Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is
Dwayne Rudd. He's a US Air Force veteran who, during his time in
service flew YouTube reconnaissance missions. Was very heavily involved in the development of the
B two stealth bomber, both as a test pilot and overseeing many other facets
of the program. He is also the author of a very interesting new book
about veterans in a memory care facility in Wilmore, Kentucky. It's called Fading
Away at Wilmore and Duwayne, thank you very much for being with us.
Thank you so much. Greg. It's an honor to speak with you today.
So let's begin at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?
Sir? I'm a hill billy and a mountaineer from West Virginia. Was
born in a small town o'kill, West Virginia. My father was in coal
mining industry, and you know, some of my earliest memories we're watching early
Mercury space flights go up. So an image I have in my mind or
the is Walter Cronkite talking and the black and white on our TV with the
Rabbit air antennas watching those early astronauts go to the launch. So that was
in my mind and that kind of propelled me for the rest of my career.
So basically a hillbilly and a mountaineer who was enthralled by the space program.
So is that one of the reasons you joined the Air Force? You
know it was. The trajectory wasn't immediately clear to me in the beginning,
but I just had a general filling I wanted to go into space, and
that led me along to the Air Force for your ROTC program pilot training,
and the steps kind of fell into place as I went along. Had there
been any military service in your family prior to you joining the Air Force?
Well, and I have a rich history and family, Gregg. You know
that's an excellent point. I had uncles that were heavily involved in World War
Two. One uncle was in I think the third wave at Normandy, got
wounded by a German sniper, ended up spending several months at Walk to Read
Hospital recovering. Another uncle that was in the Navy on a mine sweeper,
was in the Battle of Okinawa, experienced the kamikaze attacks there. And my
father was in the Korean War. He was a tank driver, didn't get
to do a lot of tank battles, but did a lot of artillery support.
Was in one one major battle in Korea, So a rich history.
I heard a lot of a lot of combat stories growing up. And then
in a special case, another uncle that happened to be in the army when
World War two began, so he spent three and a half years in combat,
and as far as I know, it's only himself and another guy survived
out of their company. So he was in Africa fighting Rommel in Italy when
they defeated the Germans in Europe. He actually was on his way to Japan
to fight there. So even though he had three and a half years,
he still had had to go to battle. So you could say I have
a history, but nobody that flew well. That is a very rich legacy
of military service. And it's also interesting that you decided to go in a
slightly different direction thanks to the advancement of flight and the obviously the dawn of
the space program, which they didn't have the option of pursuing right back then.
So where did you go for training once you were commissioned asl is a
four year RUTC graduate at West Virginia University, got a Bachelor of Science and
Aerospace engineering there and went to polot training in Columbus, Mississippi. Spent a
year their class seventy eight O four, and then after completing the training at
Columbus, I was a casey one thirty five refueling tanker co pilot. Progressed
from there to aircraft commander instruct a pilot and was selected to fly to you
two from tankers, and then went on a test pilot school and then the
Shuttle program and B two combined test scores. Well, those are definitely the
areas we're going to focus on over the course of our conversation. When you
went to pilot training, that had come naturally for you flying. You know,
I was the first one in my family to fly, and I was
competing with guys had already had license, you know, they had their commercial
license instrument ratings, so you know, I was fresh out of the hills
of West Virginia. So although I had a flight training program my senior year,
it was just enough time for me to solo and a piper Cherokee,
So I had like ten or fifteen hours. But obviously no jet time,
and a lot of these guys showed up that had advanced licensed and had been
able to do training for quite a while. So, you know, I
think my engineering degree helped me, but there was a period of time of
adjustment. The good thing was I didn't I never got air sick my whole
career. I had a friend, another friend from West Virginia that I roomed
with, and he got sick, like the first twenty flights that he got
to the point where he said he could he could get sick, he could
throw up in his bags, tie the bag off, and not lose a
foot of altitude, and then just one day it disappeared. So, you
know, I think I got better as times went alonger. There's a first
couple of three months was definitely getting in the swing of things and catching up
with the other people. But you know, I would say by the end
of the program, we were all pretty even. Well we're gonna talk about
the you two in just a second, but you mentioned you started with in
flight refueling, which is an interesting concept, especially for those of us who
have never done it. How complicated is it and how quickly do you get
used to it? What are the keys to making it work. Well,
you know, the guy that does the important job is the boom operator and
the bike he's so it's it's kind of like three different things flying at the
same time. You know, we're up with the navigator trying to make as
stable a platform as we can. Then the boom operators actually flying the boom
and the bike it has a couple of little wings on it. The guy's
getting refueled comes up behind it and the boom operator talks him in. Plus,
I've done refueling on the other end, and F sixteen and B two
refueling to us. When you're coming in on the other side, you just
have to come in real slow. And the bigger the airplane is, the
more tricky it is because there's a bow wave with a with a big heavy
airplane like a B two or a B fifty two, there's this way so
you got to you gotta go in. And we would see that up front.
We were typically on the autopod is that bow wave approach. The aircraft
would start trimming pretty rapidly to account for that, and then their lights and
indications on the bottom of the tanker that guides the pilot coming in to get
gas, and then of course the boom operators talking to him in so he
flies that boom and the fuel receptacle into the place on the aircraft wherever it
is locks that up with some interlocks. There's a sign that said, yeah,
you guys are connected, and then we started fuel flowing up in front.
Now, the largest offload I've ever had is about one hundred thousand pounds
of fuel to a WAX support. Did you ever ever have to do it
in a combat zone? I didn't do it at a combat zone. I
guess the closest thing I got to that. I spent a month in Saudi
Arabia supporting Airy feeling of the AWAX over their radar defense RC one thirty five
with the big dome on top. And it was a very quick mission for
us. We would just go up, offload one hundred thousand pounds and come
back down. We had to fight every once in a while big dust storms.
But I guess the most exciting thing I did is I was in a
deployment to Iceland. My crew and I were doing alert for the FF teams
that would scramble to intercept the Russian Bear bombers, and we got Oxler launched
in the middle of the night one time, so we had to run out
to the airplane, take off at the SF teams and orbit while they intercepted
the Bear bomber and turned him away and refilled the SF teams. So my
navigator framed the plot that he had the map that he had to show where
the bears and the F fifteens were and where we were. I haven't framed
and saw on the wall, so that was that was kind of cool.
So I guess those were the two exciting times. Plus it wasn't combat.
But back then we did nuclear alert. There were four KC one thirty five
tankers four D fifty two with nuclear weapons, and we would spend ten days
at a time in an alert facility. We couldn't go very far, and
we would have exercises every once in a while and we would come out.
We'd see the staff cars with leadership park just watching us. Well, about
one o'clock in the morning, the alert horn went off and went outside and
there were no staff cars, and it felt pretty eerie. And as I
was climbing up in the airplane, the navigator got there before we did,
and he started screaming it's actual. It's actual, so we thought, potentially
we're going to war. We had a six minute warning window for Russian sub
launching the nuclear missile at US. This is in North Carolina, Seymour Dunsons,
so we knew he didn't have much time. There were pilots from the
B fifty two. It's literally screaming for maintenance. You know, they had
problems with the engine start. So it was looking pretty grim for a while,
and then a couple minutes later the all clear sounded and we learned later
it was probably a meteorite that NORAD had seen and the tra directory indicated it
had come from with Korea. But you know, why would they send and
this will all the way to North Carolina from North Korea. So you know,
it was over in a couple of minutes. But nobody went to sleep
that night. We all stayed up talking about you know, so this is
what it would feel like if we got an actual message. Yeah, it's
hard to wind down real quickly after something like that. So Duwayne, We're
going to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk about
your days as a YouTube reconnaissance pilot and later on all your work as a
test pilot and more in the development of the B two stealth bomber. Our
guest is Dwayne Rudd, US Air Force veteran. His book is Fading Away
at Wilmore. We'll talk about that later on in the conversation as well.
I'm Greg Corumbus. Please stay with us on Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans
Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Honor to be joined today by Duayne Rudd.
He's a US Air Force veteran who flew utwo reconnaissance missions during the Cold War.
He was a test pilot and did much more in the development of the
B two stealth bomber and all. He's served about fifteen years in the US
Air Force and he's also the author of Fading Away at Wilmore, which we'll
talk about a little bit later in the conversation. And so, Dwen,
we talked about you're joining the Air Force, your fascination with the space program,
your work as a refueling tanker pilot copilot. One of the things we've
mentioned a couple of times in passing now is the fact that you flew YouTube
reconnaissance flight. So how did you get that opportunity. Well, about the
time I was an instructor pilot aircraft commander in the CASEY one thirty five,
it had become clear to me that if I wanted to get involved with the
space program, I need to go to test Polite school. So I had
applied two or three times when I met some minimum requirements. But if you
want to do a job like that, you need more experience. You know,
you need to fly different aircraft. Well, I had spoke earlier about
the navigator that was with me when we were helping the FF teams intercept the
Russian Bear bombers, and he had been a mission planner for the Utube,
the high altitude single seat, single engine spy plane. He was personal friends
with the squadron commander. So he said, you know, if you want
to go to test polit school, why don't you fly to YouTube. You
know, it's a special duty assignment. It's the mission is exciting and classified,
and I'll put in a good word for you, but it's up to
you to get into the program. So I researched and said, you know,
this sounds like a great avenue for me. I put in the application
for a special duty assignment and they called me out for an interview. The
interview process with the YouTube basically revolves around one thing within the segment of three
flight with an instructor in the back seat of the two headed monster. They
call it, can you figure out how to land the airplane without any help
from the instructor? So you get three flights to do that. If you
can't do it by the third flight, then so long, appreciate your application.
So I figured it out halfway through the second flight. It just kind
of came to me. It's we can talk about the flying characteristics more in
the future and what makes aircraft unique. But you know, I got the
picture about the second flight through and enjoyed the rest of that flight. And
the third flight, we just we started doing some of the other maneuvers that
you have to do in the aircraft, and I, you know, I
talked to some people and they let me in, so I started. You
two train talk a little bit more about the craft. You just mentioned that
what exactly was the plane that was used. You mentioned it was single engine,
and what was the key to flying it? Well, Well, the
U two had several iterations before I flew it. The purpose of the U
two initially was from the Central Intelligence Agency saying we need a high altitude reconnaissance
aircraft. So they tast the Lockheed skunk Works and they pretty rapidly came up
with a design that they tested out to Harry fifty one out at Groom Lake.
So they tested it there is originally CIA pilots. They ended up going
through iterations. They put a better wing on it, to a stronger engine,
and upgraded the systems in the cockpit. So I slew the U twoe
R model. They're up to the S model now, so it looks like
a glider. It's got big wings but a huge motor. The landing gear
is non traditional. You have a little bicycle gear, two little tires back
behind the pilot. You've got a tailwheel. Then to tax you around,
they put these things called pogos in their metal extensions that go in the wing
with a wheel on the bottom of them, and as you develop lifting the
wing on takeoff, these little pogos fall off and you take off, and
then you're just left with a little bicycle gear and a tailwheel and you retract
those and you take off. But it has impressive performance on lightweight takeoffs at
viel Air Force Space. I've passed twenty thousand seeds and still been over the
runway. So it goes up at a pretty good pace. It flies above
I believe they're advertising at seventy thousand feet now. The overriding handling qualities problem
with the U two is at high altitude, you're approaching a place called the
Coffin corner. And basically what that means is, as you continue flying and
the fuel load gets lighter and lighter, you're a close both to your high
speed limit and your low speed limit, so you're close to stall and you're
also close to high speed buffett So it gets kind of tricky a pie,
especially if you can counter any terminals. Then you get to the landing part
of it. And one YouTube pilot said landing YouTube is like lead to wear
a space suits, similar space suits to what the shuttle people were, and
it says it's like sitting in at dark closet for nine or ten hours in
your space suit and somebody opening the door all of a sudden and throwing a
ten foot anacata and python snake, and you got to wrestle this snake and
get out of the closet. So the you two doesn't want to be on
the ground. It wants to be up high and flying. So you have
to stall the aircraft basically a foot or two above the ground. And that's
the only way you can get the aircraft on the ground. If you have
any flying speed at all, it'll just bounce up in the air and you
could depart controlled flight, And it gets really tricky if you have any kind
of cross land at all. What kind of weapons did you have if you
needed them? We were alone, unarmed and scared. All we had to
fight with or cameras, electronic and signal intelligence receptors. Every once in a
while we would fly with this huge television camera on the front that somebody would
rotate to watch. But we were reconnaissance. There were no weapons on the
airplane and we were stealthy. It was one of the first stealth aircraft.
It would be very hard to see us on radar. Is that because of
the altitude or is there something about the plane that makes you hard to detect?
Well, it was a small airplane. It was also painted with radar
reflective paint, so it was all black, which made it hard to see.
There wasn't a whole lot of things sticking up, but not anywhere like
the f LIN seventeen or later to be two was. It was just kind
of inherently stealthy, but they hadn't come up with all the stealth designs at
that time. Tell me about the cameras. How much of an expert did
you need to be in terms of positioning and executing that. We had detailed
flight plans called photo flight paths or piffles, so we would find the photopaths
and on the map and at certain coordinates we knew that we had to point
the camera in a certain direction at a certain aspect, so we had depending
there were several different cameras, but depending on the camera we had in the
landmark, we would just rotate the camera to whatever position was on our flight
plan photo flate plan. There are basically two types of missions. One is
an orbit mission where you're orbiting in a preplanned location that has good coverage.
And then you're interested in electronic intelligence signals intelligence, and we had things called
superpods on the wings that had huge amounts of receivers inside the superpods. The
cameras I was told could look. I think we had two hundred miles inside
to the side of the airplane. And then we did have the TV cameras
that would rotate and give real time information. A lot of the flights I
flew was in We're in South Korea and we're monitoring the North Koreans. That's
pretty much a general synopsis of the cameras. And I'm guessing you had to
have a pretty good clear day to make it worth your time. Yes,
that didn't apply. With the signals intelligence electronic intelligence. A lot of times
we would we'd be doing both. We'd have the cameras and also picking up
intelligence with the signals. Are you allowed to tell me where you were flying
these missions? You know, we operated in forward operating detachments. You know,
we were stationed at Bill Air Force Base. Every pilot was dual qualified.
We flew the T thirty eight kind of as proficiency because they didn't want
to fly to utub's all the time. So we would fly the T thirty
eight with formation, cross countries, you know, regular contact flights. We
had our instrument checks and a T thirty eight, and then we're also qualified
in the U two obviously, and we were graded on practice photo flight lines.
Like I told you before, how well, we did on a practice
with position a camera and following a ground track and between the two aircraft.
That's pretty much how we stayed current. Fascinating stuff, and we've got a
lot more to get to. Our guest is Dwayne Rudd, a US Air
Force veteran utwo reconnaissance pilot, a test pilot, and much more in the
development of the B two Stealth bomber. He was also the chief test pilot
for the Space Shuttle crew escape system that was greatly improved after the nineteen eighty
six Challenger disaster. And that's where we'll pick up Dwayne's story right after this
break. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles.
I'm Greg Corumbez. Our guest in this edition is Dwayne Rudd. He's
a US Air Force veteran utwo reconnaissance pilot, test pilot for the development of
the B two Stealth bomber, and as I mentioned just before the he played
a critical role in helping our astronauts return to space following the horrific nineteen eighty
six Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. So in the aftermath of that, a lot
of work was done to improve the safety protocols for the astronauts, and towards
the end of that process, you served as chief test pilot for the new
and improved Space Shuttle crew escape system. So tell me about that work and
what it involved. You know, probably most of your listeners, if they're
the right age, remember the exact moment when they first saw the Space Shuttle
challenger explode. Sure. Unfortunately, you know, the first teacher in space,
Krista mccaulliff, was on that flight, and you know there's very well
documented reasons for that. I won't get into that. I mean, we
can talk about it if you want, but it's it's it's fairly well determined
what happened, the temperature problem with the O rings that had been going on
for quite a while. So I was a YouTube pilot. I had flown
a low storty, which means just go out in the harness. I'm not
wearing the space and their plane is just loaded for a one hour flight and
we go out and practice landings and simulated flame out patterns, no flat patterns,
things like that. So I came in after the flight. Our scheduler
was standing behind the desk and when I came in, he looked at me
and he said, to Shuttle just exploded. And I go, what do
you mean? And he said, look up at the TV and they were
still showing replays of it, and I couldn't believe it. Another part of
the story, before I get into the actual testing, is when I graduated
from pilot training, one of the things I had to do is go to
water survival train, and it just so happened. My water survival class also
included the first astronaut class with the female astronauts, so all the first all
the first female astronauts were in that And it also turned out later that the
commander, the pilot, Judith Resnik, one of the engineers that were on
the Shuttle, were a challenger when it exploded and were killed. We're also
in that class. I sat next to Sally Ride on a bench and you
know, reporters from newsweek, Time magazine, everything converged on her to talk
to her, and I asked her what type of work did you do prior
to this that She laughed and said, this was my first job, being
an astronaut. But I guess the reason I'm pointing to that is it's kind
of ironic that all those things happened. When I graduated from Test Pilot school,
I was working before I went to the B two Combined Test Force.
I was working in a thing called Test Operations, and it's where they have
test pilots who hadn't been assigned to the Test Force yet doing you know,
miscellaneous projects and things like that. I came into the office one morning.
I was the first one there. In the phone rang I picked it up,
and a voice on the other inset, We've got a bunch of people
from NASA talking about this crazy some kind of shuttle escape system. We need
a test ball over here to take the meeting. So I said, okay,
I'm here, and one thing led to another, and I was placed
in charge for the Air Force project management. NASA had come up with an
escape system after the Challenger accident. Prior to this, there was no way
that a crew could exit the vehicle. There were no escape pods or nothing
that they could do. So NASA wanted to come up with an escape system
that at least could get the astonauts out under a controlled descent, and the
first idea they came up with were these rockets made in Thailand, that would
be stowed on the airplane and would jerk the pilots out and engineers under rocket
thrust. You know, anybody knows putting a rocket and ammission source in a
vehicle is not safe, especially after what happened to Apollo at one. So
they did away with that idea and what they came up with was this telescoping
pole under spring titchen that would extend out and get the ninetieth percentile astronaut that
is the smallest petite astronaut safely around the leading edge of the wing. So
what they needed to test this were a bunch of naval test pilot or test
parachutist. If you can imagine that the people that tested parachutes as if you
know a test pilot is not too bad, I can imagine testing a new
parachute. You know you can't pull that going over and landed somewhere. So
what an amount Toude is. We ended up having five different organizations from the
departments of Sense and that. So I was in charge of the testing part
of it, getting the test planned together. I had to get approval for
a technical review and safety review at Edwards Air Force Space. I had a
NASA chief engineer. It was on the other side. He brought a team
with him. We had the deceleration branch, which means parachutes and brakes and
that sort of thing. At Edwards we borrowed a C one forty one from
Airlift Command and NASA designed a Shuttle hatch mock up that they put in the
bike of the C one forty one, and we went out at ten thousand
feet and this crazy crew of naval test parachutes and they had different sized people
but on the suit that was designed for this, and the parachute was very
heavy, and so they came off this pole at over two hundred and twenty
miles an hour at ten thousand CE and tested it over about ten or fifteen
flights. And it was very high visibility project because all the things had been
accomplished for the Shuttle returned to flight program except for the escape system. So
this was the last thing we had astronaut with us. Stephen Nagle was there,
George Pinky Nelson was there, who was on the flight that was going
to test it. So we're micromanaged, but we managed to get through.
The escape system was certified. We didn't kill anybody, in the test parachuts
branch. We had some pretty rough bruises because they landed hard and fast.
But it was an exciting project. A lot of great people came together in
a high energy, high pressure or stressful hazardous test and it was certified,
it was put on the shuttle, and it flew the rest of the missions.
Duanna didn't quite get you two space, which I know was your dream
when you joined the Air Force in the first place, but you played a
direct role in making sure that the people who did go would be safer than
they had been before. So how gratifying was that for you? You know,
I'd like to say it was hugely gratifying, and it was, but
you know, you just hate the circumstances that caused it. To lose a
whole crew like that was tragic, but they did have options after that.
It was gratifying. I was able to work with NASA. It was a
team effort. There are a lot of people that contributed to that. We're
talking with Dwayne Ruddy's a US Air Force veteran, and Dwayne another assignment that
you had that really fascinates me was as a test pilot and much more.
As we'll get to in a little bit for the B two, otherwise known
as the Stealth Bomber. This is late eighties, early nineties, so very
early in the game for the B two. How did you get that assignment
and what exactly was the assignment? It was an interesting thing, and you
know, I don't know if you have any educational programs going out any students
in your audience. I imagine there are, but it was kind of a
learning experience. You know. One of the things I was told when I
came into the Air Force was if you want a better job, be the
best at the job you'd have, and you never know who you're going to
meet along the way. So I was in that organization. I was telling
you about where test pilots did miscellaneous projects before they were assigned to a Combined
Test Force. One of the projects I had was a T thirty eight target
test. You know T thirty eight as a supersonic trainer two seater and it
was flying T thirty eight as radar targets for the FF team Combined Test Force
at the time various altitude. So we had people from other Combined Test Force
come to help us, and I was a project manager for that so before
each flight, I got the flight plans ready for each crew, you know,
did everything for him. So I just handed them to all the package
that they needed, got the weather reports, coordinated the range and all those
things, and briefed them before each mission. And there maybe four or five
of these flights. Well, there were two guys that were flying, and
they were from some place on the other side of the base. Nobody knew
what they were doing. I didn't. I didn't know them very well,
but thanks, and I guess a month after that, one of the guys,
Lieutenant Colonel John Small, tapped me on the shoulder one day when I
was leaning against the scheduler's desk in this organization that had all the test pilots
working on projects, and he said, Dwayne, come outside, I want
to talk to you. So they got my interest up. That's true.
I wonder why we're going outside. And he came out and he said,
I have an opening for a test pilot. We're considering you. Could we
get a resume And I said or what for? And he says, I
can't tell you. Are you still interested? Oh yeah, oh yeah.
So I gave him a resume and a couple of weeks later, he said
you're in. You're hired, and I said, what am I gonna be
doing? Said, well, we can't tell you to your special access clearance
comes through. I said, he said, you still enterests it. Oh
yeah. So when my clearance was done, they told me to come over
as to a place called South Base where this combined Test Force was. So
I had I had to go through a buffer gate. Then they met me
at the entry point. They showed their badge and then I had to go
through a turnstyle. Then they had we went into another building and they had
to put their card on a door to take me into the other part.
And during this whole time, I thought, well, I'm a tanker guy,
I'm a reconnaissance guy, so this must be some new reconnaissance aircraft.
You know. That's the only thing I could figure out. So they put
me in a room. They said we're going to show you a film before
we talk to and they started showing the film and it was to stealth bomber
and I was, what is a tanker and a wrecke guy doing in a
bomber combined test force? That was a question my mom, I was really
excited to say but you know, I don't do anything about bombers. That's
nothing that I've ever done. And so when they came back in the room,
my first question was why am I here? And they said, well,
all the people we have or be fifty two guys, f one,
eleven guys, be one guys. You know, we're looking for someone that
is from outside this experienced space, you know that can ask the stupid questions
like why are we doing it this way? You know, and the answer
isn't tradition because we've always done this way. There's got to be a good
way to do it. So, you know, I was the guy that
they brought in that asked all the dumb questions, you know, being a
hillbilly, I was pretty good at that. So that's how I got hired.
It's one of my favorite stories. But it's an important lesson for anyone
saying, you know, even it's you're doing a job, maybe you don't
attach much importance to it. You know, do the best you can,
and you don't know who might be watching what you're doing, and that's how
you get to the next level. And so you ended up having a considerable
bind of input in a lot of different areas here from what I've seen,
it was avionics, flight control systems, in flight performance and much more so.
As you're working to get to peak performance and all those and other areas.
How do you know you've hit the sweet spot, that you've got it
exactly where you wanted. As you're developing these things, it's a massive team
effort. You know, the chest pilots are on the maybe you could say
the leading edge of it, but you know, the combined chest force head
over a hundred assigned pilots of all types, weapon systems officers, flight test
engineers. There are four defense contractors, three Air force commands. You know,
the combined chest force head over a thousand people. So there were some
massive team effort going on. And the interesting thing about the B two was
it came at an intersection of several different emerging technologies. It was after the
F one seventeen stealth fighter, which I believe I've got this right, would
appear as a small bird on a radar screen and had the same radar cross
section as a small bird. Then there were advancements made in the B two
and how it did magic on radar that they said the B two is like
a small insect like a grasshopper on a radar, So that's how difficult it
was to see. And that, you know, that was years of testing
that people were working on. There were also the emergence of new ways to
do flight tests using fiber optics measure nds. You know, we had over
ten thousand measure ends on the aircraft that were reported back to you know,
thirty of forty engineers in a control room. So all that was going on,
and then there was there was a new concept about doing most of the
testing on the ground before it ever got to the airplane, or doing you
know, computational fluid dynamics, computer wind tunnel testing. We had a replica
of the B two that was called the Iron Bird, and they would shake
it and make sure that it could stand the loads. On the ground.
We had a thing called flying test bed where all the offensive and defensive and
navigational instruments were placed, so they were testing those on another aircraft. Was
C one thirty five flew a lot of those missions where they had all of
this, all of these instruments and systems figured out and proved truthful before they
were replaced on the airplane. You know, that was a new thing.
We had an avionics test laboratory where on the ground they would go into detail
and testing with these avionics before they even put them on the flying test bed.
So it was it was the beginning of a new era in flight testing,
development and operational flight test, and that continues to this day. So
it was a very interesting time to be in developmental flight tests. Last question
on this topic, Dwayne, you mentioned the great team effort in helping with
the UH Shuttle crew escape system. You talked about a thousand people working on
this. UH. If you've got everybody focused on the goal and egos aren't
getting in the way, it can be a very good experience. But there's
a bunch of bureaucrats and a lot of egos that can be a miserable experience.
What was the key to UH to this going well? How was your
experience with the B two bomber development. You know, I think this has
repeated over and over again with the United States military. You know, it's
UH, it's commitment to the mission. You know it's realized, and that
we all have to pull it together. You know, some people may call
it crew coordination or leadership. By example, there's a lot of different words
for it. But I think one of the things that's made America gray is
just this history of doing this. I know, the American Veteran Center talks
about World War Two guys and the sacrificial devotion to the mission to realize it's
not my ego, it's not what I'm doing. It's important. It's it's
what everybody else is doing. And right now I'm looking in my office that
my farewell photo where everybody signs it. You know, there's fifty signatures there.
You know, it's been great working with you. You know, GWayne,
thanks for being a friend when I needed one. It's difficult not to
get emotional about it. But you know, just like my uncle's talked about
their war experiences, you know, all the stories that you've interviewed veterans about
all this worries, in the videos that you have on your website. You
know, all of the veterans that I'm at at Thomson Hood Veteran Center in
Wilmore, Kentucky, you know, fighting their last battle against Fanicha's You know,
it's a family thing, it's a patriotic thing, it's a country thing.
It's a thing about freedom. It's a beautiful way to say it.
Dwayne, very very happy to hear that type of camaraderie going into these critically
important projects, so many of them that you were a part of. We're
going to take one more break here and when we come back, we're going
to talk about what you just mentioned. You're honoring of veterans in Wilmore,
Kentucky at the Memory Impairment Unit there for our veterans. Our guest today is
Dwayne Rudd, Us Air Force veteran due to reconnaissance pilot, stealth bomber test
pilot. He was also, as we mentioned, a critical test pilot for
the Space Shuttle crew escape system developed after the Challenger disaster. And when we
come back fading away at Wilmore, I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbez. Our guest in this edition
is Dwayne Rudd, Us Air Force veteran, YouTube reconnaissance pilot, stealth bomber
test pilot, and he was also the chief test pilot for the Space Shuttle
crew escape system following the horrific Challenger disaster. As I've mentioned a few times,
now in the course of our conversation. He's also an author. Background
twenty fourteen, he published the book Fading Away at Wilmore and Duyne. It's
about your time getting to know and learn the service stories of veterans battling dementia
another memory impairment at a facility in Wilmore, Kentucky. And so the book
is partly about their stories, but it's also about their battle against dementia,
their last battle. As you have mentioned it to me, how did you
get connected to these veterans in the first place. After my Air Force career,
get hired by United Parcel Service Carolines. My first position was as a
Boeing seven when he seven flight engineer. Then it was a seven twenty seven
first officer, and then I spent the last fifteen years as a Herbus three
hundred captain. The frequency that we flew with uts it's typically either two weeks
on and two weeks off, or a week on and a week off,
So I'd be gone a week in home a week or gone two weeks in
home two weeks. So it was a tough schedule. But on the other
hand, when you're home, you're home, so it gave you time to
do things well. Unfortunately, my father, who was a veteran I spoke
about him earlier, developed the indications of Alzheimer's. And if any of your
listeners have a loved one or experience with dementia, they know that that's a
battle, that's a war, and their different phases of fighting that battle.
In the beginning, you get occasional help. It was my mother taking care
of him by herself. I'm an only child, and then it got to
be where it was too much for her. So my dad was in her
the army in Kentucky, and since we lived here in Louisville, Kentucky,
he was able to qualify for a veteran's long term care facility in Wilmore,
Kentucky, called Thompson Hood Veterans Center. So he went to Thompson Hood Veterans
Center and the first year, I was overwhelmed with the love and care that
the staff, from the doctors and the nurses, to the rehab specialists,
to the janitors, cook, you know, the chaplain with how much they
loved these guys. One of the first things they told me when Dad went
in was we loved these veterans like our children. And I thought at the
time, well, that's a nice thing to say. But I come to
find out that it was true that the people that worked there loved these guys.
Most of them were World War Two guys who had Alzheimer's disease or terrible
part Conson's disease, things like that. And so my father was in the
mobile dementia ward and all the wards at the hospital were given names of the
president, and my dad was in the Eisenhower unit. So after I was
there about a year, I had this urge inside I want to do more.
So I volunteered to work in the dementia unit. And at the same
time I had I said I need to document this somehow or other. So
I started writing, I learned how to do video, I started buying cameras.
Going through cameras, I found people that were willing to talk and interviewed
them. So I got on a creative trajectory to say, how can I
document these guys stories and the people that were taking care of them, and
the struggles with the family. And you know, it was like a military
unit. These guys were in their wheelchairs. Some of them were like sergeants
yelling at the people like stopped, stop that running around. You know,
it's like a military unit fight this battle against this brutal foe called dementia.
So I just started writing and filming, and I had a series of articles
published in National magazine about it that gave me encouragement to go ahead and write
a book. I filmed a documentary about him. I took short parts of
the documentary and inserted them into the book, Fading Away at Wilmore, that
is on Amazon now. It has eighteen video segments, ten audio segments,
photographs, and pencil sketches. So it was just an overwhelming desire to salute
these guys and to talk about the love and the care they were getting from
these people at Thompson and Veteran Center. Dwayne, you obviously went into this
project with a tremendous amount of respect and reverence for our veterans. And as
you went through this project, how did it perhaps enhance your respect for them,
knowing how they were approaching the final battle? And at the same time,
what do you hope people take away from your book if they have the
chance to read it. Well, the first word occurs to me and ask
your questions courage. You know, the primary characters in the book all had
combat experience. One was a medic that landed in Normandy fought his way across
spoke French and German fluently. Another one was on a famous destroyer, the
USS Sterret was involved in a huge battle off Wild Canal. Another guy was
a fighter pilot that ended up getting shot down and was in Skylark seventeen first
several years talking about how terrible that was. You know, just everyone I
talked to had a story. My dad had a story. So they faced
this terrible battle with the same courage that they faced the battles to preserve our
freedom. It was difficult watching them. Some morning someone would say, well,
where's Larry. I haven't seen Larry, And they go to Larry's go
to Larry's room, and you know, he's passed away in his chair,
just like that. So that's where the name of the book came from,
this, you know, fading way Wilmore. People attribute that to General MacArthur,
and he did say that, but it was actually from a marching song
that they had at West Point. That was an old British gospel song that
talks about that we are all fading away, fading away, so I felt
my job, my mission, within the midst of this tragedy and suffering all
these heroes, I'd walk into the room and there there would be, you
know, medals on the board, you know, citations where this one guy
who was a pology to save the plat Tennis soldiers on the ground straight in
German positions. You know, I just felt I've got to somehow tell this
story for each one of them. They're fading away six hundred a day.
I'd be surprised for more than maybe two hundred thousand, So they're all going
from sixteen million down to a few hundred thousand, you're correct about that.
A couple of quick questions before we close our conversation here, Dwayne. First
of all, a very distinguished military career of your own. As you look
back on it, what are you most proud of? You know, I
mentioned teamwork before. I think in every place that I've been, just the
incredible people that I had the honor to serve with. You know that somehow,
this guy from the hills and hollers of West Virginia would would find himself
amongst these these people, these patriots willing to sacrifice. You know, that's
the honor that I had, that I was able and as few small ways
to serve my country, and any of those type of feelings I had were
vastly surpassed in my you know, my years at Thompson had Veterans Center with
these guys and fighting the battles that they caught, and the sheer courage not
only with all the combat experiences I learned about, but in facing this last
brugal enemy. And finally, Wayne, we just talked about how you collected
veterans stories. It's what we do here at the American Veterans Center as well.
So talk about the importance of that in preserving stories and the work that
we do and the work that you've done and others are doing to make sure
that as these veterans fade away, and even the young ones too, that
we make sure we have these stories for future generations. Well, you know,
at this point in my life's Greg, I'm interested in passing on whatever
I have, whatever I've learned, whatever I have of value to the next
generation, just as I learned from my uncle's growing up about their combat experiences,
about the importance of teamwork, about courage and the face of fire.
I think in my own mind, it's to tell these stories so that the
generations come and can appreciate that, just like I appreciate it hearing about it
growing up is I'm sure you've heard about it, doing these stories, perhaps
your own experience with family members. It is. We've got a passing on
to the next generation. Instill it in them, and if we don't do
that, where are they going to get it? You know, we need
to give them the truth that we're locked in a struggle. This country is
locked in a struggle with darkness, you know, with tyranny versus freedom,
with life versus death. So we have to look to the guys that were
before us and passing on to the next generation. Well, Dwayne, it's
been a fascinating conversation and a powerful one as well. We thank you so
much for your service to our nation, to our veterans with your book and
the time you spent there and other efforts that you do in that area.
And we also of course thank you for your time today. We really appreciate
it. Thanks so much. Great as the players are talking with you,
thank you very much. Thank you. Sir. Dwayne Rodd is a veteran
of the US Air Force. He's a YouTube reconnaissance pilot, test pilot for
the B two Stealth bomber. Also was the chief test pilot for the Space
Shuttle crew escape system following the Challenger disaster. His book, still available on
Amazon dot com, came out in about twenty fourteen, is entitled Fading Away
at Wilmore. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this
is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of
the American Veterans Center. For more information, please visit American Veterans Center dot
org. You can also follow the American Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter.
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