More RIO at the controls legends (true of course)
I blew my chance in RAG when there were two of us with same last name and the other guy was a pilot. One of first hops is pilot and pilot with a hot switch.. halfway through my brief, I realized my instructor thought I was the other guy and was planning to let me hot switch up front.....
Another famous RIO story was in the late 70s when the F-14 Requirements Officer (a RIO) was invited to St Louis for a F-15 ride and they put him in front seat after some sim time (who was he to question them) and let him do the takeoff and fly it a bit before test pilot showed him some "stuff" and then the RIO took them home. Guess USAF wasn't too good on RECCE (two anchors vs one on nametag).
When VF-1 and 2 were stood up as first Tomcat squadrons, pilots and RIOs were in place at VF-124 way before jets arrived so they borrowed TA-4Js from Instrument RAGs (future Adversary outfits) and flew tactics hops with RIOs flying with pilots and doing a fair amount of time at the controls.
I blew my chance in RAG when there were two of us with same last name and the other guy was a pilot. One of first hops is pilot and pilot with a hot switch.. halfway through my brief, I realized my instructor thought I was the other guy and was planning to let me hot switch up front.....
Another famous RIO story was in the late 70s when the F-14 Requirements Officer (a RIO) was invited to St Louis for a F-15 ride and they put him in front seat after some sim time (who was he to question them) and let him do the takeoff and fly it a bit before test pilot showed him some "stuff" and then the RIO took them home. Guess USAF wasn't too good on RECCE (two anchors vs one on nametag).
When VF-1 and 2 were stood up as first Tomcat squadrons, pilots and RIOs were in place at VF-124 way before jets arrived so they borrowed TA-4Js from Instrument RAGs (future Adversary outfits) and flew tactics hops with RIOs flying with pilots and doing a fair amount of time at the controls.
