Those who did well in this school learned how to fly their aircraft on the edge of the envelope and how to fight a broad range of aircraft and pilots.

Mirages, for instance, tended to be more maneuverable than Super Sabers, because the F-100s usually carried external fuel tanks, but Mirage pilots often entered the fight in afterburner with speed brakes out, thus negating the advantage of either function. As a result, it was pretty easy to get them to overshoot initially. After that, a pilot had to be careful at slow speed because the Mirages could out-turn him. The British Hawker Hunter was a sweet jet and tough to beat, but U.S. aircraft had afterburners and Hunters did not. While F-100s could not out-turn them, they could use the vertical dimension (that is, they could climb faster) to gain some advantage over a less skilled pilot. On the other hand, the Javelin (also British) was heavy and underpowered, so it didn’t take much to gain the advantage on it. The British Lightning had both superb turning ability and outstanding thrust, but didn’t carry much fuel. So if a pilot got jumped by a Lightning, he’d just stay defensive and fend off his passes with hard turns, nose low to maintain energy, until the fight wound up on the deck and the pilot’s turns now became level. Then he’d spend about ten pain-filled minutes looking over his own tail while the Lightning tried to get off a valid shot. Eventually, if he “survived,” he’d see the Lightning level his wings and turn for home, meaning that his meager gas supply was about gone. Then the pilot would light afterburner, fly after him, and place his nose on his tail just so he got the message.

Fighter pilot ecstasy.

★ Combat units are tested periodically to see if they can do their mission. The Super Bowl of tests for Horner’s wing was called an Operational Readiness Inspection, or ORI. Since for the 48th TFW the primary mission was to load their nuclear weapons and deliver them on the Soviet enemy situated throughout Eastern Europe, an ORI usually began when the wing received an alert message (plainly marked “Exercise Only”) that warned of an impending crisis. Soon inspectors flew into the base, and the commander was briefed on the nature and rules of the exercise. Usually the wing was expected to break out the nuclear weapons, deliver them to each combat-ready aircraft, and get them uploaded in a specified number of hours. If all that took too long, or if there were any unsafe practices, the exercise was stopped and the wing flunked. This often resulted in the appointment of a new wing commander, followed by a period of months to practice, and a retest.