Lessons From The Cockpit

Welcome the eighty-second episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit show! I'm your host Mark Hasara, aviation and conflict history expert.

Colonel Ray “Donk” Strasburger began his flying career as a Navigator in the B-52, qualifying for a pilot slot when his initial eye test was determined to be wrong! Donk and his wingman were awarded Silver Stars for destroying major elements of the Special Republican Guard Hammurabi Division assaulting Task Force 2-69th Armor at the Muthanna Bridge, called Objective Monty, during the sand storm sweeping through Baghdad on 6 April 2003. The ground controller for 2-69th callsign ADVANCE 33 was a voice Donk recognized immediately!

This and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit show are financially sponsored by Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. These four, six, or eight foot long aircraft profiles printed on vinyl peel off and stick to any flat surface. They are also water proof. There are 149 Ready-to-Print and ship profiles of aircraft from WWII to fifth generation fighters. We can also do custom aircraft profiles of your favorite aircraft. Go to www.wallpilot.com and purchase one or two of these highly detailed aircraft profiles for you or your kids.

This A-10 Warthog belongs to the 163rd Fighter Squadron "Black Snakes" from the Indiana Air National Guard and represents an A-10 like Donk flew over Iraq. This print is available from Wall Pilot at the link here.

This F-16CG Block 40 Fighting Falcon was deplooyed to Al Udied Air Base in the United Arab Emirates during the 2003 Shock and Awe air campaign. It is the flagship of the World Famous Highly Respected (WFHR) 555th Fighter Squadron out of Aviano Air Base Italy.

This F-15E Strike Eagle flagship represents the 335th Fighter Squadron "Chiefs" deployed to Al Udied Air Base in Qatar and flew missions in both the first and second Gulf Wars.

Thanks for downloading this and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit show found here on my YouTube channel and at www.lessonsfromthecockpit.show. Become an All Ranks Club member and receive unpublished chapters of my book Tanker Pilot, pictures taken during my KC-135 career, and soon a Lessons from the Cockpit coin for the Virtual Bar Nights. I set up personal Zoom calls for All Ranks Club members just so we can talk aviation.

Thanks again for listening and we’ll talk again next week on the Lessons from the Cockpit show!

Welcome to the fifty-eighth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast. We are going to talk about nukes since there is so much about a possible WW III in all the media.

President Ronald Reagan created the world's best nuclear deterrent capability in Strategic Air Command as he poured money into the military after years of neglect. The timeframe from when I showed up at the 509th Air Refueling Squadron in 1985 to 1990 when I left Pease as it was closing was a great time to be a KC-135 pilot at Portsmouth New Hampshire. I was flying an airplane I loved, doing a critical Air Force mission that was fun, and got to take a T-37 up whenever I could find another Copilot to go with me. It was a golden age of flying in my career. But still very dangerous as every third week I would go into an underground nuclear-hardened bunker and sit on Single Integrated Operations Plan or SIOP alert with six FB-111As carrying four nukes and five to six tankers to refuel them on their mission of Armaggedon.

This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast is sponsored by the Amazon Best-Selling book Tanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit found in all four formats... Hardback, Softback, Kindle, and Audible. Twenty-two chapters give readers a behind-the-scenes look at global air operations from a KC-135.

Visit Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. You can choose from four, six, and eight-foot-long aircraft profiles printed on vinyl you can peel off and stick to any flat surface. These are very detailed prints of famous aircraft so please go to wallpilot.com and order one or two prints for your walls. Wall Pilot does custom artwork and patches too. Our products are weather resistant... one customer put his F-15 squadron patches on his boat and they stayed put and didn't fade!

I loved flying the KC-135 Stratotanker and my assignment to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa was the best flying experience of my career... where I learned the most.

The FB-111A was the SAC version of the swing-wing fighter bomber made famous during Desert Storm. This is a print of the FB-111A from Pease AFB I sat alert with many times.

The B-58 Hustler named Cowtown Hustler set the speed record for flight from LA to New York and back to LA setting seven speed records until the SR-71 Blackbird came along.

The E-6A Mercury Take Charge and Move Out or TACAMO aircraft was flown by the Navy and used for command and control of the submarine forces.

The SR-71 Blackbird was SAC's very special and very fast reconnaissance platform moving at over Mach 3+! The Okinawans called it Habu, after a poisonous snake on the island because it looked so much like the reptile.

Thanks for downloading and listening to this and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast can be found on my website markhasara.com

Welcome to the fifty-seventh episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! This episode is an anniversary episode.

This past week marked twenty years since the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom's Shock and Awe air campaign, a term those of us involved never used. To those planning and executing air operations, it was Air Tasking Order Oscar or ATO O. The Combined Air Operations Center Air Refueling Control Team which I led went through six weeks of hell preparing for the opening A-Day and H-Hour, Friday night 21 March 2003 at 9 pm local Baghdad time. In this episode, you will hear the background stories of how the air refueling team got to that Friday night air schwacking of Iraq, from Friday 14 March to what you saw a week later on all the news media on 21 March. It looked like everything was going smoothly but no, it wasn't. The tanker force was not in place until Sunday 23 March.

This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast is sponsored by the book Tanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit found in all four formats; hardback, softback, Kindle, and Audible. Thirty-two pictures taken during events described in the book are contained in the pages, some taken by the author and some taken by the receivers.

Prints of aircraft participating in the opening night of Iraqi Freedom can be found at Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. These are four, six, or eight-foot-long aircraft profiles printed on vinyl which can be peeled off or framed and placed on any flat surface.

The F-15E Strike Eagle was tasked to support Close Air Support to the Third Infantry Division in their march to Baghdad. This F-15E carries the weapons load normally used on such CAS missions.

The F-16CJ Wild Weasel took part in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) and the Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses on the opening night when the Baghdad Super Missile Engagement Zone had to be destroyed.

The F-16CJs were supported in their mission by the RC-135 Rivet Joint, an electronic intelligence collection platform used to identify, classify, and locate Saddam's SAM systems.

The E-3B Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System or AWACS was the Air Battlefield Manger platform for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Air Mobility Command KC-10 Extender was critical to the air refueling system for Operation Iraqi Freedom because they could refuel both Boom or Drogue-equipped aircraft and were air refuelable, allowing the KC-10 to be filled up during flight.

Go by my Lt Col Mark Hasara TikTok page to see short 15 to 30-second aviation and military videos that educate and entertain. Some are pretty incredible!

Thanks to all of my listeners for downloading this and previous episodes of the podcast. I really do appreciate it! This and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast can be found on my website at markhasara.com

Welcome to the fifty-sixth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! I really appreciate all of you tuning in and downloading this and previous episodes of the show.

One of the great memories of my KC-135 career was flying at low altitude with a receiver behind us. My first introduction to the planning and execution of low-altitude refueling was at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. All of our 909th Air Refueling Squadron tanker crews were certified to do this technique and procedure. This episode discusses the whys and hows of low-altitude air refueling with examples from training and actual combat. The lowest we'd go in the KC-135 is 3000 feet above the terrain, typically refueling the A-10 at 9000 to 10,000 feet. One international Air Force established the record for the lowest altitude refueling on an operational mission in one of the most daring and successful air strikes in the history of aerial warfare!

The Lessons from the Cockpit podcast is financed by Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. These are very detailed profiles of aircraft printed on vinyl you can peel off and stick to any flat surface. One hundred twenty-seven Ready-to-Print profiles are available in four, six, and eight-foot-long prints. If there is a favorite aircraft you'd like to have your name, unit, tail codes, and weapons load, we can create a custom print for you too. The form is on the website.

A 909th Air Refueling Squadron KC-135 R Model print is available in the Ready-to-Print section here.

The KC-10 has also done low-altitude air refueling. A print of a Travis AFB KC-10 from the 60th Air Mobility Wing is available in the Ready-to-Print section here.

An F-4E of the 3rd TFS based at Clark Air Base in The Philippines which flew missions during Operation Desert Storm from Incirlik Air Base Turkey and participated in the 1989 GUNSMOKE bombing and gunnery competition at Nellis AFB can be purchased here.

Thanks for downloading this and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast, found on my website at markhasara.com.

We look forward to talking with you next week!

Welcome to the fifty-fifth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! Thanks for downloading and listening.

A three-inch thick manila folder on my desk in my new assignment to the Air Mobility Command Director of Operations or AMC/DO staff ended up being the worst four years of my career and yet the most rewarding looking back on it. This graduate-level curriculum changed the way the US Air Force air refueling community did business... right before 9/11! And nobody wanted us! I was second in command of the Initial Cadre of eighteen airmen tasked with creating the KC-135 Weapons School, now the 509th Weapons Squadron. Twenty-five years later, the 509th Weapons School has produced over 200 graduates.

This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast is sponsored by the book Tanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit, found in all four formats; Hardback, Softback, Kindle, and Audible. Thirty-two pictures taken during air refueling operations are contained in the book. Please buy one or two copies as sales keep the podcast financed and running.

Four, six, and eight-foot-long profiles of aircraft involved in the US Air Force Weapons School printed on vinyl you can peel off and stick to any flat surface can be found at Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. Wall Pilot can create custom profiles of your favorite aircraft with your name, unit patches, tail number, and weapons loads by going to the website and filling out the custom profile print form.

A print of the KC-135 with the 909th ARS markings can be purchased here.

Prints of the 57th Wing Flagship, an F-15C Eagle based at Nellis Air Force Base Nevada, home of the US Air Force Weapons School, can be purchased here. The 65th Aggressor Squadron's F-15C Eagles in the Flanker and Splinter paint schemes are also available from Wall Pilot.

Prints of Nellis AFB 64th Aggressor Squadron F-16Cs in the all-black Wraith, the Splinter, the Digital, and the Flogger paint schemes are available at Wall Pilot.

Thanks to all of you for downloading and listening to this and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast, found on the Mark Hasara website under the Podcast pulldown.