Good evening. I am Lauren Rosenberg with the smithsonian associates. I would like to welcome you to this program. Its your support that makes events like this possible. If you are joining for the first time, and equally warm welcome and invitation to explore the wide range of programs we offer. Now is your perfect time to turn off your cell phone or anything that may make noise. This patch this past march marked the 50th anniversary of the u. S. Navy fighter weapon program. We welcome the programs founder, dan patterson. He formed he served in combat during the vietnam war on the uss hancock and three on the uss enterprise. He retired as a captain, having accumulated 6100 flight hours and 1000 flight carrier landings with 39 different types of aircraft. For those of you who know his story from the 1986 movie top gun, Jerry Bruckheimer is producing a sequel in 2020. His book is available for purchase and signing. Here to keep the conversation going is larry burke, curator of us Naval Aviation at the museum. Please welcome dan pedersen and larry burke. applause applause are you ready to go . Im going to take about 10 minutes and set the stage 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. Except for a couple of squadron mates back here to keep me honest. I will 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. Tells you something about how old i am. Jim horn fisher, who is my literary agent, has four best sellers of his own. He came to me along with the famous condor, who you see in the pictures up here. They said we are getting close to 50 years, its time to put the legacy in writing. I had been fighting with the britts, somebody over there says, we started top gun and then the americans took it over. That would ruffle your feathers, which it did. We have been fighting back and forth over time. I was the one who is drafted by the original guys, because i was a senior i ended up being the boss man during the initial phase of this. We will get to how it was done and who did it 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. I am older, i do not know it all, i compare what i see. I think i did a pretty fair job based on the reaction of the book and the reviews. One of the things i was most proud of was the reviews we had gotten. I started out in 1953 working two jobs going to college, like everybody in those days was doing. The draft was breathing down my neck, i was assigned to a four world war ii squadron. And heres the first good one. I was working for a chief name brown. He was my mentor. Mentor is a keyword youre going to hear a lot. I carried his tool box and i got his coffee whenever i wanted. He spent an inordinate amount of time teaching me how to maintain those airplanes. Down in california, not down here in dc. I do make mistakes. We were in the first jet squadron in the navy. Mentor number two. Twin cockpit front and back. He said you are learning to be a jet engine when brown was still over my shoulder every minute watching me. He said you should go flying with me. I went flying a few times in the backseat. The first airplane i had ever been in. I thought, boy do i love this. Over the course of a few months, he said you are really pretty good at it. He taught me to fly that airplane. I didnt land very well. I could fly it pretty good. Fly it pretty good. He said, would you consider going to Flight Training if i help you to take the exams and prepare you. I talked to my folks and my folks said thats an honorable provision, we really support that. A long story short there. I went to Flight Training 1956 and 57, 18 months, i did really well. I think it has to do with the inspiration he gave me, he set the stage, he later went on to be head of the fbi. What a great man. Then we come outof Flight Training. We had some amazing good grades and i ended up with roommates in north highland, san diego. The squadron was amazing when i got there. I know we were very close, ron and i. We had a lot of world war ii guys who were seniors and that. Mentor number three. Howard found the japanese at the battle of midway. 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 stay home, drink a little whiskey and take care of mama and the kids. So they did and they encourage us to fly. This is a key point of 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 do not think intuitively i never knew what i was ultimately capable of doing. I think it was being exposed to great americans. Geno had 2328 victories in world war ii. He was ready to rest a little bit. His enthusiasm carried over to five or six of us that checking in to the squadron. It was good. Because the abundance we had in those states, and the only way you really get good in Tactical Aviation is to fly a lot. Its combat flying. I went on from there. Dr. Larry knows, we had time together, then we will go to questions from the audience. You see a stack here, probably more than i need. I do want to back up a little bit, is there anything in your background that led you to join the navy in the first place . Was it something you always wanted to do or just kind of when i got exposed, you have to remember airlines, there werent airliners. There was nothing fancy but 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. I can across california yesterday and i had a window seat. It was one of those days where i got to look out across the country and thought, what a beautiful country you live in. I do every single day of it we hope that gave you an answer. You already sort of mentioned you go from there. You absolutely love that. You go through a boot camp, basic Flight Training in pensicola. Then you go on to advance. You have to realize, particularly for the ladies, there wasnt a lot of male expertise in flying tactical jets. It was something new. Its a neat ticket write every day and they pay you to do it. That is why i think i was born to do it. And i enjoyed it that much. Regarding the panther, you started out a prop trainer and basic. The old thing as well. And then of course i went to advanced training in texas. They bring you along pretty fast, 6 months you cover the spectrum of airplanes. If, you cover the spectrum airplane. If you live through it. You may remember that. When i got out of the navy, i take the original 17 guys in my class seven of us were still up and kicking. There was not a lot of jet experience. Could you Say Something more about your first experiences in the panthers . First time getting into a frontline aircraft. Airplanes were repainted. It was a total e ticket ride. There is nothing more thrilling than that. The guns are the primary weapon of choice today, 50 years later. And they always have been. Industry and washington decided not to put a gun on the airplane. I could have savede so many guys. Many eyes on the ground. It was captured by the guy on the ground. You had no other weapon in the airplane. Cancerous dynamite. You described a couple of instances of advanced training, really reinforcing the fact that you are on your own. Would you care to tell our audience, the trip to dallas in the low level. Part was to go to dallas. And fly back down. Thats only several hundred miles, 3. 5 by car. In an airplane doing 400 miles per hour, it is a hand. There wasnt any weather. We went and we had 600 foot overpass overcast. We had four of us trying to keep track of each other. We are going back up to dallas. We are probably misaligned on the exact track coming back. All of a sudden it goes between me and my wing is a tower. That tower was 1500 feet, and we were cruising along 500 feet just below the clay. That thing went by so fast. The red really caught my eye. I said, thats a reality check. Its a dam dangerous business. A lot of things you cant plan for. I dont know how many old aviators there were, no one my age. We had all the modern technology we had today. You have to be able to fly in the soup and navigate using just code, just code letters. In 18 months of training i got it down. I got disoriented, and it was just terrible. No excuse, your naval aviator is supposed to be able to do these things every single time. And i didnt. And i got it down. Grab a cup of coffee with my instructor. I thought this is not good, you are in trouble. The first when i had 18 months. With a good lesson of humility there. I took that with me quite a ways beyond that day and pay dearly for it. I made it through, got orders. Three at north island. We were going to go to old weather three Fighter Squadron next. What was it that made the squadron so unusual . It was all veterans. We probably had the best flight leader. We were broken up to four different flights. We probably had the four best instructor pilots, leaders that i ever flew with. It was, when you fly one per day or as often as you feel like it, truly thats what we did. You are around these guys with alert watches, working for the airport in a hokey mission. Somebody in those days we had to do it. And we got good at it. We won the awards every year that we had that duty. The benefit of the young ones like me and an abundance of why and our mentors and teachers were all the cream of the cop cream of the crop from the second world war. Thats what we ought to be doing today. We need to mentor more young ones. Therein lies part of the story of top gun. Did you ever find out how this loan Navy Squadron became to be part of norad . Negative up. I didnt care as long as i got to fly. Im not much of a politician. The other thing is you were flying, nicknamed the ford because of that designation. What was that like . It was the hot rod of the day. That was fun, challenging. Never in the history of my flying career i never flew anything and thats why learned to dogfight. It describes a place where it was illegitimate. It was the only way we could keep dogfighting alive back in 57, 58 and 59. People were trying to revert back to missiles and radar and all the magic stuff. We go out and dogfight. We would have gotten courtmartialed. But we were pretty quiet guys. Wouldnt you know, doing something you probably shouldnt be doing. Im not sure that our bosses didnt look the other way a lot. Which brings us to something. The other thing about the f4 d 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 services at this point. Rockets, at that point they had 2. 75 rockets on them. If you doubt i statement and mentality to change they took off all the gun ports. And they eventually just covered them all. Even in that day and that time, we never got to use the guns. We never got to fire guns. We won the all navy weapons next year. Were you with them on that cruise . He had an engine failure. He was as good as they got back in the days. Sometimes you roll the dice. Mixed me nervous. What about it makes you nervous . All of you. Its an honor to dogfight. We come up with some sayings. One of them secondplace was dead last. Chances are you are in a parachute or worse. The movie did it in justice in that regard. It painted us as a bunch of cowboys. My original guys for all phds at least they had two combat tours in vietnam. They were the seven best i knew. In those days, we include the israelis. I put that in writing. His wife gave me a big kiss. But mel was that good. I enjoy telling you about this. What makes a guy that good . Maybe its a godgiven talent. But mel was strapped in the f for. He had that kind of perception. The airplane became one with him. I picked top gun. He redefined the envelope of the f4. He knew that airplane. I got a lot of trouble, because we flew that airplane way beyond. We never killed anybody, we never wrecked an airplane. Pretty soon the kill ratio goes from two to one in vietnam. 21 is a reason after five years of war. To the end of the vietnam war, top gun was going strong. Guess what the end kill ratio was . 241. Thats a whole lot better. You can hold your head up high when you get out of the airplane. Anyhow, im sorry. Well come back to it. Flying beyond the ford and what it was meant to do, one of your themes was the bean counters restricting what is possible. You write about the fact that the navy actually restricts or prohibits combat maneuvering, dogfighting, so not to put strain on the aircraft. And combined with this idea that it is all going to be missiles, you go up and shoot up the seekers, the sidewinder and the sparrow, and they will be Long Distance shots. Do you think this practice of hassling grew out of the restriction . Those guys knew because they had been there. You are not going to publicly tell washington what she really thinks. Probably an authority for here. We listen to those guys. Or congratulate whatever you want to say. Dogfighting, the way that works he describes a detail in the book. Two guys go up alone, in a restricted area out there. You find 8, 10 airplanes. Everybody is getting along with each other. Breakaway. You do 500. Thats what real combat is like. Currently and in vietnam, mcnamara mandated the rules of engagement that we had to see the enemy before we could shoot at it. That totally negates the concept of guided missiles, because at that rate 1000 miles per hour, the guys could be close before you could identify. It doesnt work the way it is. This country finds itself they dont trust the combat experience leaders to set the rules of engagement. We are not going to end up dogfighting when we try to go there. Whatever the enemy happens to be we end up dogfighting them. Thats me personally. We are going to try to get through them quickly. From vf three . To vf 213 vf three you go to vf 213. The forerunner to the f4, it was a beautiful flying airplane. When we first put them out in the fleet they come down through thunderstorm losses. One slick afternoon. It would surround the engine. It tends to shrink. It would shrink around the turbans and the engines. All these guys came down. All the engines quit. The major fix, get it repaired. What they did as they went in and cut a very small off. The downside is you lost a great deal of power. Beautiful airplane. The phantom was so much better. It had power beyond anything i have ever flown. Thats 2. 47 times the speed. She would heat up from frictional fleet frictional heating. I tell you, i slowed it down. He had phenomenal power, thats why top gun worked. From the demon, your next tour at sea is with vf 92 silver kings. And you report on the board, the enterprise goes out to vietnam. I have been to the 121, teaching tactics and so forth. I ended up in a great squadron. The man i respect most in combat they call him skanky. What made him such a great leader is a natural ability a charismatic man. And whatever the Hard Missions oh no. I shut the thing off. Told them not to call me. Forgive me, please. Always took the tough missions. We bring in the young guys up. Never put anybody in the combat situation. That was going to get them hurt until they were ready. I think foxy new as well as i did. I have all kinds of experiences, i dont know if i have the time to tell you about. I love that man. I wasnt with him on this mission. They went through the fleshy part of his leg. He goes down and brings leg restraints. We have leg restraints that keep your legs from flailing. Puts them above the wound, and they flew 150 miles back to the carrier. I ran up there to see them. Two weeks later to the day in North Vietnam. Thats my measurement of real leadership. Go ahead. Just as a bit of background, we sort of talked about this. I want to put it together for your audience. Part of this idea that the navy had at the time, it is all going to be straightline flying and firing longrange guided missiles and soviet bombers to protect the United States or protect the carrier group. And you find yourself in a different war in vietnam, where you are prevented from shooting anything until you can visually identify your enemy. Key point right there, you design an airplane as an interceptor to shoot missiles, two different types of radar. You pay for it incidentally. When you get out there the rules of engagement are so stringent. The rules of engagement are mandated. Thats why. The best part some im teaching at 121. Teaching a tactics phase of 15 guys. Those are some pretty good drivers. 121, for the audience, this is where basically you are training everyone who is about to go out. We had over 100 airplanes, going night and day. The great frank writes a 400 page unsolicited he is so fed up with it. He sends the report back to washington. Thats about as close as i get to politics. One of the 400 recommended number of recommendations in those 400 patient for hunter pages with susan. We had to have a get well done a get well program done quickly. They had less than a 10 success rate. We knew it was going to come back out to us. They offered the job to me. The downside was 16 and 90 days you could have the first class. This is graduate school. This is beyond what they have been teaching. A Teachers College for teachers. Its a podium, you better pass the gear. The information it better be and youve got 90 days to do it. So i handpicked the guys up here. They were brilliant. 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 academic backgrounds. I did that with every one of these guys. He knew more about the f4 radar and the missiles. And he took that job. Three months later they were teaching, a way of hiring. Instead of fighting in the horizontal we use all the power of the f4 and it worked. Should we had nothing. He says, just dont kill anybody and dont wreck my airplanes. I had to borrow airplanes to put flights together. We needed a place to be. To meet and write and study and talk. A guy named steve smith, just a dynamite personality guy. He would make a list every morning. I said, steve we have to find room to have the classroom and have an office kind of place. So he is wandering around friday afternoon. Coming down the street, it is this big crane. It is this 40 foot to 20 foot building. And he talked to Civil Service a Civil Service crane operator. And he brought it down friday afternoon with a case of scotch. Over the weekend, steve had him deliver to home depot