"Rooster-Fighter Pilot" is a riveting story about a boy who had a dream about flying that he has never let go. He would concentrate while dreaming and lifted off the ground and flew over the fields and farms where he lived in France.
He lived out his dream by going to the U.S. Air Force Academy and learned about flying through his aeronautical engineering course and by obtaining a private pilot license while at the Academy in the T-41 aircraft, a military version of the popular Cessna 172 General Aviation aircraft.
The story continues at Undergraduate Pilot Training, where he learned how to fly low- performance and high-performance jet aircraft, the T-37 and T-38. He covers the challenges, trials, tribulations and victories involved with earning your pilot wings.
After graduating from pilot training, Rooster takes an assignment in a vintage trainer, the T-33 just barely missing a front-line fighter slot. He sharpens his skills in instrument flying and 12 months later finally moves into the combat F-4 Phantom aircraft. Once completing the 12-month upgrade to the F-4, he proceeds to Thailand to fly 25 combat missions up to the end of hostilities on August 15, 1973.
His follow-on assignment places him in the elite Aggressor force emulating the enemy and acting as a trainer and adversary for our own Blue Forces in the U.S. Air Force.
He continues this role at Nellis Air Force Base and on to Europe at Royal Air Force Base Alconbury in the United Kingdom.
After five years of flying Dissimilar Air Combat Training air-to-air training against the Blue Forces, he is able to rejoin them at Bitburg Air Base in the F-15 Eagle. Flying regularly against Aggressor adversary forces and our allies in Europe, he rises to a high level of proficiency and is promoted to major.
That meant it was time for a staff tour out of the cockpit temporarily. He is assigned to an organization within the Air Staff at The Pentagon responsible for developing new weapons and avionics for the fighter pilot community. He takes this opportunity to field an advanced gunsight for our fighters and finishes his Air Staff tour as the Executive Officer for the Director of Operational Requirements for the Air Force.
Finishing up at The Pentagon, he rejoins the Blue Forces once again in the cockpit of an F-15 and serves as the 12th Tactical Fighter Squadron Operations Officer known better as the Dirty Dozen. He implements pride, spirit, and discipline into the unit and an impeccable safety record for the three years he serves there.
Rooster is still flying today instructing student pilots and flying Angel Flight patients to their doctors. The book finishes with the bottom line that he will always be a fighter pilot and continue flying as long as he can.
