Lessons From The Cockpit

Welcome folks to the eighty-third episode of the lessons from the cockpit show! I am your host Mark Hasara, a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force and former KC-135 pilot. Captain John Markle was an F-4 Phantom II pilot in the famous 550th Tactical Fighter Squadron in the spring and summer of 1972, some of the most intense periods of the air campaign over North Vietnam. The LINEBACKER ONE campaign began on 10 May 1972, and John was flying in the famous OYSTER flight, shooting down a MiG-21 Fishbed that day. John also tells us about his shoot-down and Recovery on another mission.  This episode of the Lessoons from the Cockpit Show is financially supported by www.wallpilot.com, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. You can choose from the 154 Ready-to-Print aircraft profiles of your favorite airplanes, which are printed and vinyl in four, six, and eight foot lengths you can peel off and stick on any flat surface. We have learned these graphics are also water proof! Wall Pillot also does Custom Aviation profiles. If you have a favorite airplane you want to put your name on, from a favorite unit, with a cool weapons load, then fill out the custom form and we can draw it up for you. These are highly detailed and exhaustively researched profiles of aircraft, so detailed you can read the stenciling on the weapons! This F-4D Phantom II was the jet everyone wanted to fly in the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron. It had the best engines which made this jet faster, but most importantly had the COMBAT TREE Identification Friend or Foe system in its radar. Aircrews flying this jet had a greater advantage over North Vietnamese Air Force pilots because COMBAT TREE could identify enemy aircraft 30 to 40 miles away. This F-4E Phantom II was part of the famous 388th Tactical Fighter Wing stationed at Korat Royal Thai Air Base in Thailand. This F-4E is armed for a Surface-to-Air Missile or SAM Hunter-Killer mission, carrying electronic countermeasure pods and CBU-52 cluster bombs used to destroy the SAM Site SA-2 launchers. The Republic F-105G Wild Weasel was used in the most intense mission of an air campaign, hunting SAM sites across North Vietnam, an extremely dangerous mission. The electronics in the F-105G showed where the SAM radras were operating from and the crews would fire a Shrike or Standard ARM anti-radiation missile at the site. F-4s armed with cluster bombs would then come in and destroy the launchers. This F-105G had three MiG kills during the Vietnam air campaign, one when the pilot ejected its bomb rack which the MiG chasing it ran into and destroyed it! Thanks for downloading this and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit show! This and previous shows can be found on my YouTube Channel at @markhasara or on the Lessoons from the Cockpit Show YouTube channel. We will be back in two weeks with another episode. I will be on the road next week for the Tanker Weapons School’s 25th anniversary.  

Welcome to all my listeners out there to the 81st episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast I am your host Mark Hasara and I'm a veteran of four Wars, an initial Cadre member of the kc-135 weapons school, and curriculum director at National Defense University's Joint Combined Warfighter School One of the great experiences of hosting this show and being a member of the Red River Valley Association is being in contact with these Vietnam heroes. Today we are talking to one of my childhood heroes! Air Force Colonel Chuck DeBellevue was the highest scoring Ace of the Vietnam War, destroying six MiGs while flying F-4 Phantoms in the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the famous Triple Nickel. On today's show Chuck's going to talk about not only knocking down MiGs, but flying Forward Air Control missions and going after nasty air defense sites. Wait till you hear about him getting hit by an 85 or 100 mm shell! This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show is brought to you and financially supported by Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. These are highly detailed and exhaustively researched profiles of famous aircraft printed on vinyl in four, six, and 8 ft lengths you can peel off and stick to walls or any flat surface. The vinyl prints are even waterproof, a good friend has his unit patches on the rear window of his truck for over a year. So go to wall pilot.com, order a couple of our 144 Ready-to-Print graphics. If there's a favorite airplane you want your name on, from a particular unit, with a cool weapons load, fill out the custom request form on the website at wallpilot.com. Chuck talked about flying a famous F-4D Phantom II now on display in the quad at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. This is the famous F-4D tail number 463 Chuck flew on several of his MiG CAP missions, equipped with the Combat Tree IFF interrogation system, and some super duper engines. F-4D tail 463 had a great crew chief in Staff Sergeant Reggie Taylor, keeping 463 in top shape.. Two of Chuck's kills with then Captain Steve Ritchie in the front seat were accomplished in a 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron F-4E deployed from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Here is a cool picture of Chuck and Steve just after landing from the MIGCAP mission with all of the external tanks punched off! This version of the Phantom has the 20mm Vulcan Cannon in the nose.   This F-105G Wild Weasel was assigned to the 17thWild Weasel Squadron flying out of Korat Royal Thai Air Base and accompanied every package into North Vietnam, particularly going anywhere in Route Pack 6 and the Hanoi and Haiphong area. This F-105G Wild Weasel tail number 320 has the distinction of three North Vietnamese MiGs destroyed, one by Vulcan cannon, one by AIM-9 Sidewinder, and supposedly a MiG-17 when the pilot punched off the centerline multiple ejector bomb rack! This F-4E Phantom II flew with the 34th Tactical Fighter Squadron, carrying Surface-to-Air Missile and Suppression of Enemy Air Defense missions. F-4Es flew as the wingmen with the F-105F/G Weasels launching an anti-radiation missile at the radar, and F-4Es dropping CBU-52 cluster bombs to destroy remnants of the site.   This and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit show can be listened to and downloaded from the podcast website at Lessons from the Cockpit.show. All episodes can be found there with the show notes. Episodes are also found on my YouTube channel @markhasara. Become a member of our All Ranks Club, a coin-holding member of our shAll Ranks Club,and every member who joins will get unpublished chapters from my book Tanker Pilot and the history of air refueling. There were 31 chapters unpublished I will send to everyone who joins the All Ranks Club monthly for $8, or yearly for $80. Paying members of the All Ranks Club also receive some of the cool graphics we are making, 7 inch profiles you can stick on water bottles, walls, or even your vehicle. All Ranks Club members will also have a one to two hour Zoom meeting with me to just talk aviation. Go by www.lessonsfromthecockpit.show to join. Next week we meet another Vietnam MiG destroyer Captain John Markle, who flew in formations with Chuck DeBellevue. We look forward to talking to you next week on the Lessons from the Cockpit show.  

Welcome to the 80th episode… eight zero… of the Lessons from the Cockpit show! I am your host Mark Hasara and for over 60 years my passion has been all things aviation. This is episode two with the Flight Operations Director Jamie McCarthy of Port City Air on what used to be Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In this episode he's going to talk about FBO planning and execution lessons learned when you have everything from big airplanes like a C-5M Galaxy to Executive Jets like Gulfstream G550 needing services at Port City Air. Every once in a while things don't go the way they're planned and Jamie tells a great story about how they obtained a massive C-5 tow bar when a Galaxy had a bleed duct failure and how to handle a fuel truck hitting a G550 winglet. The Lessons from the Cockpit show is financially supported by Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hangar; these are incredibly detailed aircraft profiles printed on vinyl in four, six, and eight foot lengths you can peel off and stick on any flat surface. There are 144 ready to print aircraft profiles on the Wall Pilot homepage. Wall Pilot can also draw your favorite airplane with your name, unit, squadron, and your favorite weapons load. Just go to wallpilot.com and fill out the custom survey for your airplane. We also do unit patches, which we've found out all of our stuff is waterproof! Jamie speaks about several A-10 Warthog aircraft that come through Port City Air FBO for servicing during Large Force Exercises in Europe. This A-10 Warthog is from the Indiana Air National Guard Black Snakes squadron, the Hawg as it is called is the ground grunts best friend! While he and I were walking around the airfield several KC-135s were operating from the Pease ramp. This KC-135 is the airplane that had my name on it in the 90s while stationed with the 909th Air Refueling Squadron, Kadena Air Base in Okinawa Japan. When aircraft are deploying to Europe or the Middle East, chances are good that KC-10 Extenders are dragging them across the pond. This KC-10 is from the 60th Air Mobility Wing based at Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco California. The F-15 Eagle has always been one of my favorite airplanes! this is an F-15E from The 391st Fighter Squadron "Bold Tigers" based at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. It is carrying a Close Air Support and Battlefield Air Interdiction weapons load of GPS and laser-guided bombs with air-to-air missiles. Thanks for downloading and listening to this episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show. We are almost at 27,000 downloads now. This and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit show can now be found on my YouTube channel @MarkHasara. I’m now posting the audio and video on my YouTube channel! I also do some pretty fantastic short videos on aviation and military subjects on my YouTube channel. You can also find all episodes of the lessons from the cockpit show on my website at www.markhasara.com Next week we’ll hear from the highest scoring MiG Ace of the Vietnam War and talk to him about chasing and shooting down MiGs but also being a Fast Forward Air Controller doing Road Reconnaissance at night along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Thanks for tuning in and we'll talk to you next week on the Lessons from the Cockpit show.  

Welcome to the seventy-ninth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show! This one was done on location so get ready for some cool background jet noise! My wife and I recently were guests of Port City Air, a Fixed Base Operations or FBO at my first base of assignment Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Port City Air has an incredible reputation among military fliers! I walked the ramp with Port City Air's Director of Flight Operations Jamie McCarthy while recording our conversation. We had a blast discussing what an FBO does, watching props, jets, and helos coming in and going out... including a scary moment when an engine quit! Jamie explains what it takes to keep military and civilian aviation moving 24/7/365... to include a broken C-5! This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show is financially supported by Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. Go by www.wallpilot.com and order one or two of the Ready-to-Print four, six, or eight foot long aircraft profiles printed on vinyl you can peel off and stick to any flat surface. Wall Pilot also creates custom aircraft profiles of your favorite aircraft with your name, tail number and weapons load on the aircraft, from WWII P-51 Mustangs to F-35 Lightning IIs and F-22 Raptors. While Jamie and I walked the ramp a KC-135 was being refueled for another operational mission the next day. This KC-135 was my personal jet while stationed at Kadena Air Base on the island of Okinawa Japan in the 1990s. Twenty one years later I flew home Space Available from England on tail number 8874, which had 26,000 hours on the air frame and over 16,000 landings! All kinds of fighters fly in and out of Pease International Airport now. This F-15E from the 335th Fighter Squadron was the jet flown by one of my guests during the Battle of Robert's Ridge on 4 March 2002, a low point in Operation Anaconda because of the loss of so many soldiers and a Navy SEAL. The F-16 is one of the most popular fighter aircraft in the world. This F-16CJ Wild Weasel is assigned to the 35th Fighter Wing and the 14th Fighter Squadron Samuaris out of Misawa Air Base in Japan. The Crew Chief of this jet took a black grease pencil and filled in the corners of the 8s on the tail, the airplane is still called 'BOB' to this day. The Crew Chief said it stood for "Bombs over Baghdad." Jamie mentioned during the show KC-10s often stop at Pease International while flying missions to and from Europe and the Middle East. This KC-10 is assigned to the 60th Air Mobility Wing at Travis AFB in California. Three KC-10s had left Pease and Port City Air's ramp the day before we arrived. There is only ONE fighter aircraft in the history of the world that has never been shot down in combat, the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. This F-15C from Desert Storm was the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing's flagship and shot down three Iraqi fighter jets during the conflict. Thanks once again for downloading this and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit show, which can be found at www.lessonsfromthecockpit.show or on my website at www.markhasara.com. All episodes are now on my Lessons from the Cockpit YouTue channel also.  Next week we will finish our discussion with Jamie McCarthy on Fixed Base Operations and what Port City Air does for customers coming through Pease International Airport.