Flying the Black Rocket: The Northrop T-38 Talon

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Here it is! Airspeed's biggest and best video episode so far!

I've loved the Northrop T-38 for years. Born in the cauldron of the F-5 Freedom Fighter program in the late 1950s, it has since trained more than 50,000 military jet pilots throughout the world. It's sleek and pointy and fast (Mach 1.3 capable). It's the advanced jet trainer for the US Air Force. And it's also the companion trainer for many of the Air Force's most amazing aircraft.

In July, I got an orientation flight with the 99th Reconnaissance Sqn, 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB near Sacramento, California. 1.2 hours in the White Rocket. (Or, if you're flying a "BB" tailed T-38, black and red.) It was a great experience.

It has taken some time, but I think that it has been worth it. 49 minutes of JP-4-burning acceleration, pull, and float. In true Airspeed style, the episode covers every angle and isn't afraid to dig for the details that aviators and aviation enthusiasts love.

From a tour of the ramp to see the U-2 Dragon Lady and the RQ-4 Global Hawk up close to egress and survival training to the briefing to highlights from the flight, it's all here.

And it's all swaddled in original music. This is the first outing for Acro Groove, a track that's going to be one of the major themes underlying Acro Camp. It's by 7600, a loose-knit group of aviator musicians. In this particular incarnation, it's FAA Designated Examiner Barry Sutton on drums, yours truly on guitar, and acro IP Don Weaver on keyboards.

This episode is game-changing in aviation podcasting. There's nothing else out there that comes close. I'm fiercely proud of this work. But, even so, it's a waypoint on a journey that will include even bigger, better, and more exciting projects.

Stay tuned! It only gets better from here.

Still More Frame Grabs from the T-38 Ride

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio or video, please check out the other entries.

After getting the Acro Camp trailer ready to show at the Great Lakes International Aviation Conference on Saturday, I sat down to really crank on the episode covering my T-38A ride with the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB. All of the pieces other than the voiceover material is in the can and I’m going through all of the footage again to see where voiceover is necessary in order to help explain what’s happening on screen.

And, of course, that means that I get frame grabs as I go to post here.

The lead shot is an inverted moment out in the MOA. I didn’t have a chamber card, so we had to stay below FL 180. Given the elevation of the terrain, we couldn’t really get in a full loop, but the alternative maneuver was pretty cool regardless. Imagine a slashing loop that’s canted over 45 degrees. That presents a pretty sight out the window. Especially if you roll it at strategic moments like this one.


Here’s a view of three of the cameras that I flew on the sortie. The primary camera is a GoPro HD Hero mounted on the grab handle. Behind it, clamped to the AOA indicator housing, ate two ContourHDs, one looking forward and the other looking 90 degrees left. I also flew with a hand-held ContourHD so that I could shoot footage inside the cockpit.


Like this, in fact. If you look straight down into your lap in the back of a Talon, here’s what you see. I’ve got my sectional strapped down so I can follow along for the route. I also carry a couple of sic sacs, although I’m happy to say that I didn’t need either of them on this sortie. You get a pretty good idea of the ergonomics here. The stick is right there handy. There’s a T-handle on the panel just in front of the stick that moves the pedals fore and aft to give you the best distance. Obviously, the fact that you’re sitting in an ejection seat makes it more practical for the aircraft to have movable pedals than a movable seat. You can raise and lover it within an approx. 5-inch range, but that’s about it for the seat.


Here’s one of my favorite shots. Inverted at 15,500 MSL and 280 KIAS. Clearly, this shot is post-G-ex. You can see that we’ve already pulled/pushed +4.7/-0.8. I think that the range for the whole sortie was +5.0/-1.0.


I like the color in this one. This is just after launch on the first landing – a touch-and-go. We got a total of two takeoffs and two landings and I learned a lot about the sight picture in really pointy aircraft like the T-38. Something about a 160-KIAS short final really gets your attention.

More editing to do this week. I have a couple of proposals to draft for some additional military flights and the T-38 episode is going to be a big part of those packages. I’m really pleased with the way it the footage looks and it’s a lot of fun turning this into a cogent story for you guys. Stay tuned for the full episode, coming soon to a handheld device near you!

T-38 Egress Training - Part 2

And now it's time for the "do" phase of the T-38 egress training at Beale AFB. I climb in, strap in, and get a chance to demonstrate what I've learned. And ask a lot more questions!

I'm planning to shoot some more commentary this weekend and then I'll have all of the elements I need to get going on the final edit. Watch for the finished episode in October.

Raw Footage: T-38 Egress Training - Part 1b

Here's the second half of the "show" portion of the egress training for the T-38 ride at Beale AFB in July. I'm paying pretty close attention because the "do" portion - where I have to get in, strap in, and show that I can get out quickly - is coming up shortly.

This is just the raw footage. I'm editing the episode and shooting some commentary and hoping to have the full episode ready to go in October. Stay tuned!

Raw Footage: T-38 Egress Training Part 1a

One of the beautiful things about new media is the ability to let your audience go as deep as it wishes into the experience. Although I'm carefully and artfully assembling the Airspeed episode covering the T-38 ride using only the tastiest and most relevant parts of the footage, some of you are going to want to see the whole thing from beginning to end.

So here's the second in a series containing the raw footage that went into the ride. In this installment, Capt Gorman goes through the initial pert of the "show" phase of the egress training. The "do" comes later when I strap in.

Post-Production Begins on T-38 Episode

This is a regular blog post. Please check out the other posts if you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio or video.

The adrenaline rush from the T-38 ride at Beale has subsided just enough that I can sit down and begin to rationally inventory the content that we captured on the trip. I spent part of this afternoon going through some of Mark LaCoste’s still pictures. While Mark was primarily handling video, he also shot some really good stills.

I flew four cameras on the sortie – three mounted and one hand-held. Here, I’m mounting a couple of ContourHDs. You can see the GoPro HD Hero through the glass just opposite where my belt buckle would be if I was wearing a belt. I had given a lot of thought beforehand about where to mount the cameras, so the mounting and setting took only about five minutes. The crew chief was really helpful, too, in selecting where to put the hardware.

Here, LtCol Gary MacLeod finished checking out my harness and making sore that nothing in the back cockpit becomes FOD. (Yeah, you pay close attention that. You do engine start and taxi with the canopies open for ventilation. The intakes are just abeam the rear cockpit and anything loose in that cockpit will instantly be ingested into the engines. Which would matter greatly even if the engine weren’t 50-odd years old. And, even though they've been overhuled many times, they're - well - 50 years old.

Getting ready to go. I’m setting up the audio recorder.

I’m really excited about this episode. Can you tell? Contrary to prior practice, I think I have enough video – and it’s strong enough stuff – that I think this is going to be an all-video treatment. I’ll likely do an audio treatment as well on some of the more meta aspects of the flight, but this feels like a video thing. More soon as I get the rest of the inventory done and start writing the script and figuring out what other on-camera narrative input I need to film here in Michigan.

Firebase Airspeed - Beale AFB Style

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Jo Hunter (www.futurshox.net) and Mark LaCoste (www.twitter.com/stdntpilotmark) joined me at Beale to shoot stills and video, respectively. And, as is the custom of merry bands of new-media producers, we gathered around an MP3 recorder to talk about the experience and get some content out into the podsphere.

This session happened in the VOQ at Beale Air Force Base about 45 minutes north of Sacramento, California on the morning of my T-38 ride.

We’re compiling the video, audio, and stills and I should have content get into the feed soon!

First Frame Grabs from the T-38 Talon Ride

The Talon ride is in the logbook! 1.2 dual received on the orientation flight in the mighty Northrop T-38 Talon! Jo, Mark, and I just departed Beale AFB and I'm posting this from Sacramento (KSMF) on the way home to Detroit.

I flew four cameras. These grabs are from the GoPro HD Hero mounted on the grab handle. I flew two ContourHDs mounted on the AOA indexer: One pointed forward over Lt Col MacLeod's head and the other just behind that one pointed off to the left to get the roll. Lastly, I flew Jo Hunter's ContourHD in my hand to point at whatever seemed most interesting at the moment (not the least of which is the airspeed indicator/mach meter).

These are the only frame grabs that I've had time to extract, but I can't wait to get the rest of the video offloaded and watch it to identify the really cool moments. I pulled these off in a Thai restaurant after the ride. Even if I had more time, it would be almost impossible to watch the video under those circumstances without getting all excited about the ride all over again. Introspection will have to wait.

Look for more frame grabs and for both an audio episode (yes, it will be epic) and a video episode covering the flight.

I'm going to try to slide down the back side of this adrenaline rush and sleep some on the kerosene canary on the red-eye ride home tonight. Fat chance.

And tomorrow will be interesting, as days like that always are. How do you walk down the hall and properly answer a casual "What's up?" from a colleague when, less than 24 hours ago, you were doing Mach 0.94 above the mountains of northern California? If there's a proper answer to that one, I have yet to discover it.

On the Eve of the Talon Ride

This is a regular blog entry. If you’re looking for show notes or liks to show audio or video, please check out the other entries.

Many thanks to Jo Hunter (www.futurshox.net) for shooting the stills in this entry and to Mark LaCoste for shooting video and providing really valuable Air Force background and commentary from his experiences as an F-15 Eagle maintainer.

Okay, I’m going on radar. (It seems as though I’ve been using that line frequently lately!)

I’ve been here at Beale AFB, about 45 minutes north of Sacramento, since Sunday afternoon. This morning, I completed my flight physical. That’s the last hurdle over which I have any control and thus the event after which I go on radar with you guys. So I can tell you that I’m on the verge of completing the trifecta: Completing demo rides in examples of aircraft from each phase of the fighter-bomber track.

As most of you know, I have logged time in the T-6A and the F-16. That leaves only the Phase 3 aircraft – In this case, the mighty T-38 Talon. I’ve been working with the 9th Reconnaissance Wing for a few months to get things lined up and now it’s scheduled to happen tomorrow. I show at 1345 local and step at 1530 local for an approx. 1.5-hour flight.

Today was mostly preliminaries. I got the flight physical done and then did a base tour. After lunch, it was time for the egress training, parachute training, survival kit orientation, and local survival training.

The egress training is always the most interesting of the pre-flight activities. You have a training cockpit and you learn how to get in, strap in, get the canopy closed, and be ready to fly. Then it’s all about emergency procedures. You learn how to egress (get the hell out of the airplane on the ground in case of fire or other danger) and how to eject.

Capt Gorman walked me through the egress training first, and then I climbed in and demonstrated my understanding. It takes doing it two or three times to figure out what you’re doing, but it comes pretty quickly if you’ve paid attention.

Then it’s all about the parachute. We walked through what to expect in an ejection and how to recognize and troubleshoot parachute malfunctions. Probably the most interesting part came with the personal lowering device (or “PLD”). The idea is that you might make it from 15,000 ft. AGL to 50 AGL just fine, but be hung up in a tree and need to get yourself the rest of the way down unassisted. With the PLD, you can do just that but connecting it to a tree branch or (if your parachute is firmly lodged in the tree) the parachute itself and then pulling the harness releases and lowering yourself with a breaker bar.

I actually got to perform the whole procedure suspended from the ceiling. For the record, it was pretty straightforward and I think I accomplished it with aplomb. One demonstrated parachute landing fall later, I was signed off and the pre-flight training was complete.

Next was life support for the G-suit, helmet, and mask. This is my third time getting fitted for this equipment. Although the fittings have been roughly a year apart, I’m pleased to report that it seems that I remember perfectly well how to don and doff a G-suit. And a helmet and mask. And check out the breathing apparatus at the test station. Not that I’m anywhere close to being a fighter jock. But it gets the heart beating a little quicker when you walk into a place like the base life support room and it turns out that you know what to do.

So, in the quiet and dark of yet another locker at yet another Air Force base, there sits another G-suit, helmet, and mask. And they have my name associated with them. Tomorrow I again get to taste a little bit of that fleeting dream that began in 1971 with a book about Joe McConnell, Jr. and the F-86 Sabre. Tomorrow I step to complete the trifecta. And maybe I get a little closer to understanding what lives inside every pilot and aviation enthusiast.

And, most of all, I hope that I again feel that spark that will keep me up at night for the next couple of months composing, editing, writing, and bringing you guys another account from the edge of the envelope.

G’night for now. Sleep if you can. I’m going to go toss and turn for awhile. Wouldn’t you?

Invertor et vomens! Smoke on!