Transcripts For CSPAN3 Topgun - U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School 20240714

Off your cell phone or anything that might make noise during the program. Thank you for doing that. This past march marked the 50th anniversary of the u. S. Navy Fighter Weapons program. We are thrilled this evening to welcome the programs founder, dan pederson. He entered the u. S. Navy in 1953 and went on to become the senior officer in the group of nine men who formed the legendary Top Gun Program at Naval Air Station miramar in march of 1969. He served in combat during the vietnam war with the flying crews on the uss hancock and three on the uss enterprise. He retired as a captain, having accumulated 6100 flight hours and 1005 flight carrier landings while flying 39 different types of aircraft. For those of you who know pedersons story from the 1986 movie, top gun, Jerry Bruckheimer is producing, top gun maverick, a sequel in 2020. His book is available for purchase and signing following this conversation. Here to keep the conversation going is larry burke, curator of Naval Aviation at the national air and space museum. Please join me in welcoming dan pedersen and larry burke. [applause] you ready to go . Ok. Im going to take about 10 minutes to just set the stage for larry to go back and forth in final preparation for the questions coming from you. How many of you have actually read the book . Good. That really gives me free play. [laughter] dan especially with a couple of squadron mates back here to keep me honest. Ill tell you how the book came about. The 50th anniversary on the third of march of this year top gun was conceived on that date 50 years ago. Sounds like a long time. Tells you something about how old i am. Jim horn fisher, whos my literary agent, has four best sellers of his own. And he came to me, along with the famous condor, who you see here in the pictures. They said were getting close to 50 years. Its time to put the legacy in writing. Ive been fighting with the brits. I can show you the letters ive been getting from london newspapers. Somebody over there says, yeah, we started top gun and then the americans took it over. That would kind of ruffle your feathers, which it did. We had been fighting back and forth over time. To tell the story. The one that be was drafted by the original eight guys because i was a senior, i ended up being the boss man during the initial phase of this. And well get into how it was done and who did it and so forth here shortly. One of the benefits of writing this book was it allowed me to think back. I do a comparison with what i know today. And im older. I dont know it all, but i compare what i see and was in writing about the navy as it exists today. Where we are with the airplanes. I think i did a pretty fair job based on the reaction of the book and the reviews. One of the things were most proud of where the reviews we have gotten. I started out in 1953 working two jobs going to college, like everybody in those days was doing. The draft was breathing on my neck. So i went in the reserves. I was assigned to an f4u world war ii squadron. I was a regional engine mechanic. And heres the first good one. I was working for a chief name d brown. He was my mentor. Mentor is a keyword youre going to hear a lot from me. I worked for chief brown. I carried his toolbox and i got his coffee whenever i wanted. And he spent an inordinate amount of time teaching me how to maintain those airplanes. It was down here at los alamitos, california. Not down here. I am in d. C. Tonight. Forgive me. I do make mistakes. We were in the first jet squadron in the navy. Mentor number two. A young lieutenant. Twin cockpit front and back. They had flight controls in the backseat. And he said you know, youre learning to be a jet engine mechanic. Chief brown was still over my shoulder every minute watching me. He said why dont you go flying with me . So i went flying a few times in the backseat. The first jet airplane i had ever been in. I thought, boy do i love this. Over the course of a few months, and he said you know, youre really pretty good at it. He near taught me to fly that airplane. I didnt land very well. But i could fly it pretty good. [laughter] dan so anyhow, he said, would you consider going to Flight Training if i helped you take the exams and prepare you . I talked to my folks and my folks said thats an honorable provision, naval aviator. We would really support that. So, to make a long story short there. I went through Flight Training, pensacola, like we all did. 1956 and 1957, 18 months, i did very well. I think a lot of it had to do with that young lieutenant, the inspiration that he gave me. He set the stage. He later went on to be head of the fbi in the Western Region of the United States. Hell of a guy. What a great man. Then we come out of Flight Training. Grades are good. We had some amazing good grades and i ended up with roommates in North Highland. Famous North Highland in san diego in the Fighter Squadron. The first set of orders to the fleet. We were in formation. The squadron was amazing when i got there. I dont remember when ron got there, but i know we were very close. We had a lot of world war ii guys who were seniors in that squadron. Mentor number three, gino. Howard found the japanese at the battle of midway. He was flying a patrol plane. But we were surrounded by great talent from world war ii in that first fiveyear squadron. We had 60 airplanes, four different kinds. The old guys said we have done it, we want to stay home, drink a little whiskey, and take care of mama and the kids. So they did, and they encouraged us to fly. And so i had all the flight time. This is a key point for where you are today in america. We had all the flight time we could handle as young pilots. Thats not true today. I can talk more about it later on. Success from that day on, mentoring is a reason. I dont think intuitively i ever knew what ultimately i was capable of doing. I think it was being exposed to great americans. Gino had around 23, 28 victories in world war ii. And he was ready to rest a little bit. But his enthusiasm had carried to five or six of us at the carried over to five or six of us who checked in at the squadron. It was good. I had more than my contemporaries because the abundance of flying we had in those days. And the only way you really get good in Tactical Aviation is to fly a lot. You got to love it. It isnt airline flying. Its combat flying. And you got to set your mind to it. Thats my background. Thats what i got. I went on from there. Dr. Larry knows, we have had some time together, and he knows a good event. It. Nows a good bit of he will ask some questions and then well go to questions from the audience. Larry alright, so as you see, i got a stack here, probably more than i need. We will see how it goes. I do actually want to back up a little bit. Is there anything in your background that led you to join the navy in the first place . Is it something you always wanted to do, or was it something you just kind of dan you know, when i got exposed, when that lieutenant strapped me in the back of that airplane for the first time, after four or five times you have to remember airlines, in those days, there werent airliners. There was nothing fancy except for the jets. It was brandnew and exciting. Its hard to explain to people who havent been there. How absolutely beautiful flying can be. Combat maybe. But flying across the United States. I came across california yesterday and i had a window seat. And it was one of those days where i got to look out across the country, and i thought, my god, what a beautiful country we live in. Yeah, exposure to it, and im of the personality that i loved it. I would go back and do every single day of it again if i was young enough. Unfortunately, time grabbed me. I hope that gave you an answer. Larry alright, so you already sort of mentioned you go from there. You go to basic Flight Training in pensacola. And you absolutely loved that. Dan marine di made believers out of us. Boot camp, you go through a boot camp, basic Flight Training. Then you go on to advance. If you do well enough you get jets. Youve got to realize, particularly for the ladies, there wasnt other than korea, there wasnt a lot of male expertise in flying tactical jets. It was something new and very exciting. In advanced training in texas i that ginome f2s and Bill Armstrong had flown in korea. It is a neat ticket ride every day, and they pay you to do it. I think i was born to do it. And i enjoyed it very much. Longwinded answer. [laughter] larry actually, regarding the panther, you started out a prop trainer in basic. Tv2 . Nt to dan oh, no. That old thing covered up in oil . That was typical. Flew g28 after that. And then, of course, i went to advanced training in texas. They bring you along pretty fast. Six months. Six months, youre going to cover the spectrum airplane. If you are good and safe you have to live through it. Remember that. Thats the number one prerequisite. You have to live through it. I think when i got out of the navy, i think of the original 17 guys in my class, seven of us were still up and kicking. In those days, you didnt have a lot of jet experience. Maintenance wasnt nearly what it was today. Larry could you just Say Something more about your first experiences in the panthers . This is the first time you are getting into a frontline aircraft. Dan man, its in the book. [laughter] buy the book . I should have had [laughter] one. Dan you can see where they were repainted. It was just dynamite. It was a total e ticket ride. You are flying number one. You are flying by yourself for the first time, and there is nothing more thrilling than that. And this airplane, it had guns. Boy, do i like guns. It is in the book. The guns are the primary weapon of choice today. 50 years later. And they always have been. Sadly, when you read the book, youll find the f4 never had a gun. Industry and washington decided not to put a gun in the airplanes. I couldve saved so many guys on the ground from being pow. s. I got called in three times when somebody had gotten shot down and they were captured by the guy on the ground. If i had had a gun. I had no other weapon in the airplane. Thats the down side. Im sorry. But they were dynamite to fly. Larry alright, so again, in the book, you described a couple of instances of advanced training, that really reinforced the fact that you are on your own. Would you care to tell our audience dan you mean the trip to dallas in the low level . Three or four of us in the division, flying a wedge, if you will. And part of the syllabus was to go to dallas. Land at the Naval Air Station regas there, and fly back down. , thats only several hundred miles, 3. 5 by car. In an airplane doing 400 to 500 miles an hour, its a handful. None of us were through Flight Training. There wasnt any weather. If we dont like the weather today, well cancel. We went. And we had 600 foot overcast. And we went, four of us, trying to keep track of each other. Were going back up to dallas. And we did pretty good. Except coming back. Coming back and were probably a little bit misaligned on the exact track coming back. All of a sudden, it goes between me and my wingy is a redless tower. And the towers there, we later found out was 1500 feet, and we were cruising along 500 feet just below the clag. Man, that thing went by so fast. The red light really caught my eye. I said thats a reality check. [laughter] dan its a damn dangerous business. And a lot of things you cant plan for. I dont know how many old aviators there were, no one my age. But remember the radio range when we used to fly the radio range before we have that modern technology we have today . Youve got to be able to fly in the soup and navigate using just code, code letters. In 18 months of training, i got it down. I hated to admit it because i got great grades, but i flunked going into victoria. Instructor in the backseat of a tbird on radio range approaching there. I got disoriented. The weather right down to the deck, just a terrible day. But no excuse. Youre a naval aviator, youre supposed to be able to do these things every single time. And i didnt. And i got it down. And i went back and landed in beeville, i went and grabbed a cup of coffee with my instructor. I thought, boy this isnt good, youre in trouble. He gave me a down. The first one i had 18 months. He said it is a good lesson in humility. I took that with me quite a ways and paid dearly for it. I made it through, got orders. Fighter squadron three at north island. Yes, sir. i was going to go to all weather Fighter Squadron three next. Dan you get me going sometimes. Larry so youre assigned there. What was it that made the squadron so unusual . Dan well, it was all veterans. We probably had the best flight leader. We were broken into four different flights. Of the guys in leather jackets flying sky rates. Sky raids. We probably had the four best instructor pilots, leaders, that i ever flew with in any Fighter Squadron. Except for maybe enterprise during the war. It was you cant help when you fly once per day or as often as you feel like it, truly thats what we did. That is why we ended up with so very much flight time. Youre around these guys with alert watches, Defense Command working for the airport in a hokey mission. Somebody in those days had to do it. We got good at it. We won the awards every year that we had that duty. The benefit of the young ones , an abundance of flying, guys of the same mindset as i was, and our mentors and teachers were all the cream of the crop from the second world war. Thats what we ought to be doing today. We need to mentor more young ones. In todays Naval Aviation. Therein lies part of the story of top gun. Larry did you ever find out how this loan Navy Squadron lone Navy Squadron came to be part of norad . Dan no. [laughter] dan i didnt care as long as i got to fly. I really didnt. Im not much of a politician. Larry the other thing is you d in theing the sky rai 4f1d, nicknamed the ford because of that designation. What was that like . It was the hot rod of the day. Dan that was fun. That was fun, challenging. Never in the history of my flying career i never flew anything and thats why we learned to dogfight. In the book it describes a place where it was illegitimate. It was hell to do it, but it was the only way we could keep dogfighting alive back in 1957, 1958, and 1959. People were trying to revert back to missiles and radar and all the magic stuff. And we go out and dogfight. By the afternoon sank an island, area 51. We wouldve gotten courtmartialed, but we were pretty quiet guys. When you know youre doing something you probably shouldnt be doing. But im not sure our bosses in that great Fighter Squadron didnt look the other way a lot. Larry which actually sort of brings us to something. The other thing about the f4d is it had a lot of guns but not a lot of rounds. It was primarily intended to use guided missiles, which were just coming into service at this point. Dan rockets. At that time, they had 2. 75 rockets on them. If you doubt my statement and statement on the mentality of ,hange to very sophisticated expensive, they taped off the gun ports, took off all the gun ports. Took all of the guns out and taped them off and they eventually just covered them all. Even in that day and that time, we never got to use the guns. When we went to weapons, we never got to fire guns, did we . We won the all navy weapons meet that year. Don was killed on the kitty hawk. Were you with him on that cruise . [inaudible] dan he had an engine failure. On an a7. He was as good as they got back in the days. And careerwise, he really did well. But sometimes you roll the dice and dont win. I write about him in the book. Larry so, youve already brought up this practice of hassling, as you put in the book. Dan makes me nervous. Larry what about it makes you nervous . Dan its an art. I see all of you. Its an art to dogfight. The original eight guys and i came up with some sayings. , secondplaces was dead last. And thats what happens when you dogfight in combat for real. If you dont win, chances are youre in a parachute or worse. The movie did an injustice to us in that regard. They painted us as a bunch of cowboys anyhow. My original guys were all phds, at least. Intellectually, they all had two combat tours in vietnam. They were 15 i had to choose from. They were the seven best i knew. The picture of mel homes up there, the guy in the nice hat and all that, he lived in a flight suit. In those days, and ill include the israelis. I flew with the israelis quite a bit. Home to the best of the world and that airplane. I put that in writing. His wife gave me a big kiss. [laughter] dan but mel was that good. I enjoyed telling you about this, larry. What makes a guy that good . Maybe its a godgiven talent. But mel would strap in the f4. When he was engaging someone in a dogfight he would never look back in the cockpit. He had that kind of perception. The airplane became one with him. Now, out of the seven or eight guys, and i picked top gun, the original rose. He redefined the envelope of the f4. He was not degreed as an masistnami educationally, but he knew that airplane. He knew what it would do. I got a lot of trouble with mick douglas because we flew that airplane way beyond. We flew that airplane way beyond what it was intended to do. We never killed anybody, we never wrecked an airplane. So you get away with it. Pretty soon the kill ratio goes from 2 1 in vietnam. You probably wont ask me this, but i have to tell it. 2 1 is the reason now, after five years of war that top gun got started. From 3 march, 1969, to the end of the vietnam war, top gun was going strong, putting guys in the fleet, teaching the new tactics we designed. Guess what the end kill ratio was . 24 1. Thats a whole lot better. You can hold your head up high when you come back and get out of the airplane, i tell you. Anyhow, im sorry. Probably preempted you on that one. Larry no, no, well come back to it. I did want to ask, you sort of brought this up about flying the f4 beyond what it was designed to do. One of your themes was the be an counters restricting lets restricting what is possible. So in this period of time, you write about the fact that the navy actually restricts or prohibits air combat maneuvering, dogfighting, so as not to put strain on the aircraft. And combined with this idea that its all going to be missiles, you wont need the dogfight. You will go up, you shoot up the thepecially when we get seekers, the sidewinder and the sparrow, and the navy thinks it will all be Long Distance shots. You wont need to maneuver. Do you think this practice of hassling grew out of that restriction, or do you think it wouldve happened anyway . Dan you can blame it on the older guys. The mentors. Those guys knew because they had been there. One guy is advocating it. They were all seniors, commanders at the time. Youre not going to publicly tell washington what he really thinks. Except he can draw on the 28 kills he did himself. Probably more of an authority than us sitting back here, mandating the new way of doing it, if you will. Guys, youd to those know. They had been there. They were the vitals we had. So we went along with it. That is who you can blame it on, or congratulate them, whatever you want to say. It worked. Stressing the airplane, acm, or air combat maneuvering, the way that works and i describe it in detail in the book for you. Even my wife understood it. Were out the fight club, area 51. Correction, out of the island, restricted area out there. You go out there and you find 8, 10 airplanes. Everybody is getting along with each other. They aint going to fight with each other. You pull up alongside somebody, look over, check them out. Ok, breakaway. A few miles, come back, you do 500 knots apiece, the closing rate. And this is called the merge. And thats what real combat is like when you see the enemy. Currently and in vietnam, mcnamara mandated the rules of engagement on us that we had to see the enemy before we could shoot him. That totally negates the concept of guided missiles, because at that closure rate, 1000 miles per hour, the guys could be pretty close to coming at you before you could identify. Anyhow, it doesnt work the way it is. Today inhat is wrong some of the current fighting positions this country finds itself in. We have the wrong people writing the rules of engagement. They dont trust the combat experienced leaders to set the rules of engagement. Were going to end up i cant think of anywhere in the world were not going to end up dogfighting when we try and go there or engage. Whatever the enemy happens to be, we will end up dogfighting them. Thats me personally. Hows that . Larry alright. Im going to try to skip through the next ones quickly so we can get to the good stuff and not run out of time. So, from vf3, you go to vf213, lions, aboard the uss hancock. Youre now flying the demon. Dan Douglas Built the forerunner to the four. It was a beautiful airplane , except it had no power. And when we first put them out in the fleet, we killed five guys in one day. Out off japan, they happened to come down radar wasnt quite as good as it was today lost five guys from miramar in one slick afternoon. And what would happen, this is really interesting, the water would come in the intake and it would surround the engine. And when you cool metal, it tends to shrink, right . It would shrink around the turbans and the engines would seize. All these guys came down, fat, dumb, and happy. Went through a thunderstorm, coming down to the boat to land, and all of the engines quit. The major fix, get it repaired. What they did was they just went in and cut a very small amount of all of the turbine blades so when the engine went through water it would cool it down, but it would not stop. But the downside of that is you lost a great deal of power. And what it did to us, mentally, it scared you of flying that thing. Beautiful airplane. But so bad, power wise. When i got in the phantom, i told larry tonight, the phantom was so much better in the sense that it had power beyond anything i had ever flown. I had flown an airplane at 2. 47 mach. Thats 2. 47 times the speed of sound. And she would heat up from frictional heating. The airflow over the airplane, and the warning lights would slow down. Shed say no, faster. I dont like this. Burneryou, i came out of and slowed down, but it had phenomenal power. Thats why top gun worked. Ill tell you about that. Larry so you go from the demon, your next tour at sea is with vf 92 silver kings. You are now flying the f4 phantom aboard the uss enterprise. And thert on board enterprise goes out to vietnam. To yankee station. What was your experience in vietnam . Dan 1967, i joined the squadron miramar very briefly. I had been to 121, teaching tactics and so forth. Uck look of the draw l of the draw, i ended up in a great squadron. With a leader, the man i respect probably kept me alive. They call him skank. What made him such a great leader was he had a natural ability a charismatic man. And whenever the Hard Missions oh no. ]cell phone ringing i shut the thing off. Told them not to call me. [laughter] dan forgive me, please. Anyway, skank always took the tough missions. Therein lies leadership again. He had programs quietly bringing the young guys up. He never put anybody into combat situations that would get them hurt until they were ready. I think foxy new skank as well as i did. I have all kinds of experiences, i dont know if i have the time to tell you about. But i loved that man. Ill tell you you dont know him i wasnt with him on this mission, but hes in there wandering around north vietnam. He gets shot, rifle bullet, both legs, they went through the fleshy part of his leg. So being the cool hombre he is, he goes down and brings leg restraints. We have leg restraints on the injection seat that keep your legs from flailing. So he brings these two up, puts them above the wound, and makes tourniquets. And he flew 150 miles back to the carrier, made a carrier landing. The medics brought him out of the airplane. I ran up there to see him. The medics lifted him out of the airplane, put him in surgery, sewed him up. Two weeks later to the day in in northck flying vietnam. Thats my measurement of real leadership. I have Better Stories than that about him. Go ahead. Im sorry. Larry no, no. Thats fine. Just a bit of background then, we sort of talked about this. I just want to put it all together for your audience. Part of this idea that the navy had at the time, that its all going to be straightline flying and firing longrange guided missiles at soviet bombers to protect the United States or protect the carrier group. And you find yourself in a very different war in vietnam, where you are prevented from shooting anything until you can visually identify your enemy. Dan key point right there, you design an airplane as an interceptor to shoot missiles, got beautiful two different types of radar in the airplane. You pay for it, incidentally. And when you get out there, the rules of engagement are so stringent by mcnamara and lbj you cant fire the weapons because the rules of engagement are mandated. Theyll courtmartial you if you break them. None of us, we were all obedient children. We just kind of went along with it, right . But god, thats why it didnt work. So, top gun frank, its the start of top gun. 1967, i came back on enterprise having experienced the best years of my life with skank. And im teaching at 121. Teaching a tactics phase to 15 guys. Those are some pretty good drivers. They were really good sticks. Larry and 121, just for the audience, this is where basically youre training everyone whos about to go out. Go out to the pacific. Dan we had over 100 airplanes, and they were going night and day. Someone would get wasted in vietnam and we had a replacement airplane. , the great frank, writes a 400 page report, unsolicited. Hes so fed up with it. He sends the report back to washington. We had some great people in washington during the war, but they were all under mcnamara. Thats about as close as ill get to politics. They were controlled by people. Naval officers couldnt do what they wanted to do. One of that 400 recommended number of recommendations in those 400 pages was two things. We had to have a get well program done rapidly. And we had to rethink the sparrow and sidewinder missiles that dont work. They shot over 600 of them and they had less than 10 success rate. And those were expensive. We knew it was going to come right back out to us. And they did. They came to 121. They offered the job to me. The downside of it was 60 to 90 days you can have the first class. This is graduate school. This is above and beyond what they had been teaching at the time. A Teachers College for teachers. And you had to be credible. If it was not credible, they never would have believed us. So when you stand up and youre at the podium, you better pass pack the gear and the information had better be tactically better than the guys you lecture to, you know . And youve got 90 days to do it. So i handpicked the guys you saw up here. And they were brilliant. The only thing everybody says, how much did you learn from the israelis . The only thing the israelis taught me was how to pick your people based on their intuitive or their academic backgrounds. Technically. And i did that with every one of these guys. Jimmy, who you see up here, who many people know in washington. He was a brilliant man. He knew more about the f4 radar and the missiles. And he took that job with a guy named wally. And three months later, they were teaching a way of hiring. Mel and i learned instead of fighting in the horizontal, we used all the power of the f4 and it worked. Every guy we had no building, no classroom, we had nothing. He says just dont kill anybody and dont wreck my airplanes. Because i had to borrow airplanes in order to put a flight syllabus together. So the first thing we did, we needed a place to meet and write and study and talk. So a guy named steve smith, just a dynamite personality guy. He said, i will do anything you want me to do. Hed make a list every morning. By dark, hed have it pretty well. I said, steve, weve to find room to have the classroom and have an office kind of place. So hes wandering around friday afternoon. It is in the book. Coming down the street is this big crane. And it has this 40 foot to 20 building. It is an old salvage probably , going to be destroyed. And he talked to a Civil Service crane operator into bringing it down friday afternoon with a case of scotch. It cost me a case of scotch to get the building. Over the weekend, steve had him deliver home depot delivered new flooring, so they put a new flooring. We painted the outside, and atrocious red trim. I said steve, why the color . He said nobody would ever think we stole it if it was painted red. [laughter] thats how we started. Larry thats not in the book. You get extra value for being here tonight. Dan you think about the times 50 years ago, there were no computers, no laptops, no cell phones. We had a couple of typewriters. Fighter pilots dont type very well, let me tell you. We had typewriters. We burned up two xerox machines, making copies of the curriculum what we did. We rewrote the entire air combat maneuvering syllabus. We incorporated the tack manual. We rewrote each individual flight profile and how it was to be conducted. I wrote the mandated safety requirements. Because i knew if we killed anybody or we wrecked an airplane i had to borrow the damn airplane. If it didnt work, school is over, go home. But it worked. Every guy pitched in. Make this statement. I get the credit. I get to write a book. They asked me to. I wrote a good book, i think. I get to go on fox news and do all the pr work, making the book go. The book is the legacy to all of the top gun guys. 560 of them on may 1 of this year i attended the 50th reunion in san diego. We had 42 skippers there. Were they good . We had a fourstar admiral in the mix, got five or six threestar admirals. Thent even count twostars. But the guys are good. And those who got out, those who got out of the navy have made a real success of their civilian lives. And im really proud of all of them, all of them, as you can tell. Single guy,ave any had he not been a part of the equation in the beginning, it wouldnt have gotten done. Jimmy lane, who you see pictures of, jim lane ejected twice over there. And the other one is nash, whos in the picture. Those of you that have been around Naval Aviation no john nash. He didnt get the call sign because he was a general in the airplane. His call sign was nash. You got a silver star for saving jims life in north vietnam. The brotherhood is real. It exists today. It was in san diego on the first of may. You see them after 50 years. And the only reason the school has gone on and grown to what is today, internationally now they have the reputation. Bar none in Tactical Aviation. It is up in nevada. If you go to reno go and see it. It belongs to you. You pay for it. Theyve got their problems now with politics. Same business. It is almost come full circle from when we started. An airplane that you dont really want and dont know how to use. We wont go into much of that. It worked. The school worked because of the individual. And heres my last comment. Its not the airplane or the weapons system that wins you combat. Its the individual. Its the man or the woman driving the airplane, who is professionally excellent at what theyre doing. That isnt the way we buy airplanes anymore either. Anyhow, thats my billy graham for the night. Larry so, you come back, youre at 121. Youre looking at the report. The co says i want you to take this, but we have no facilities. We have no money. We have a vague instruction that the navy should establish a school and teach fighter tactics. Whats your rank at this point . Dan im a lieutenant commander, 31 years old. My youngest guy was the famous condor. He was 22. He had two combat cruises under his belt. 2. My lang had we all did, as a matter of fact, as far as combat. And common trait among these guys is deadly serious about what they were doing as professional naval aviators. There was nothing like what you saw in the movie. They did the flying for the first movie, incidentally, the top gun guys, in 1985. They did the flying for the movie. But my guys were phds at least, schedule, wasthe so tough. Now they dont believe us. We worked seven days a week. We finished a night at the pool club and had a beer together. Many of the guys slept in their cars. We didnt have a bunk room or anything else. We would wake them up. We started the next morning at 4 30 every morning. But when youre dealing in human life, the only reason the school was started, the only purpose we had in everything we were doing was guys were still fighting every day in vietnam and they are losing. Theyre losing because they trained the wrong way. The sooner we can get it all packaged and back out there, thats what our students were doing. They were going out and teaching their squadrons the new tactics. If i may, its an important point to make, you know i dont have infinite wisdom. It was the collective work of eight guys. But one thing we pulled off thanks to the Test Squadron at fort magoo, we had access to the migs. Mel and i went up there. We didnt really know where we were going. They said meet us, so we went to the air force base and the next thing i know i am in a transport going somewhere in an air force transport. We get out and we look around. Probably go in the hangar, there are these beautiful Little Silver migs. Halfhour later, test pilot, chief of projects, he says come on, dan. Lets go flying. , sits up on ane canopy, looking over. He says, dont worry about the instruments. As long as youre in the green everywhere. [laughter] try that one on. Anyhow, 30 minutes after we landed, im strapped in. The hardest thing about flying a mig, its taxing. I wont get into it, but its very difficult. We got to validate the tactics that we had all come up with against the real thing. Graduation day, the first class, i said ive got a surprise for you. I put them all in an airplane and said follow me. We went up to area 51. The students took on migs , the real, unknown thing. Youll hear them on the air. I wont tell you what they said. Where did these guys come from . [laughter] they get to prove their knowledge, if you will. Nice way of putting it. So anyhow, we validated the tactics. The last bit of that story is jerry shot down the first base after top guns graduation. Its the first victory we had. After the school got going. He now owns a bed and Breakfast Hotel over in scotland. And he came to the reunion and told the story of the whole thing. Pretty happy about it. Larry alright, so top gun is established in 1969. Dan yeah. Larry your first class is out there. The real test comes in 1972, the first time you get to see what happened. 1972 in vietnam, the north Vietnamese Army launches a massive attack on the south. President nixon authorizes operation linebacker. Now the navy and the air force are going to go in and bomb vietnam previously offlimits, also changes the rules of engagement. No longer have to have visual. How did that go . Dan it went up as rapidly, 24 1. That is simply stated, the tactics worked. The guys got their momentum back and their pride back. Thats a big thing, boy. You risk your butt every day. If you dont have pride in what youre doing and confidence you are not going to do well. We did well. The students went out and taught their own squadrons. Larry burke i have one or two. I want to get you before we get to the questions. You stayed interested in what was going on since you have set it up. You are interested in the success of this thing you created. How has it changed since you founded it . That is a beautiful set about there. A lot of airplanes. The young guys. I was up there in may for a day. When you are stonefly, they are so good. Intellectually, they have picture board up there. It goes across row after row after row of instructors. This is part of the best collection of photography you will ever see. They are absolutely the best of the best. We like to think we were good. The only problem is there walking the fence politically to try to keep everybody happy and keep up with the new, sophisticated airplanes. This is a pretty big challenge. Larry burke you mentioned that you and your other original brose bros loved the 1986 top gun movie . Eh. [laughter] it is mixed . I had someone say to me other night hey maverick. I sent dont, a maverick. The navy had a backlog in pilot training. It was that sensational. They did apply. All of that was good. I love the music, personally. The rest of it was hollywood glitz. I am worried about the new picture. I did not have a thing to do with the new picture. The last thing i have for you before we turn it over to the crowd, and your final chapter, you say there are some fundamentals about fighting in air that never really changes. You implied these were lost after the second world war. You had to rediscover them for top gun. You could not let them fight each other. If they fought each other and we lost one, there would not be a school. Great satisfaction in the bros. These guys are in the picture. The four of us are so proud to be together. The navy is a great profession. If you get the right mentoring, flying jets, that is a good way to go. The navy takes good care of you. I had a great career. I had a big supertanker. The same rules applied. Dont run it around, dont hit him with it. I went through Nuclear Power training. That was very difficult. I had the privilege of skip ring the ranger. Being skipper of the uss ranger. I had number seven. During eight years of cutting back, financially, they sold it for a dollar in scrap. You did not know that. That happened. The other day, i was up in new york and i was doing a tv appearance. I met a couple of interesting people. I talked one of them into trying to get some power going down here to name one of the new carriers ranger and carry on the tradition. Thank you so much for listening. We will go to questions. I am kind of longwinded. Larry burke i was prepared if you were not. There are lots of Great Stories in this book that we did not have time to get to tonight. I encourage you to get your hands on a copy. We have a question down front. I was wondering how aware you were of what the air force was doing . How much costs crosspollination was there in terms of bringing back dogfighting . I know jon voight. He is a brilliant academic. He has been very influential in a lot of good airplanes. We did not have time. We had a couple of meetings with him. Nows argument always comes down. John boyd mels argument always comes down. John boyd always tries to think about what makes a great fighter pilot. They had a couple of meetings in front of big audiences. He says you cant quantify what the human being driving the airplane would be like. That is really true. The pilot is always a key factor that is whether this agreement was. We are friends. The got this thing that i am shy was something along those lines. What i am asking is that i heard rumors that tom cruises character is essentially meant to cunningham mindy cunningham. I heard that somewhere. I dont have any authority or knowledge to comment on that. Thank you for your service. Thank you for a great story tonight. I appreciate the comments about mentorship. I am interested in how you chose that first class. Did you get to choose the students . Were they nominated by commanders . That is a great question. First of all, if you want to multiply the benefit of it, you have to bring the best ones in. They have to go back and teach. They have to go back and teach like graduate level. We had to argue. There was a war going on. Some opinionated guys are the squadron commanders. This young upstart group. We do not have great publicity or advertising of what we were doing at the beginning. We started calling around. Steve smith, i get him on the phone and i say finally students. He says ok. Some of the people he got he says what do you think that you know that we dont know . We are fighting a war. They hang up. We had one magic phone call from somebody in washington. All of a sudden, it changed. It was not a voluntary change. If youre going to do it, just get on with it. When the kills came and, top bguns reputation came through. Everybody wanted to pick up what they had not been exposed to. One in the back. Cant see you. One in the middle. Thank you, captain. I hope we have a few grumman people here today. My question is, around the late 70s, there was a refereed and monitored slide off between the f14 and the f15. What do you know about the results of that experience . Believe it or not, i try to stay out of the political. I miss your company very badly right now. It was a competitive factor. Grumman made plans. Their reputation was good. Along came several others. You both you and i both know what happened on the 14th. I dont think tonight is and i to go into that. I wish grumman was back and computing. It would not take 26 years to bring a new plan to fruition. That is all i will say. There is a question over here. There is one right here. The little gentlemen. With the mike. Do air force i was participate in top gun or do they have their own program . The kill ratio went up to what i told you it was in vietnam. The air force, their senior leadership, they would not change the tactics. We brought him down to fly. He is living proof of what should have happened. They later went on. After they got started, he retired or something. The air force kamala. I will say they are joined at the hip. They shared information. They are both american fighter schools. Them because it would not stay airborne. It did not have enough gas. Those guys in the Super Hornets went out and waxed the f22. They waxed alot of the sophisticated airplanes that day. The taiwanese bought in. The white guys the hornet guys held their own. When you read the last chapter, you will remember tonight when you read it. I like simple, reliable. Carrier maintenance guys are only 19 years old. That is the abundance of them. They rely on the chiefs and the first class and the second class to maintain those airplanes. If you dont maintain them right, you kill somebody. That is acceptable. Unacceptable. In this town, youre talking about keeping pilots so they dont get out and go to the airlines. Let me tell you why the pilots are getting out. During the transition time, they have not had any real flying. The guys at top gun. I used to go up there and talk to pops and the boys. They are getting 10 hours a month. That is barely enough to know it you are doing. There wasnt any money for flying. Now there is a lot better. Now it is a lot better. We had 40 hours. That was enough, working as hard as we were. I could not handle anymore physically or family wise. I was never home. The great condor. His best month at top gun were 60 or 65 hours per month. Most of it was one hour at a time. Flying is the reason naval aviators stay in the service. Simple. Simple is better, also reliable. If youre going to bonus anybody, bonus those guys. I spent a good bit of time as captain of an Aircraft Carrier talking to our people about i mean this in the loving way, the poor enlisted guys wives at home. The kids had no money. That is not the america i know. We are dressed pretty nice and drive nice cars. We should be able to take care of these guys driving these big, expensive airplanes. I think we have time for one more question. Down front. Yes . I saw these great pictures up here. Do we have time to run through . Can you talk about these . Do you have five minutes . Incidentally, i had lunch, i spoke at the charleston, the Yorktown Museum two weeks ago to a group. He was a good naval aviator. He just had a right hip replacement. He shows up to have brunch and host it for me. He came in a wheelchair. I cant walk anywhere with this. I went through basic training with that. There were hundreds of them. Great airplanes. I solo that. They cut your tie up on solo day. I still have that tie. Do you still have your tie . I still dont have it. This was a squadron that i ran in. That is a sky red at douglas. I looked through 3000 hours. That airplane there was fun. Some great friends there. If you want a reality check, i looked at that picture today, at the hotel, there are eight guys left. That is the reality. In those days, what they did with the airplane was pretty risky. A terrible airplane on the boat. Unstable on the boat. When we were together, they took it out and tried to qualify that on the lexington. They lost a bunch of guys. They pick up on that story. Almost daily, the russians and americans are at each others throats. This is an average day of the sea of japan. My back held up something. And house or playboy. The guy back there, he would show them the playboy. It was more current than the one we would have on the carrier. I have had guys run across my area on the carrier and say you dont want to do that again. And then i had an Electronic Warfare plane go over them in turn of the game. He probably blew every fuse on that bomber. Dont do that again, im telling you. That is a great enterprise. I do not know i was on the cruise or not, but she has got her beautiful remember the radar array up on the island, and someone in their infinite wisdom said buy the lady a new hat. They took that beautiful array off there and they made her look like everyone else. But theres only one enterprise. They took the core out of it. The. Nuclear power plant has been removed. Shes in salvage. That is a tough decision. That is a great ship. Decision. That is a great ship. There is the phantom. A 500 pounder. You want to know something that is in the book, when you get to the part about yankee station. Read carefully the part about caisson. I went there one day. Didnt expect to go down there and got called down 400 knots, dropping those kind of bombs. They were snake eyes. They had clamshells that go straight down. I flew Close Air Support for about four days. That is when i had to learn to love grunt marines. I have never seen American Kids that brave. That is a whole different story. Had some, some mig drivers. I can see north vietnamese. Theyve since been over here, some of the guys, hosting them here in san diego. Some of the mig guys here. I never cared that much, so i didnt go. And theres the original. John nash on the right. Jimmy. Second one on the lower right. Im the third one. Hank who took all the risk. God, man. Id go in to him and complain. Hed say, get out of here and go do it. Most of you are here in washington and business. We never had a consultant. [laughter] i dont mean to hurt anybodys feelings. We had no consultants. And i had no one outside a uniform involved in top gun for the first two ye ars. That is jimmy, the great jim lane. Chairman emeritus of john, i want to say, bernie, big Real Estate Company in san diego. Wonderful guy. You know, the image that was painted in the movie. This guy goes to Catholic Church every morning. And devout. And i think he did that even before he was flying with us. He is one of the great human beings ive had the pleasure of serving with. And hes fearless. Go ahead. And that is jimmy jackson. They had just taken a large dose of flack, and both engines were quitting. And front seater got out about a second later. We needed double exposure but we got it. That is the great mel. These guys are talented. I mean it, he was the best in the world. I knew who the ten best were, and i put him up top. He started micronesia airlines. Owned his own airlines. Risk but just incredibly talented people. And this is the famous condor. Hes like my son. Only had one problem. I think my wifes in love with him. Hes movie star good looking. So successful. Hes a developer bigtime. And a prince of a human being. And thats, thats the other one. Incidentally, condor was a backseatseater in the beginning of top gun. And i found out, this is how much in control i will he was, i found out, we were flying two seat a4s. I found out, i would look for him and he would be gone. But he would be in the air. And hes talking the rest of the guys into putting him in the front seat of the a4. They taught him to fly. So, he comes to me later wrong when we were up and running well and he said i want to become a naval aviator. I want to go to Flight Training. I already know how to fly. So comfort. I said, send in an application and i will endorse it. I did. He aced Flight Training and came back to top gun as an instructor. You know, i think in his total career, condor has been at top gun four times. But that is called an insurance policy. Having talent around you. It is always the guys around you. Lets see. And thats the big pollock, jerry. He was known for bending airplanes. He and mike were a matched set. They were both good. They started our adversary program. You havdd to be able to fly like the russians. So he put the program together inside top gun, and he flew both sides. Hed fly the american side one day. Hed fly the adversary side later on. How does this evolve . Right now there are about four squatters that squadrons that are dedicated in the air force. But the air force just funded 25 or 30 f5s to a dedicated adversary squadron. And i noticed in the press the last couple weeks they took the f35s, the new ones, from tindle, which got devastated by the hurricane down there, and they are moving those up to nellis. They are going to form an adversary squadron of the new airplanes. Try to figure that one out. Anyhow, to great ones. There is the building. Thats home. And theres, those are a4s. We painted each airplane a little different camouflage. Around the world and took a look at various color schemes. Some of those airplanes actually work so good you could not see them from a mile away, you know . And then you think about the merge coming head on at 1000 miles an hour. So, anyhow, hey, there he is. I borrowed a guys a4. That guy in the back seat, pretty famous. That is j. C. Smith, when you read the book. He relieved me as in charge of top gun. He got the first mig of the war, first one shot down. Before the school even started. A wild man. Hes at san angelo, texas. I cant believe it myself. He owns two cadillac agencies in texas. A fuel parlor and a country club. And i think hes a deeded in his church. Deacon in his church. Anyhow, mig21. Great airplane. They are still flying. The chinese are still building these. Theyve got to thousand of them. And theres the boat. Going off the catapult. Thats the most dangerous occupation in the world, working that flight deck. And condor wrote a chapter in there for me that, as a lieutenant, he had asked to brief the last mission on the carrier coral sea. He flew the flight of protection fighter protection oversight gun during the exodus, when we were dragging all of the people out. And his pictures were the boat people coming out trying to get on the carrier. One of the few times ive ever seen him totally sad. He said, i cant believe it. Were vleaving these people the way we are. Give you an inside look at him. The kind of thats a typical class. You can tell by the long hair what period it was. That is one of the beauties. A two place on. You got to look up and find out during the debrief that condor was in the front seat, and one of the pilots was in the back. He was getting a private pilots lesson. [laughs] little risky. And thats the airplane i talk about in the last chapter, the example of what i would buy right now. I would take one a boeings defunk factories that they have in middle america, not using it anymore and i would build 2000 of these to be able to fly them for under 10 million apiece. That is pretty cheap. 10 million bucks. And the cost per hour is the thing. Cost per hour, flight hour, is how the pilots get back up to 40. So, american have got to end up with airplanes they can afford in large numbers because you have got those beautiful Aircraft Carriers and you have got to have airplanes to put on them. My question is, what can we afford . So. , i would build a a lot of cheap ones. That one in the hands of a good driver would take anyone on. And theres the f14. My wish. I wish we had em. I wish we had em, but somebody saw fit to destroy all of the jigs in all the history of that airplane. So, we cant rebuild it right now. But id sure like to have about 1000 of those to put on the Aircraft Carriers. Hey, there i am. As i said, if you behave yourself and you are good guy, somebody gives you a obat. Boat. Big mother. That was a wonderful 600 feet long. And maybe 50,000 tons. Crew, i had a crew of 400 in the the best story is my supply officer when we went to the indian ocean. I looked the invoice of what we had on board so i could have an idea when i talk to other captains we were resupplying. I look at the invoices. 3000 turkeys. He said, well, were going to be gone thanksgiving, christmas and new years. He said, you really want us to have some fun. Well negotiate all of the ship and give them holiday turkeys. He got known as the big turkey out there. [laughter] and there is my ranger boat at the top. That is how we refuel at sea. And theres mama. Thats the love story in the book. I met her on her 14th birthday. Dont think i dated anybody else. I went away to serve my country and fly. I didnt see her for 32 years. She married a College Football player. But there was a time in our life, both of us, i dont want to tell you all of it, got to read the book. 32 years later, i met her and married been married 27 years, and she is just my soulmate. Thats mary beth. The penguin. They didnt put the other picture. There is one of the picture of beth and i today. All we have. Thats it . Thank you very much for your patience. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this weekend, today at 5 00 p. M. Eastern a discussion about the refugee act. President carters decision to push for that act and to implement it was a hugely decision humanitarian and he deserves every bit of the credit we have heard here today. That said, we have to be realistic and say that doesnt solve all of the problems in fact it creates some. Then at 6 00, on the civil war. Whatever i did in academia should also have some dimension that reached out to people who and itst interested seems that there should be more bridges in the public than there are. One of the key places where that could happen was also a battlefields reagan make a connection to the past in a way to you cant. Film testimony of truth. Details civilian injuries and deaths. I used to come home from school very happy. Father mother grandfather and grandmother. Al 15 of them including unborn baby had been killed. Only i am left. Even little babies are innocent victims of these american air rates. At 6 45 p. M. , policies since world war i. Covereduld have everyone. Polls show that the majority of the public support of the idea of Health Insurance for all buy it the Social Security system. Explore our nations passed on American History tv all weekend every weekend on cspan3. American history tv products are now available at the new cspan online store. Go to cspan store. Org. Check out all of the cspan products. Weekend on american artifacts, we visit the library of congress and washington, d. C. To see the 1831 autobiography written in arabic. He was a muslim scholar from west africa who was captured, and shippedavery, to south carolina. Here is a preview. He was a scholar. Born in what is now senegal between the rivers of senegal and gambia. They are one of the largest and most important tribes and west africa. Today they number 40 million people. Region and in that he grew up and went to school. It was linkedume to the mosques where he learned to read and write and arabic. 37, he was caught during a travel conflict. There came to our place a large army that captured many men and took me to the great sea and soulmate into the hands of the christians who bound me and sent me on board a great ship and we sailed upon the great sea for a month and a half. We came to a place cultural studies. To a small,sold me weak and wicked man called johnson a complete infidel had no fear of god at all. Isthe important thing here it survived. People thought it was important enough to carry it on. There probably were others written by people who were enslaved but this is the only known existing manuscript in arabic. Written by a slave in the United States. Its the only one. Learn more about the author of the only american known slave narrative in arabic. On american artifacts only on American History tv. Up next, we hear about Kennedy White house rose garden designer buddy mellon and her first lady, jacqueline kennedy. This was part of a daylong symposium. Good afternoon. Welcome back to the Carriage House for our afternoon sessions. I hope you enjoyed your lunch and learning more about the historic items that were provided. If you have not seen them yet please be sure to see them. They are outside. The first afternoon panel, the legacy of bunny mellon, will explore the life and influences of Rachel Lambert mellon. We will hear from merrill gordon, met Griswold Matt griswold, and linda. Our speakers will