Jets Magazine Jets June 2012 Back Issue

As we s t re a ked low
across the Romanian
countryside, ‘Smokey’ fell
uncharacteristically silent.
Over the previous few days I’d got
to know Richard ‘Smokey’ Young well
and he was an affable and typically
flamboyant American pilot.
Minutes earlier we had led a
formation of high performance
aerobatic aeroplanes out to the coast
off the Black Sea resort at Constanta
and completed a ‘recce’ of the course
that the crews would be racing around
the following day. Now we had
split formation and were transiting
as singletons back to our temporary
home at the former Romanian AF base
at Tuzla. And, as our Harmon Rocket
skimmed the treetops, the atmosphere
had changed.
Cold War Warrior
“I’m sorry I went quiet on the runin,”
Smokey said as we unstrapped
and swung the canopy open to get
some cool air. “It suddenly dawned
on me that I was flying low-level
towards a former Soviet Bloc airfield
and I realised that ‘this’ was what I
spent my career training to do, yet
hoped I’d never have to. It was a
sobering thought.”
As we grabbed a cool drink
Smokey told me more about his
career as a USAF F-111 driver and
the time he’d spent in the UK during
the Cold War. It was fascinating and
I vowed to one day get him to share
his story to a wider audience. That
was back in the summer of 2008
but I’m pleased to say I’ve convinced
Smokey to put pen to paper and
if you turn to page 58 you’ll see
what it was like to fly General
Dynamics’ revolutionary swing-wing
nuclear bomber. I hope you’ll be as
fascinated as I was.
Happy Memories
I have happy memories of the F-111.
Growing up in the Midlands in the
1980s, the Upper Heyford-based
Aardvarks would regularly disrupt
school lessons as they tore past
on ‘attack’ missions. Back then
military types could be frequently
observed from the school windows;
I remember one day in particular
when a ‘convoy’ of 17 C-130
Hercules filed past, seemingly
following the river.