Fighter Pilot Up!

WGFP

You must know, to understand what follows, that although I am not of the military I was a military brat in my formative years. That is to say, my father was in the US Army until his retirement while I was in 7^th grade in the USA.

Over two decades later I found myself working for a regulatory agency as a geologist. Regulatory agencies are most often populated by folks who desire to provide a public service, albeit that service will be underpaid and taken for granted. Note that a baseball pitcher can make in a year what a policeman will make in a career — often much more. One is entertained by the pitcher and one assumes the police will come when you call. But, I digress.

As the new guy in my section I was brought along easily enough. After several months I was given many projects to help review and I seemed to specialize in those that were headed up by an engineer named William T. Washburn, who preferred to be called Bill, and to friends as WGFP. Bill was retired from the US Air Force where he had flown North American F-100 Super Sabres and LTV A-7 Corsair IIs. As you know, they are single pilot high performance jet aircraft. It may a bit overblown, but fighter pilots have a certain reputation for being arrogant and cocky.

And fighter pilots would be quick to agree as well as add that they are generally above the rest of the rabble that most of us are known as 😉

But this isn’t really so. They are not this way. To those without experience and overview, arrogance is misinterpreted for a high degree of training, surviving an 80% failure rate, and cockiness for self-confidence borne by experience. I know this from meeting my Dad’s military colleagues and friends. Growing up I was surrounded by professionals of high order.

And I got most of Bill’s permit application projects when there were ground water reviews involved.

Why? Because I was new? Since he had easy ones? A matter of coincidence?

It was because I was the only one of four in the section that he had not ever ticked off!

Why was that?

Because I was familiar with the military life I knew that the pressures of high expectations are tempered with sarcasm. Sarcasm, if it is done well, indicates a high state of alertness and situational awareness. Not common qualities in most of us, I am afraid to say. People like this are also talented at looking at multiple perspectives for each scenario that must be dealt with at the moment — yet another uncommon trait.

Sarcasm is the lingua franca among these professionals. It is how almost all of them speak. There is a line not to cross and fine that line is. In the civilian world that line is more of a vast morass where political correctness is substituted for direct talk and clichés du jour for analysis or interpretation — so most folks stay away and seek the safe high ground. But it is the edge of the envelope where things are the most interesting, it’s the connecting of the specialty boxes where breakthroughs are made and it is initiative that causes forward movement not management playing things safe in a self-serving interest for future promotions. Bill’s environment of choice, after flying as you may imagine, was the edge of the envelope when he was at the agency where we worked.

Bill is also listed as one of a select few persons to not only survive a high speed ejection but to do so unscathed. His F-100 caught fire while in flight over Italy. He related that every **** light was lit on the instrument panel and they were all red. He radioed his wingman, who help guide him on a course away from habitation, and he continued to fly the jet now fated to make only one more, but spectacular, return to earth as a Roman candle. Only one error was made, he didn’t reduce throttle and so his ejection was done at about 400 mph (640kph). He said he didn’t recall what must have been a brutal hit as his body went from a no wind cockpit environment to a wind speed more than four times the force of a hurricane’s in less than the blink of one’s eye. But no physical injuries thanks to the Martin-Baker company. I would tell him that I thought his squat build was due to that ejection whenever we were wrapped up on a point and needed a wider overview.

Another time, and quite uncharacteristically, he was a bit down about our recent permitting and compliance events. He noted that there were just so many operations that were working out of compliance and knowing we had limited resources to go after them, at the time. He was right about the situation and he was glum. I mentioned that things were good, really good. His look showed that he thought that I was touched or had somehow misheard him. Then I mentioned that we were like the wild weasel mission aircrew — heading alone into territory rife with hostile activity ahead of the main force with so many targets that all we really had to do was to point our noses and we’d surely find something that needed attention. Did his face light up and with an ear-to-ear grin! And then he departed and with afterburner selected for all stages, storming off to his office singing the praises of a target rich environment. Initiative and confidence aplenty 🙂

WGFP passed away quite recently. Leaving behind him a life that was complete with children, a wife and ex-wives, two careers and a model railroad collection or two. Soon, on 4 January 2010, he will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery. I’ll visit his grave site on my next visit to Washington DC — a place reserved for only those who have served the USA — out of respect for his service as much as for the many issues were tackled together. And I will then discover if WGFP is on his marker.

WGFP — what does that stand for, you ask?

WGFP stands for the World’s Greatest Fighter Pilot.

We did talk about that arrogance and cockiness, now didn’t we 😉

Errata: I learned from Bill’s son (see the comments, below) that the country where he was forced to eject was Spain. I apologize for my dimming memory.