Byron Hukee shares the story of his career as an Air Force pilot. He flew everything from the F-100 to the F-16. The first part of his series is here.
Following a looooong year at Webb AFB for UPT, I was heading to Luke AFB in Phoenix, Arizona for my first “real” Air Force assignment to learn to fly the F-100 Super Sabre. The Hun was the first of the Century Series fighters that entered USAF service in 1954 when I was in the third grade, but in 1971, it was nearing the end of its 17 years of service with the USAF, and I was about to get checked out in it with my meager 231 hours of flying time… 30 hours in the T-41, 89 hours in the T-37 and 112 hours in the T-38!
My Career Begins in the “Real” Air Force
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I arrived at Luke with my wife and son who was born in Big Spring, Texas five days earlier. We got settled in and I reported for duty at my new assignment the following Monday. As I was taught at OTS, I was to report to the commanding officer of my new unit, the 311th Tac Fighter Training Squadron, so I did so as soon as I arrived at the squadron. After knocking on the door of the squadron commander, I entered and snapped a sharp salute. I noticed the name plate on the desk and said, “Good morning Col F_ck Face (I pronounced it fewk fa-say), Second Lieutenant Byron Hukee reporting for duty”, not realizing it was a prank name plate. With that inauspicious beginning, I got unprocessed into the squadron and tried to get my shit together.
I Learn How to Fly the F-100
We were being trained not only on how to fly the F-100, but more importantly, how to employ it as a weapons system. Our next station of assignment was expected to be Phan Rang AB in the Republic of South Vietnam. All of the instructors in the 311th TFTS had at least one Vietnam combat tour in the F-100, and some had more. They also were long-timers in the aircraft with tours in Europe and elsewhere. For many, this was their retirement assignment and that resulted in an awesome and loose training environment.
The training course consisted of 240 hours of academic training and 120 training flight hours. We had academic training each day, and flew two or three times a week. My assigned IP wan one of the old heads who stated he was the high time F-100 pilot in the world without ever having to jump out of one. I flew both the F-100F and the F-100D models during training. Though he survived our class with his record intact, I later found out that he and his student had to eject from their F-100F when the engine failed during a training mission,
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The first couple of rides in each phase of training were dual in the F-100F. Once we were proficient, we mostly flew the single seat D model. The first phase of training was simply to learn how to fly the aircraft and get it safely back on the ground. My logbook shows I had one “sandbag” ride in the back seat, followed by five rides in the front seat of the F model before I took to the skies alone on 1/28/1971 in F-100D tail number 55-3752. A quick check shows that this F-100D later became a QF-100D so I guess I wasn’t as important as I felt since it obviously could fly without a pilot!
F-100 Was Easy To Fly, Tough To Master
The F-100 was not difficult to fly, but the workload greatly increased during aggressive maneuvering such as during air-to-air combat missions. The aircraft was definitely a “feet on the rudders’ aircraft. Those of us coming out of T-38s had to learn this quickly. During hard turns there was a tendency for the aircraft to exhibit “adverse yaw” which was a tendency for the jet to roll in the opposite direction that was intended. This had to be countered with “bottom rudder, that is if in a hard right turn, the right rudder had to be blended in to keep the jet turning to the right. The harder the turn, the more quickly you had to get the rudder involved to keep the Super Sabre under control. If you were late with the rudder, you could expect the Hun to roll hard in the opposite direction resulting in uncontrolled flight. It was not difficult to recover, but one could expect to lose plenty of altitude in the process. We practiced these maneuvers and the recovery at a safe altitude (around 20,000!) To become familiar with the recovery procedure.
And then there were the dreaded compressor stalls. These were most often caused when at high angles of attack and selecting afterburner. I learned this lesson the hard way when I tried to light the burner doing a defensive turn and reversing direction while lighting the afterburner. I saw the flames shoot forward out of the intake followed immediately thereafter by a loud BANG that I felt through the rudder pedals. I unloaded the aircraft (reduced angle of attack) and pulled the throttle back below military power. The engine ran fine after this, but I was forced to “knock it off” and return to base with my IP leading the way.
During training, we flew air-to-air missions and ground attack missions. Instrument training missions and air refueling missions were at the beginning of the course. The F-100 used the probe and drogue method of refueling where the fighter would fly his refueling probe into a 28 inch diameter drogue, aka basket. Let me say, this was the most intriguing and demanding activity I ever encountered. Consider both F-100 and KC-135 are flying at about 22,000 feet altitude at an airspeed of about 280 KIAS. It is really not that hard assuming you are in smooth air. But add a little chop and all bets are off. My instructor gave me a tip that I never forgot. He told me to take my feet off the rudders and tap my toes. I thought he was crazy, but I tried it and it helped me to relax and it then became a piece of cake.
My More Memorable F-100 Super Sabre Flights
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Some of my more memorable moments came on ground attack missions to Gila Bend range. I was number 2 in a four ship flight of F-100D models… four seats, four engines, four pilots! The lead was a lieutenant colonel who had about 3,500 hours in the F-100. We left Luke AFB to the south, turned east, cancelled IFR, and dropped to about 1,000 feet as we passed the Sierra Estrella Mountains on our right, headed east… no way you could do this now! We swung the turn to the south and set course for Gila Bend Range, now down to about 500’ AGL. We spread out into a tactical formation about 500’ apart. On the distant horizon we saw the tell-tale black smoke trails of a flight of F-4 Phantoms out of Davis Montham AFB headed home using the same valley we were in. The instructor said calmly,” OK boys, let’s take it down a little, hold your heading.” We were now down low enough to avoid the oncoming Phantoms and the saguaro cactus that were the highest obstacles in our flight path. At about two miles from the merge, we saw the F-4s abruptly climb in a pseudo bomb burst. One of my fellow lieutenants keyed the mike and said, “Thunderbirds!”. Quite an event that I will never forget.
During our ground attack training, we carried training ordnance that simulated general purpose bombs that were released from a diving delivery and napalm that was delivered from a level delivery at an altitude of 50 feet above the ground at 400 knots airspeed. When I asked the instructor how we could estimate 50 feet, he said when you pass the flank tower on your run in to the target, that is 35 feet high. If you are level with that tower, just climb it up a bit. Wow, those passes were exhilarating to say the least.
Big News Day
About three months into our training, we received word through our squadron commander that we were to have an important pilots meeting at the Officer’s Club on that Friday… all pilots were required to attend. We had no idea what would unfold, but it was quite a shock when we heard that F-100 operations in SEA at Phan Rang would cease and only the senior class of the three training classes would proceed to their F-100 assignments and head to Vietnam. The I was in and the one that had just begun training, would get new assignments, but would be allowed to continue to the end of the F-100 course. This was important as it would get us the F-100 fighter qualification that would later transfer to other USAF fighter aircraft.
When the list was read assigning those of us who would not go to Vietnam in the F-100, I was told I would be going to the A-1 Skyraider with the 1st SOS (special operations squadron) at Nahkon Phanom, Thailand. While at Luke AFB, I was promoted to 1st Lieutenant which at this period of time in the USAF was 18 months after commissioning for me, from OTS. If I kept my nose clean, my promotion to Captain would follow in an additional 18 months.
Graduation and a New Assignment
Our F-100 class graduated in late June 1971. After leaving Luke AFB, I had to complete two survival school courses before reporting to Hurlburt Field, Florida. I first went to Fairchild AFB for Basic Survival School, followed by a TDY (temporary duty) assignment to Homestead AFB, Florida for Water Survival School. I then reported to Hurlburt Field the end of July for my A-1 Skyraider checkout prior to my port call for Southeast Asia in October 1971.