get the track that you really wanted?

It was until, I want to say, two or three weeks before graduation.

Yeah, they have.

By that time I knew that I was at least competitive for a fighter slot.

Didn't know how many aircraft, tactical aircraft we'd get.

You know, the people that come back as instructor pilots called a FAPE first Simon Instructor pilot.

Most people don't want to do that, but they're all, if you got that assignment, that meant you had done well and they like you.

So it was a compliment.

Not necessarily a compliment you wanted, but I knew there's a decent chance I'd be coming back as an instructor pilot as well.

So when the assignments came down on assignment night, I got an OV10 out of on assignment night and I was ecstatic.

We only got three tactical aircraft.

Yeah.

And I mean to this day, I mean, I get chills right now talking about it.

I like, I will sometimes go on YouTube and watch Assignment nights because they still record them some and you see these lieutenants up on stage and they find out what they're flying.

Yeah, it's absolutely, it's a life changing.

I'll never forget it.

Never.

You know, it was, it was fantastic.

Yeah.

I mean now they're, they're, you know, the, what are they doing?

Microsoft, PowerPoint, whatever it is with the PowerPoint changes and it's like F35.

It's like.

That's sick.

That'd be crazy.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Right out of power training, getting F22s and.

Yeah, it's, it's very, very cool.

But it was, it was probably, I think, I don't know, two, three weeks before we graduated.

Yeah, it's crazy.

That's another thing that's crazy about the military too, is like, yeah, all right, cool.

You're number one.

You're number two.

Number three in the previous class, you know, that wouldn't be able to give you whatever you want, but you know, it's all class by class dependent.

Right.

Like, same thing.

We hired an airline.

Everyone might have gotten the plane you wanted in the base.

You wanted the last one, but hey, actually the military has changed.

We are only going to offer these airplane.

And so if you're still number one, it's like, well, that kind of sucks.

I was number one, but I still get the same plane as, as everyone else.

Or it's actually my number three.

You know, like, it's just.

You can do so well, prepare for so much.

And there's just so many external factors that can affect your career.

And it kind of goes on to aviation in general.

Right.

It's all about timing.

It's all about kind of luck.

It's all about kind of just, just hoping it works out and being at the right place at the right time.

Which sounds like, thankfully you work, you got what you wanted.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

I mean, they say needs of the military trump Trump at all.

And you know, I know usually in the Air Force, I mean, and I haven't looked at it closely lately, but typically there's a couple of fighter slots available, you know, usually.

But yeah, you never know.

You could, you could be the number one guy.

And they go, sorry, that's not what we have now is what we need now.

Actually, any pilots are going back.

You're going to be a mechanic.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Going to be.

Going to be a commissary officer in Keflavik, Iceland.

Yeah.

And you're going to like it.

Right?

Talk about the OV10, though.

What made you kind of seek the.

I don't even know if you sought it, but what made you excited about flying that?

Well, number one, it was.

I was gonna.

I wasn't gonna stay as an instructor pilot.

It put me into at the time what they call Tactical Air Command.

And I knew I would get a fighter out of that.

So I had all my list.

My first choice of airplane was a 10.

I had a 10, F16, F15 and that or an F15E.

They call it a wish list or dream sheet or something like that.

I forgot exactly.

But we all put it down the two.

There was two other non guard or reserve pilots that got one got an F16, one got an F15, I assume because I had a 10 first.

You know, they tried to match it up as good as they could.

As good as they could with trying to make everybody happy.

Right.

I graduated second in my class, top graduate, was a reserve guy, so he was going to an F16, you know, that widened part of the mix.

So I've always assumed that because I had a 10 first, OV10 was, you know, a near an adjacent type airplane.

Yeah, maybe.

So I didn't put it down as such, but I was ecstatic because I knew I just needed to get.

Not be an instructor pilot and get into Tactical Air Command and then it was going to be smooth sailing from there.

And so I did a year in the OV10, went to the F15 after that, and flew the F15 for another 25 years.

What was it about the A10 that put it number one?

Was it just the fact that it got you out of training, it got you out of the instructor, or did you just love the fact that it's essentially a flying machine gun?

Yeah, I think the A10 was just.

I like the, you know, the bigger gun, the 30 millimeter gun, the mission, you know, helping the dudes on the ground.

But look, I would have been ecstatic to any, anything, any tactical aircraft out of, out of pilot training.

I would have been.

I would have gone nuts over and again.

I still, I still literally.

This is twice during this podcast I've gotten chills thinking about Assignment Night.

That's awesome.

Assignment Night videos for the rest of us.

Watch it and see your face.

I wish, I wish that I had that video.

That was a while back.

Pretty cool.

Yeah, I would love to see it.

I don't think, I don't think my girlfriend was quite as happy because that meant I was leaving town.

But it was all good.

Yeah, you said girlfriend and not wife, so I'm guessing it worked out.

Yeah, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Now in the email you sent me when you're like, hey, well, I would love to be on the podcast, one of your kind of dash points here was almost landing a flaming OV10 at a Nevada brothel.

So.

Yeah, right.

That'll get your attention.

Yeah, I was like, oh, wow, haven't heard that one before.

I think it was, I was, I was flying out of Nellis for an exercise they called Air Warrior and I was doing forward air control, I think, for a 7s.

And you know, one of the things I loved about the OV10 is a second lieutenant.

I'm taking off.

Single ship going out to range, literally.

Clock map, brown, no gps, no ins.

Fallen roads, fallen maps, going to the target.

Shooting white phosphorus rockets at targets to mark them for flights of aircraft so they can shoot, you know, drop drop, practice bomb, sometimes live bombs.

So I'd been doing that for probably an hour and a half.

You know, OV10 had some long legs.

You could stay airborne for a long time.

My roommate had just left the area about 15 minutes ahead of me.

And I'm checking out.

I'm just heading back, just cruising back to Nellis.

The hard part's over.

I've saved up everything.

And I had some pretty good target markings.

So I was kind of pleased and kind of planning my evening that night.

And I was west of Mount Charleston.

And look, I haven't looked at the maps in years.

I don't remember exactly how far west of Nella State is, but I was west of Mount Charleston.

I got a number two engine caught on fire, visible fire, you know.

And so I shut it down, did whatever the procedures are.

I think we had a T handle up here, pulled the T handle, put a fire extinguisher out and the plane went out.

But whatever altitude I was at, Mount Charleston was above a single engine service ceiling that day.

Now I was in a drift down.

But if I didn't make it over Mount Charleston, the nearest suitable landing field was a Nevada brothel.

I don't know if it's the Bunny Ranch or the, whatever, the Chicken Ranch or the Mustang Ranch or whatever they call it, but it has a strip there, you know, and the OV10, you could put down 3,000ft, you could put it down 3,000ft and have to taxi a thousand feet, you know, before you got there.

So that was the plan.

If I had amount, if I had not made over Mount Charlie, I go, well, this is going to be interesting.

And you know, sometimes I regret it.

Had I done that, you'd be going, oh, you're the.

You're the brothel guy.

Yeah, I'm sure you would have been received very well.

Right?

Yeah, it was, it was.

I was glad to.

I was glad to make it over.

Yeah, over the mountain.

But, yeah, that was.

It was an interesting time, no doubt.

Oh, man.

Yeah, I would.

Yeah, I can only imagine the headlines from that.

Right.

Yeah.

And.

And how much second guessing about you sure you couldn't make it over Mount Charlie?

And we're sure about that?

Yeah.

This is the second time you've done this Right.

Yeah, that's definitely interesting.

Do you.

Do you remember any kind of rough running of the engine at all or just kind of spontaneous?

Like all of a sudden, nowhere.

It's like, boom.

No.

No rubbing, no rough, nothing.

It was.

One second I'm.

I'm flying along fat, dumb, and happened.

The next thing, I have an engine.

Engine on fire.

Tried to call.

Tried to call ahead, right?

Right.

Yeah.

Tried to call ahead to my roommate who was, you know, I told you, airborne in front of me.

Maybe get a chase airplane, but he was already out of radio contact.

And.

Yeah, it was an interesting, interesting flight, no doubt.

So once you clear the mountain, made it to Nellis, everything was good.

No, no, I go into going to McCarran because McCarran was a little bit closer.

Yeah.

Well, I'll try to tell this story short.

They're landed on Runway 25.

They're landing west.

And I'm essentially on a. I'm essentially, I don't know, a 30 or 40 miles straight into McCarran.

And I. I declare call signs Mako.

I declared emergency once I could talk to someone on approach.

And McCarran said, well, can you go to Nellis?

Because I'm in a.

You know, I'm going to mess up their.

Their pattern.

Everything else.

I go, you know, I don't want to.

I didn't say this, but in my mind I go, I don't want to overfly Las Vegas with a single engine ov10.

I don't know why this thing caught on fire.

Don't know what's wrong.

Yeah.

So I said, no, I'm going to.

I'm going to.

I need to.

I'm coming into McCarran and I want to land on Runway 07.

And they said, well, we're landing on 2 5.

I said, well, I'm landing on 07.

And then they literally.

McCarran Tower gave me holding instructions.

Make 8, 1 hold west of field, 10 mile legs.

I went, no, not going to do that.

And then they said, well, can you land on Runway 25?

And I said, no, I'm sorry.

They said, can you land on Runway 01?

They have a northern Runway there or do you have to have 07?

I said, no, I want 07 say wins.

And they came back with okay into 07.

So I thought they said the winds were 1 2, 07, so I didn't care about them.

So in an OV10, I just continued the approach.

And in OV10, you don't drop the gear, single edge until you're Going to land, because when you do, you're going to land.

No one's going there.

So I land off the Runway, and essentially there's a ditch there that I couldn't tell it was a ditch.

If I land off the Runway and the left tire comes off, I go sliding across the infield, away from the airfield, sliding across from the infield.

I'm going, okay, this is an E ticket ride grip.

The handles.

Ov 10 had a 00 seat.

I think it was Martin Baker had a 00 ejection seat.

So you can eject on the ground.

Of course, it limits your options, right?

Everything's got to work.

A million miracles got to work.

I decided to stay with it.

Then I saw another ditch coming up, and I wasn't sure what was going to happen with that other ditch.

So I hands back on the handles again.

And then I just stuck with it, hit the ditch, knocked the gear off.

Bomb rack got knocked off, went up on a wing, came back down hard.

And now the plane is on fire.

I mean, this plane is on fire now.

And I pop open the canopy, run away bravely, standing out next to whatever the boulevard is there by the airplane with my helmet under my hand, looking at this burning airplane.

Who do I.

What do I say now?

Yeah, what just happened?

And then, you know, people already stopped.

The cars already stopped watching.

And I went.

And I remember taking.

Putting my helmet down on the ground so it looked less conspicuous.

And then, let's see, the airport manager drove out and without getting permission to cross the Runway, and a DC10 had to go around.

And ambulance came out.

And they saw me.

They said, we thought we were going to pry a corpse out of the airplane.

I go, no, I'm all right.

I wish I did.

But now I'm going to call people and tell people about this.

Yep, exactly right.

By the time I got.

So I called my squadron on the airport manager's phone in his car, literally a phone with a curly cord on it.

And they had heard from McCarran Tower, who called Nellis Tower, who called my squadron.

So you got the.

You know, the story changes.

They thought I was dead.

Oh, wow.

And so when the guy answered the phone and I say, hey, this is Deacon, I need to talk to whoever to go, wait, this is who I Go.

It's Deacon.

And they go, we thought you were dead.

And then once they realize I'm not now the.

You know, the macabre jokes start.

Like, well, we've already divided up your.

We've already divided up your stereo equipment.

And someone's on the phone with your girlfriend.

Yeah.

They're getting married.

Someone's asking.

Someone's asking your girlfriend out, and they.

And I get your stereo equipment.

Yeah.

Oh, man, that's.

Did you ever find out what the winds actually were?

Oh, yeah.

Winds were 360, gusting above 25 knots, which is above.

You can't land an OV10 with two engines in that.

I don't remember all the limitations now.

Yeah.

Above.

Above the limit.

Too much, though.

Too much.

Yeah.

And now you know why there's crossing limitations, right?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Man, oh, man.

I mean, I'm sure after you land, you're like, I should have just landed at the Bunny Ranch.

Like, I should have landed.

Yeah, yeah.

Had I.

And in the.

In the tower tapes.

Not.

They didn't say it over the radio, but it was in the.

You know, I guess their version of a cockpit voice recorder.

As I'm sliding across the infield, someone in the tower goes, oh, no, we didn't give him the winds.

They realized it at some point in that.

In that process.

But, yeah, I was.

Yeah, I would have.

If I'd known that I'd land on the north Runway or.

Yeah.

Or go to Nellis.

Nellis, I think, is.

It's been a while.

Yeah.

And four months later, I mean, four weeks, four years later, I'm back at nellis in an F15 and a big engine fire on the 15.

I'm going.

Okay.

I think I need to avoid Vegas area.

That's on my do not fly list.

And your bidding per.

And your bidding is that, like, do not fly anywhere near Vegas?

I. I did some red flags after that in the Eagle.

I flew there a bunch, but with airlines.

Like, my wife doesn't like me flying Las Vegas.

But one day on.

On.

On recovery, I got a.

A turn, a Dallas turn in the triple.

Oh, really?

To Vegas and back.

And Amy.

Is that like a. Amy goes.

Yeah.

She goes, are you ready?

You ready for this?

Sure.

Yeah.

Like, what's the worst I can.

That was my last.

My.

That was my.

My next.

Yeah.

My next time to McCarran after the OV10 was a triple.

Dang.

Yeah.

You don't see many of our triples in McCarran right.

Like it's not.

Or do.

Yeah.

I was like, I haven't been there in a while.

But I was like, I have no idea.

I have no idea what we were doing.

Why they put a triple on that.

On that only plane available.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

I think we actually got a no notice check right, too.

We had a.

We had a chick air flight as well.

Why not?

Yeah.

Okay.

You guys want to hear some stories?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You want to hear about the last.

Time I came to see that ditch right there?

That's actually because of my airplane.

And then that scorched earth is because of my F15.

That's right.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

So what happened with the F15, you.

Know, number two engine again getting ready to go out to red flag.

Big exercise, great exercise.

And engine just caught on fire.

It ended up later on we found out at those old F100, F100 engines had a 13 stage turbine.

The third stage was notoriously weak.

And it threw a blade.

It was.

That was a barn barrel.

I thought I was going to eject three times.

That one I caught on fire initially had some controllability problems.

Yeah.

Got the fire to a small fire.

I had a chase airplane that was with me and he was monitoring a hole in my afterburner.

But I'm having controllability issues.

The fire hadn't gone out.

Next step in the checklist is the fire.

Persist.

Eject.

I don't feel like ejecting.

It was cold.

I wasn't wearing a jacket.

There's mountains below me.

Almost cold.

That's cold.

Almost went to Area 51.

Oh, wow.

That was.

That was the nearest.

That was the nearest suitable landing field.

But I didn't want to fly over some mountains to get there.

Okay.

So with this chaser plane the whole way we get about 40 miles away from Nellis and now I get another fire light.

And I wrote an article for flying safety magazine, Air Force's flying safety magazine.

It's called Deacon.

Now you're really on fire.

Because that's what my wingman said.

That's what my chase airplane said when.

And he says, there's flames about 15ft out the back of your airplane.

And I could turn around.

I turned around the cockpit and I could see the flames now.

And I went, you kidding me?

I like Deacon.

Now you're really on fire.

Now you're really on fire.

That was a line.

It was a great line.

It was.

Keith Acrey was his name.

Great chase airplane, great wingman.

Had as much to do with me getting that jet home safely.

As.

As I did.

And I started getting my stuff to it.

They started getting ready to eject, kind of going, you've got to be kidding me.

You know, putting classified into my G suit pockets and stuff.

And as I. I don't know, I was probably a minute away from ejecting when he said, hey, it's back to the small fire.

Which at that point, the small fire was a good thing, right?

Yeah.

And so, oh, yeah, small fire.

We do a controllability check, keep going towards Nellis.

We talk to the sof.

Oh, also, my airspeed indicator had gone out.

I don't have any air speed.

I don't have any.

I can't dump fuel.

I try to.

Can't do, jettison my tanks.

So I've got our hands full.

Toto, the wingman is chase airplane is reading the airspeeds and stuff.

So we do a controllability check.

And at 190 knots, the plane.

I can't.

The plane rolls to the right.

I can't stop it.

So I had to land at 200 knots.

And normally an Eagle, you fly final.

It's around 160 on final.

Regardless, you know, it varies how much airspeed.

So 200.

200 is going to be fast.

But they do some math on weight.

I think they get McDonnell Douglas on the line, they do some math on my weight, weight and stuff.

And they go, well, you can, you can land if you take the departure end cable.

You know, most fighter bases have a cable to help stop airplanes with hydraulic problems or brake problems.

It's not a rapid deceleration like on an aircraft carrier.

It's a slow deceleration.

Yeah.

So that's the plan.

I don't necessarily like the plan, but the only other option is go to the controlled bailout and bailout.

And I don't like that option as much as I like landing with a departure and cable, because you're out of options once you.

If you're on the departure and cable and you miss it, well, now you're off the Runway.

Right.

But that's what we're going to do.

So I touch down at 200 knots.

You don't flare at 200 knots.

You just fly it on the Runway.

And Toto, my chase airplane, says, I get past the approaching cable, right?

1500ft down.

I feel it bump and I start to breathe a sigh of relief and I drop my hook.

And Toto says, the chase airplane's right there with me.

He goes, hey, Deacon, drop your hook.

I said, I did.

He Goes, it's not down.

And I just go, you Fred Flintstone, man.

Just stomp on both brakes.

I feel both.

We had a good analog brakes and eagle, but I feel both brakes.

I feel them both pop.

Both tires pop.

Toto says, hey, your.

Your wheel stacks are on fire now, and don't say anything unless you got.

Something good to say right now.

And I told the.

I keyed the mic, told the tower.

I go, I think I'm objecting to the right way.

The fire truck was down there, and turns out I got to stop about 200ft per the Runway, popped the canopy.

Popped the canopy up and ran away bravely again.

Fire truck came out, put out the.

You know, put out the fires.

The fires on the.

On the gear and the.

And turned out later, the hook had actually fused to the airplane.

The fire was so hot that the.

The hook fused to the bottom of the airplane.

I kept it for.

I drugged that hook around for 20 something years.

I paid the main.

I paid the maintenance guys money in a trip to a restaurant to get that hook for me after they finished investigation.

Yeah.

So for 20 years, I carried around this charred hook.

It's very heavy.

Doesn't really fit the decor that Amy has planned.

So when I retired, I gave it to the Squadron Bar.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good place for it.

Yeah, yeah.

It's probably.

Probably.

Probably better in my living room.

Like, why is your flight bag so heavy?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

My hook that almost killed me.

Carry it with me everywhere I go.

Yeah, it's my support hook.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh, dude.

I mean, I have had some emergencies as, like, I feel like some people are just like, you know, they just get them.

I don't know what it is, like, if we have, like, a frequency, but it's like, if something's gonna happen, it's gonna happen when he's in the airplane.

I had a. I had a lot.

We lost an engine on takeoff off on my ioe.

Really?

Yeah.

Second.

Second sortie at American Airlines.

You're like seven.

Yeah.

I was on the panel.

I was.

I was a flight engine at the time.

Seven two out of Chicago, and, I don't know, around 400ft.

It felt like we hit something.

I thought we hit another airplane.

Yeah.

And I don't remember what you do on the panel, but whatever it was, I just had, you know, I just come off.

I have a. I have a Czech airman behind me who's watching everything, and he jumps up, and I've just had 12 emergency sims the last two weeks.

So whatever it was I was supposed to do, I did.

And he goes.

He looks and he kind of goes, well, I guess you got this, Deacon.

And we turn back around and land.

And I'm thinking, man, I don't know what it is.

So I stay prepared.

I always know where the nearest patch of Runway is.

Yeah, that's funny.

Yeah.

I mean, I.

So when I was in training, they were like, yeah.

And an instructor pilot came in.

He's like, we actually just.

Someone was flying.

Second day of oe, we lost an engine.

He did everything perfect.

It's like, well, yeah.

Quizzes have been doing it for the last 25 Sims.

Right.

Right.

He's like, it's my time to shine, man.

I got this.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Start the ap.

Absolutely.

Probably the be.

Probably the best time, right?

Absolutely.

They had.

Had so many of them.

Yeah.

Geez, man.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

I feel like when.

I don't know what it is, but once something.

Once something happens, I feel like there's just like the next one's just right around the corner.

Just.

Yeah.

I've always been told that things happen in threes.

I don't know if you've had three yet or if that's happening is.

Yeah.

So let's.

I hope they happen in threes.

If they do, I'm good.

I got.

I got two and a half more years.

Not to get to six, I guess.

But hopefully does that start the next set of threes?

If you have one more.

Oh, gosh.

Oh, my gosh, man.

That's insane.

You definitely have some.

Some great stories about that.

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I've always, always wanted a plane from Textron Aviation.

My dream plane is a 182, maybe a 206.

So hopefully in the next couple of years, we can make that happen.

But shout out Textron Aviation, and as I said, make sure you go to txtav.com.

you also mentioned that you got to fly Drew brees on the F15, which is pretty interesting.

Yeah.

My boss called one day.

I was down.

I was the wing commander down at Navy New Orleans, New Orleans Naval air Station, the F15 wing down there.

And my boss had called, and I don't remember what the impetus was, but it wasn't started from our end.

And I think some public relations folks had a couple of cocktails at a New Orleans bar and started talking about it.

Next thing you know, I get a phone call, and my boss says, hey, we're gonna fly Drew Brees.

I want you to fly them.

Yes, sir.

Had a buddy with him.

We got him some seat training.

One of the stories that I that I've told recently is.

And look, he was the most genuinely nice, kind, compassionate, love the military guy.

I became a lifelong fan that day.

And there was no media involved.

Right.

This was not Drew performing for the cameras.

This was Drew being Drew.

What a fantastic guy.

So our guys give him some injection training just real quick.

It's just rudimentary, but you got to do it, because I think.

I think someone punched out the back of an F18 on the center right up in Massachusetts recently.

Yeah.

So you.

You got to tell them some things.

Yeah, Right, right.

And so I remember, I said, you got any questions about this?

And he said, he goes, go through that part again about if we catch fire on the ground.

I go.

I go, look, Drew, here's the deal.

If we catch fire on the ground, I'm going to be in your lap, unstrapping you before the canopy's open.

Because if you think I'm going to be the guy that let Drew Breeze burn in the back of an F15, I go, I'd have to leave the country.

Have to join the witness protection plan and leave the country and take my family with me.

We flew him.

We went straight up, went supersonic, pulled nine GS.

And I've probably done 50 or 60 of these flights with someone in the backseat through my career.

Mostly we call them center Flights, you know, airmen that have done something worthy, won an award.

And I will tell you that athleticism doesn't mean you're going to do good in the.

In the cockpit, you know, at all.

It's not a good indicator how good a shape you're in.

It just depends.

Well, we did.

We did all that.

Pulled some GS, and I go, he wanted to.

We were going to fly over the Saints training camp on the way home.

And I said, hey, we've got just a little bit of gas left before we need to leave.

Anything else you want to see before we leave?

And he asked a question, which no backseater has ever asked me before since, which was, can we pull more GS?

Wow.

And I'm thinking, man, I'm not even sure I'm up.

But we did.

And then on the way home, I was a little bit taken aback at how well he did in the air.

It was just, you know, he's already, you know, a star quarterback, elite athlete.

You'd like to, you know, have something up on him, like, maybe he can't handle GS, though.

But he did fine.

Then on the way home, Houston center knew he's in the backseat, and they said, hey, Jazz1, ask Bravo, which is what you call the back seater.

Ask Bravo what hurts worse, nine GS or a 300 pound lineman?

And I go, did you hear that, Drew?

He goes, not even close.

It's a lineman.

Oh, man.

Okay.

All right.

It was easy.

Yeah, that was great.

We landed.

He looked better than I did.

We've got pictures before and after.

He looked fresh.

And then the thing that really endeared him to me was he stayed out there probably three or four hours, shaking hands, signed autographs.

He went down to alert at the end of the Runway where there's only 12 people there, right?

But they can't leave that area.

He drove down there just to shake hands with those 12 people.

He's getting ready to leave.

And the Navy skipper called me.

He goes, hey, Deacon, there's two busloads of Marines getting ready to go to Afghanistan.

They're literally on buses going to get on a charter here.

He goes, you think Drew come by and say hello?

And I go, I'll ask him, but he's been here a long time.

And so I told him, I said, look, Drew, no pressure, man.

You've already gone well above and beyond.

And he said something.

I'll never forget it.

He said.

He goes, deacon, I'll stay here as long as there's anybody who gets Anything out of shaking my hand.

I mean, wow.

And he went.

And those marines piled off the buses, and he shook hands and signed autographs and posed for pictures with it.

You know, that.

That great smile on his face.

You know, I just can't say enough about him.

He was such a.

Such a great guy.

Yeah.

You know, and shout out Drew Brees.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, it was fantastic.

Fantastic guy.

Even though I'm a Carolina Panther fan and we had a lot of battles against him.

You know, I'll give him this one.

Yeah, you got to.

Yeah, got to give him that one.

I don't want to like you, Drew, but I guess I have to now.

You have to.

Yeah, you have to cheer for him, but you got to like him.

There you go.

Yeah, he doesn't play anymore, so it's.

I don't worry about that, but.

Yeah, right.

He actually.

So I went to Ohio State.

I played football at Ohio State.

Yeah.

Purd.

So we even have that, too.

So there's a lot of rivalry between me and Drew.

Yeah, absolutely.

Now I know he would do better in the backseat of an F15 than I would, because I would have passed out, like, three GS.

He would have been like, justin, you'd be like, no, I'm not.

Yeah, he literally.

He literally did as good or better than anyone that I ever flew.

Man.

That's crazy.

Including some pilot.

Like, I flew.

I flew some pilots that flew, like, C21s or something in the back seat, and they.

And they didn't do as good as Drew did.

Another thing you reach, you said, that's really interesting.

Not many people can say this.

Is that on 9 11, you said that you were set to scramble to intercept Air Force One.

Yeah.

So I was at home on 9 11.

We were going to night fly that night.

I was a full timer at the guard unit.

Yeah.

By that point, most of our guys are part timers.

They're all, you know, they're airline guys.

They're out and about woke up, heard about the first plane hitting the tower and thought, like, a lot of people did that it was a light airplane or something like that.

And then saw the second one hit, as I recall.

I think I saw it live.

And I went, okay, I know what that means.

I threw on my flight suit, grabbed a bag of.

I didn't know how long it'd be gone or anything else, and just went screaming down the highway towards the base.

We got there, and, of course, there's a lot of confusion initially, but if you remember, President Bush went from Florida to Barksdale Air Force Base, which is in Shreveport, Louisiana.

And that's where he talked, first time to the country, I think.

But he was talking, and there's only four or five pilots there.

And as he's talking, you know, our wing commander had already started loading up our airplanes with live missiles just preemptively, you know, kind of like, no one knows yet.

And I said, we're the closest fighters to Barksdale.

I go, I'm going to start getting dressed.

I started putting on my G suit, on my harness.

And about that time, NORAD calls and says, can you give us a classified.

We need your classified fax number.

Don't have one.

This is the.

It's not the weekend.

Our command post is not open.

I go, I have an unclassified fax.

And they said, all right.

And they sent a classified fax to us.

I still have a copy of it.

The one I flew with is in the National Guard museum in Washington, D.C. but I have a copy of the.

Have a copy of the actual one.

And it was the operative sentence in it.

The rules of engagement were kind of long, but the operative sentence was, the Vice President has authorized you to intercept targets of interest and shoot them down if they don't respond.

And I remember my squadron commander at the time, Randy Riccardi, Bob Lew looks at that and he goes, I wonder if Dick Cheney knows.

F15 doesn't have a VHF radio, but we made copies of that, rules of engagement, put it in our pockets.

And about, oh, I don't know.

Not long after that, NORAD called and go get anything and get airborne with missiles.

Get airborne now and go find Air Force One.

So there was four of us.

And we start running off to the jets.

I think I was Jazz 4 that day, took off, told Houston center, hey, we want a vector of 3, 30 at about 45,000ft.

And Houston center said, any altitude, any airspeed airspace is yours.

No one else is airborne, he said, except for.

And they said, special package one.

That's what they called Air Force One.

So we started beelining that way.