Thomas W. Burdin at the #SpringfieldOHBookFair

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About Thomas W. Burdin

Tom Burdin
Nonfiction, Military, Autobiography

Vietnam veteran with the USAF as a pilot.  During his time in the Vietnam conflict, he flew 165 combat missions including 100 in North Vietnam.   During that time, he either led or participated in the rescue of 69 people from life threatening situations.   For his efforts, he was awarded 11 Air Medals and 4 Distinguished Flying Crosses.

SANDY ONE, THIS IS CROWN

It follows his journey from childhood airplane fascinations to USAF pilot training, and preparations for the war and many combat missions.  

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SANDY ONE, THIS IS CROWN
SURPRISE, YOU HAVE AN ASSIGNMENT
Chapter 1 Excerpt

I had always wondered what happened to the tires at the exact moment of touchdown.   The tires on the T-38 Talon were filled with high pressure nitrogen and marked “165 knots Max”.  I just could not imagine what forces were at work when the free-wheeling tires first scuffed the surface of the runway.   Sort of a hot- rod-car “peel-out” in reverse with hot, partially melted pieces of rubber flying across the runway and also up onto the white underbelly of the jet.  This thought kept me from others more concerning as I maneuvered the jet onto the centerline for the instrument runway, 13C, at Laughlin AFB Texas.  This was the center runway of the three parallel landing strips.   The 13 indicated the first 2 digits of the magnetic heading of the runway which was 130 degrees.  The “C” meant that it was the center of the 3 runways.  The last digit of the runway heading is always “0”.  Later in my time at Laughlin, I was assigned to Wing Operations, and pioneered the plan to open the old, abandoned, “inside”, 13R, runway for the “squeeky bird”, T-37 aircraft, when Laughlin’s mission load of training pilots for the USAF increased dramatically in 1965.   Opening that runway was just a small, but central, part of my larger, overall plan for utilization of ground and airspace.   But that memory was not what was really on my mind now.
 
San Antonio Air Traffic Control Center had turned us over to Laughlin Approach control for our descent to the centerline for the straight in ILS approach. The  student would direct the ILS.  He was flying the aircraft ”under the bag”, on instruments, in the back seat of the sleek, white,  2-seat, twin jet, supersonic trainer  on the final leg of his cross country flight.  Laughlin Approach Control turned us over to the Radar Ground Approach Control or RAPCON which monitored all of our ILS approaches.   They cleared us to land.  The student had put down the gear and flaps earlier in the approach, but I checked them again, just to be sure. I always told my students: “When I am flying, I am flying.  When you are flying, I am flying”.  That meant that as an Instructor Pilot, I was the guy who signed for the aircraft.   

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