In those days, the Air Force was still young and wild. Aircraft were underpowered and often poorly maintained, not nearly as safe as they are today. The leaders in the air were often veterans of World War II or Korea, where they had been rushed into combat with little training and a lot of attitude. Those who had survived were often indifferent to risk-taking that would make most people cringe. Low-level flying was low, often measured in a few feet above the ground, though as the old flyboy joke put it, the world’s record for low flying was tied, with fatal results. If it had been tough in Georgia, where they eliminated half the class, it was going to be hell in Texas.

Yet for Horner, life was blessed. He loved his work, flying came easily to him, and he excelled in the academic courses. He learned instruments by flying under a hood in the backseat of a T Bird; he learned transition—takeoff and landing and acrobatic maneuvers—and he learned flying formation. He knew now that he wanted to be a fighter pilot.

His flight commander, Captain Jack Becko (he looked a little like Jack Palance and was a terror in the sky), had been an F-86 pilot in Korea and was a joy to fly with. Captain Becko loved flying and acrobatics and formation. Too many pilots were timid—they got nervous in close formation or joining up after takeoff—but Horner, who loved it all as much as Becko did, was very aggressive, very wild on the controls. The flight commander adored that; he howled with glee when he flew an instruction ride with Horner, and Horner slammed the throttle around and made the jet go where it needed to be to stay in formation. And then, after they’d gone through all the required maneuvers, Captain Becko showed him how to shoot down another jet.

Some of the more conservative instructors—the ones with multi-engine time—were less enthusiastic, but since Horner always flew well and was always in position, they kept quiet.

At Laredo, a table, little larger than a card table, was the “office” where an instructor briefed his students. The flight room had about ten of them along the walls. On them were maps and diagrams under Plexiglas, so you could draw on them with a grease pencil, to show the path over the ground during an instrument approach, the procedures needed to compensate for wind drift, and the like. Each IP would have from one to three students in his table.

Horner grew so proficient that one day the instructor for his table, First Lieutenant Art Chase, asked him to fly lead for another, much less skilled, student. That way, Chase could get in the other student’s backseat and provide formation instruction.