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Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is

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Dwayne Rudd. He's a US Air
Force veteran who, during his time in

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service flew YouTube reconnaissance missions. Was
very heavily involved in the development of the

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B two stealth bomber, both as
a test pilot and overseeing many other facets

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of the program. He is also
the author of a very interesting new book

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about veterans in a memory care facility
in Wilmore, Kentucky. It's called Fading

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Away at Wilmore and Duwayne, thank
you very much for being with us.

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Thank you so much. Greg.
It's an honor to speak with you today.

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So let's begin at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?

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Sir? I'm a hill billy and
a mountaineer from West Virginia. Was

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born in a small town o'kill,
West Virginia. My father was in coal

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mining industry, and you know,
some of my earliest memories we're watching early

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Mercury space flights go up. So
an image I have in my mind or

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the is Walter Cronkite talking and the
black and white on our TV with the

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Rabbit air antennas watching those early astronauts
go to the launch. So that was

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in my mind and that kind of
propelled me for the rest of my career.

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So basically a hillbilly and a mountaineer
who was enthralled by the space program.

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So is that one of the reasons
you joined the Air Force? You

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know it was. The trajectory wasn't
immediately clear to me in the beginning,

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but I just had a general filling
I wanted to go into space, and

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that led me along to the Air
Force for your ROTC program pilot training,

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and the steps kind of fell into
place as I went along. Had there

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been any military service in your family
prior to you joining the Air Force?

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Well, and I have a rich
history and family, Gregg. You know

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that's an excellent point. I had
uncles that were heavily involved in World War

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Two. One uncle was in I
think the third wave at Normandy, got

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wounded by a German sniper, ended
up spending several months at Walk to Read

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Hospital recovering. Another uncle that was
in the Navy on a mine sweeper,

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was in the Battle of Okinawa,
experienced the kamikaze attacks there. And my

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father was in the Korean War.
He was a tank driver, didn't get

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to do a lot of tank battles, but did a lot of artillery support.

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Was in one one major battle in
Korea, So a rich history.

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I heard a lot of a lot
of combat stories growing up. And then

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in a special case, another uncle
that happened to be in the army when

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World War two began, so he
spent three and a half years in combat,

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and as far as I know,
it's only himself and another guy survived

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out of their company. So he
was in Africa fighting Rommel in Italy when

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they defeated the Germans in Europe.
He actually was on his way to Japan

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to fight there. So even though
he had three and a half years,

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he still had had to go to
battle. So you could say I have

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a history, but nobody that flew
well. That is a very rich legacy

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of military service. And it's also
interesting that you decided to go in a

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slightly different direction thanks to the advancement
of flight and the obviously the dawn of

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the space program, which they didn't
have the option of pursuing right back then.

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So where did you go for training
once you were commissioned asl is a

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four year RUTC graduate at West Virginia
University, got a Bachelor of Science and

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Aerospace engineering there and went to polot
training in Columbus, Mississippi. Spent a

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year their class seventy eight O four, and then after completing the training at

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Columbus, I was a casey one
thirty five refueling tanker co pilot. Progressed

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from there to aircraft commander instruct a
pilot and was selected to fly to you

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two from tankers, and then went
on a test pilot school and then the

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Shuttle program and B two combined test
scores. Well, those are definitely the

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areas we're going to focus on over
the course of our conversation. When you

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went to pilot training, that had
come naturally for you flying. You know,

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I was the first one in my
family to fly, and I was

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competing with guys had already had license, you know, they had their commercial

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license instrument ratings, so you know, I was fresh out of the hills

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of West Virginia. So although I
had a flight training program my senior year,

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it was just enough time for me
to solo and a piper Cherokee,

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So I had like ten or fifteen
hours. But obviously no jet time,

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and a lot of these guys showed
up that had advanced licensed and had been

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able to do training for quite a
while. So, you know, I

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think my engineering degree helped me,
but there was a period of time of

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adjustment. The good thing was I
didn't I never got air sick my whole

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career. I had a friend,
another friend from West Virginia that I roomed

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with, and he got sick,
like the first twenty flights that he got

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to the point where he said he
could he could get sick, he could

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throw up in his bags, tie
the bag off, and not lose a

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foot of altitude, and then just
one day it disappeared. So, you

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know, I think I got better
as times went alonger. There's a first

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couple of three months was definitely getting
in the swing of things and catching up

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with the other people. But you
know, I would say by the end

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of the program, we were all
pretty even. Well we're gonna talk about

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the you two in just a second, but you mentioned you started with in

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flight refueling, which is an interesting
concept, especially for those of us who

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have never done it. How complicated
is it and how quickly do you get

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used to it? What are the
keys to making it work. Well,

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you know, the guy that does
the important job is the boom operator and

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the bike he's so it's it's kind
of like three different things flying at the

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same time. You know, we're
up with the navigator trying to make as

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stable a platform as we can.
Then the boom operators actually flying the boom

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and the bike it has a couple
of little wings on it. The guy's

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getting refueled comes up behind it and
the boom operator talks him in. Plus,

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I've done refueling on the other end, and F sixteen and B two

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refueling to us. When you're coming
in on the other side, you just

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have to come in real slow.
And the bigger the airplane is, the

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more tricky it is because there's a
bow wave with a with a big heavy

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airplane like a B two or a
B fifty two, there's this way so

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you got to you gotta go in. And we would see that up front.

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We were typically on the autopod is
that bow wave approach. The aircraft

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would start trimming pretty rapidly to account
for that, and then their lights and

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indications on the bottom of the tanker
that guides the pilot coming in to get

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gas, and then of course the
boom operators talking to him in so he

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flies that boom and the fuel receptacle
into the place on the aircraft wherever it

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is locks that up with some interlocks. There's a sign that said, yeah,

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you guys are connected, and then
we started fuel flowing up in front.

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Now, the largest offload I've ever
had is about one hundred thousand pounds

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of fuel to a WAX support.
Did you ever ever have to do it

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in a combat zone? I didn't
do it at a combat zone. I

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guess the closest thing I got to
that. I spent a month in Saudi

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Arabia supporting Airy feeling of the AWAX
over their radar defense RC one thirty five

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with the big dome on top.
And it was a very quick mission for

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us. We would just go up, offload one hundred thousand pounds and come

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back down. We had to fight
every once in a while big dust storms.

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But I guess the most exciting thing
I did is I was in a

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deployment to Iceland. My crew and
I were doing alert for the FF teams

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that would scramble to intercept the Russian
Bear bombers, and we got Oxler launched

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in the middle of the night one
time, so we had to run out

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to the airplane, take off at
the SF teams and orbit while they intercepted

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the Bear bomber and turned him away
and refilled the SF teams. So my

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navigator framed the plot that he had
the map that he had to show where

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the bears and the F fifteens were
and where we were. I haven't framed

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and saw on the wall, so
that was that was kind of cool.

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So I guess those were the two
exciting times. Plus it wasn't combat.

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But back then we did nuclear alert. There were four KC one thirty five

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tankers four D fifty two with nuclear
weapons, and we would spend ten days

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at a time in an alert facility. We couldn't go very far, and

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we would have exercises every once in
a while and we would come out.

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We'd see the staff cars with leadership
park just watching us. Well, about

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one o'clock in the morning, the
alert horn went off and went outside and

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there were no staff cars, and
it felt pretty eerie. And as I

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was climbing up in the airplane,
the navigator got there before we did,

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and he started screaming it's actual.
It's actual, so we thought, potentially

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we're going to war. We had
a six minute warning window for Russian sub

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launching the nuclear missile at US.
This is in North Carolina, Seymour Dunsons,

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so we knew he didn't have much
time. There were pilots from the

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B fifty two. It's literally screaming
for maintenance. You know, they had

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problems with the engine start. So
it was looking pretty grim for a while,

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and then a couple minutes later the
all clear sounded and we learned later

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it was probably a meteorite that NORAD
had seen and the tra directory indicated it

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had come from with Korea. But
you know, why would they send and

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this will all the way to North
Carolina from North Korea. So you know,

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it was over in a couple of
minutes. But nobody went to sleep

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that night. We all stayed up
talking about you know, so this is

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what it would feel like if we
got an actual message. Yeah, it's

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hard to wind down real quickly after
something like that. So Duwayne, We're

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going to take a quick break and
when we come back, we'll talk about

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your days as a YouTube reconnaissance pilot
and later on all your work as a

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test pilot and more in the development
of the B two stealth bomber. Our

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guest is Dwayne Rudd, US Air
Force veteran. His book is Fading Away

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at Wilmore. We'll talk about that
later on in the conversation as well.

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I'm Greg Corumbus. Please stay with
us on Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans

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Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Honor
to be joined today by Duayne Rudd.

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He's a US Air Force veteran who
flew utwo reconnaissance missions during the Cold War.

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He was a test pilot and did
much more in the development of the

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B two stealth bomber and all.
He's served about fifteen years in the US

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Air Force and he's also the author
of Fading Away at Wilmore, which we'll

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talk about a little bit later in
the conversation. And so, Dwen,

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we talked about you're joining the Air
Force, your fascination with the space program,

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your work as a refueling tanker pilot
copilot. One of the things we've

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mentioned a couple of times in passing
now is the fact that you flew YouTube

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reconnaissance flight. So how did you
get that opportunity. Well, about the

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time I was an instructor pilot aircraft
commander in the CASEY one thirty five,

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it had become clear to me that
if I wanted to get involved with the

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space program, I need to go
to test Polite school. So I had

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applied two or three times when I
met some minimum requirements. But if you

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want to do a job like that, you need more experience. You know,

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you need to fly different aircraft.
Well, I had spoke earlier about

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the navigator that was with me when
we were helping the FF teams intercept the

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Russian Bear bombers, and he had
been a mission planner for the Utube,

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the high altitude single seat, single
engine spy plane. He was personal friends

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with the squadron commander. So he
said, you know, if you want

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to go to test polit school,
why don't you fly to YouTube. You

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know, it's a special duty assignment. It's the mission is exciting and classified,

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and I'll put in a good word
for you, but it's up to

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you to get into the program.
So I researched and said, you know,

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this sounds like a great avenue for
me. I put in the application

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for a special duty assignment and they
called me out for an interview. The

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interview process with the YouTube basically revolves
around one thing within the segment of three

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flight with an instructor in the back
seat of the two headed monster. They

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call it, can you figure out
how to land the airplane without any help

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from the instructor? So you get
three flights to do that. If you

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can't do it by the third flight, then so long, appreciate your application.

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So I figured it out halfway through
the second flight. It just kind

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of came to me. It's we
can talk about the flying characteristics more in

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the future and what makes aircraft unique. But you know, I got the

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picture about the second flight through and
enjoyed the rest of that flight. And

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the third flight, we just we
started doing some of the other maneuvers that

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you have to do in the aircraft, and I, you know, I

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talked to some people and they let
me in, so I started. You

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two train talk a little bit more
about the craft. You just mentioned that

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what exactly was the plane that was
used. You mentioned it was single engine,

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and what was the key to flying
it? Well, Well, the

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U two had several iterations before I
flew it. The purpose of the U

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two initially was from the Central Intelligence
Agency saying we need a high altitude reconnaissance

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aircraft. So they tast the Lockheed
skunk Works and they pretty rapidly came up

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with a design that they tested out
to Harry fifty one out at Groom Lake.

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So they tested it there is originally
CIA pilots. They ended up going

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through iterations. They put a better
wing on it, to a stronger engine,

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and upgraded the systems in the cockpit. So I slew the U twoe

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R model. They're up to the
S model now, so it looks like

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a glider. It's got big wings
but a huge motor. The landing gear

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is non traditional. You have a
little bicycle gear, two little tires back

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behind the pilot. You've got a
tailwheel. Then to tax you around,

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they put these things called pogos in
their metal extensions that go in the wing

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with a wheel on the bottom of
them, and as you develop lifting the

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wing on takeoff, these little pogos
fall off and you take off, and

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then you're just left with a little
bicycle gear and a tailwheel and you retract

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those and you take off. But
it has impressive performance on lightweight takeoffs at

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viel Air Force Space. I've passed
twenty thousand seeds and still been over the

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runway. So it goes up at
a pretty good pace. It flies above

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I believe they're advertising at seventy thousand
feet now. The overriding handling qualities problem

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with the U two is at high
altitude, you're approaching a place called the

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Coffin corner. And basically what that
means is, as you continue flying and

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the fuel load gets lighter and lighter, you're a close both to your high

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speed limit and your low speed limit, so you're close to stall and you're

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also close to high speed buffett So
it gets kind of tricky a pie,

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especially if you can counter any terminals. Then you get to the landing part

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of it. And one YouTube pilot
said landing YouTube is like lead to wear

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a space suits, similar space suits
to what the shuttle people were, and

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it says it's like sitting in at
dark closet for nine or ten hours in

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your space suit and somebody opening the
door all of a sudden and throwing a

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ten foot anacata and python snake,
and you got to wrestle this snake and

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get out of the closet. So
the you two doesn't want to be on

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the ground. It wants to be
up high and flying. So you have

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to stall the aircraft basically a foot
or two above the ground. And that's

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the only way you can get the
aircraft on the ground. If you have

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any flying speed at all, it'll
just bounce up in the air and you

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could depart controlled flight, And it
gets really tricky if you have any kind

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of cross land at all. What
kind of weapons did you have if you

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needed them? We were alone,
unarmed and scared. All we had to

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fight with or cameras, electronic and
signal intelligence receptors. Every once in a

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while we would fly with this huge
television camera on the front that somebody would

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rotate to watch. But we were
reconnaissance. There were no weapons on the

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airplane and we were stealthy. It
was one of the first stealth aircraft.

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It would be very hard to see
us on radar. Is that because of

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the altitude or is there something about
the plane that makes you hard to detect?

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Well, it was a small airplane. It was also painted with radar

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reflective paint, so it was all
black, which made it hard to see.

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There wasn't a whole lot of things
sticking up, but not anywhere like

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the f LIN seventeen or later to
be two was. It was just kind

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of inherently stealthy, but they hadn't
come up with all the stealth designs at

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that time. Tell me about the
cameras. How much of an expert did

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you need to be in terms of
positioning and executing that. We had detailed

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flight plans called photo flight paths or
piffles, so we would find the photopaths

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and on the map and at certain
coordinates we knew that we had to point

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the camera in a certain direction at
a certain aspect, so we had depending

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there were several different cameras, but
depending on the camera we had in the

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landmark, we would just rotate the
camera to whatever position was on our flight

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plan photo flate plan. There are
basically two types of missions. One is

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an orbit mission where you're orbiting in
a preplanned location that has good coverage.

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And then you're interested in electronic intelligence
signals intelligence, and we had things called

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superpods on the wings that had huge
amounts of receivers inside the superpods. The

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cameras I was told could look.
I think we had two hundred miles inside

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to the side of the airplane.
And then we did have the TV cameras

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that would rotate and give real time
information. A lot of the flights I

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flew was in We're in South Korea
and we're monitoring the North Koreans. That's

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pretty much a general synopsis of the
cameras. And I'm guessing you had to

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have a pretty good clear day to
make it worth your time. Yes,

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that didn't apply. With the signals
intelligence electronic intelligence. A lot of times

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we would we'd be doing both.
We'd have the cameras and also picking up

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intelligence with the signals. Are you
allowed to tell me where you were flying

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these missions? You know, we
operated in forward operating detachments. You know,

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we were stationed at Bill Air Force
Base. Every pilot was dual qualified.

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We flew the T thirty eight kind
of as proficiency because they didn't want

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to fly to utub's all the time. So we would fly the T thirty

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eight with formation, cross countries,
you know, regular contact flights. We

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had our instrument checks and a T
thirty eight, and then we're also qualified

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in the U two obviously, and
we were graded on practice photo flight lines.

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Like I told you before, how
well, we did on a practice

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with position a camera and following a
ground track and between the two aircraft.

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That's pretty much how we stayed current. Fascinating stuff, and we've got a

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lot more to get to. Our
guest is Dwayne Rudd, a US Air

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Force veteran utwo reconnaissance pilot, a
test pilot, and much more in the

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development of the B two Stealth bomber. He was also the chief test pilot

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for the Space Shuttle crew escape system
that was greatly improved after the nineteen eighty

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six Challenger disaster. And that's where
we'll pick up Dwayne's story right after this

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break. I'm Greg Corumbus and this
is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles.

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I'm Greg Corumbez. Our guest in
this edition is Dwayne Rudd. He's

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a US Air Force veteran utwo reconnaissance
pilot, test pilot for the development of

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the B two Stealth bomber, and
as I mentioned just before the he played

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a critical role in helping our astronauts
return to space following the horrific nineteen eighty

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six Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. So
in the aftermath of that, a lot

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of work was done to improve the
safety protocols for the astronauts, and towards

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the end of that process, you
served as chief test pilot for the new

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and improved Space Shuttle crew escape system. So tell me about that work and

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what it involved. You know,
probably most of your listeners, if they're

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the right age, remember the exact
moment when they first saw the Space Shuttle

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challenger explode. Sure. Unfortunately,
you know, the first teacher in space,

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Krista mccaulliff, was on that flight, and you know there's very well

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documented reasons for that. I won't
get into that. I mean, we

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can talk about it if you want, but it's it's it's fairly well determined

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what happened, the temperature problem with
the O rings that had been going on

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for quite a while. So I
was a YouTube pilot. I had flown

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a low storty, which means just
go out in the harness. I'm not

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wearing the space and their plane is
just loaded for a one hour flight and

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we go out and practice landings and
simulated flame out patterns, no flat patterns,

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things like that. So I came
in after the flight. Our scheduler

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was standing behind the desk and when
I came in, he looked at me

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and he said, to Shuttle just
exploded. And I go, what do

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you mean? And he said,
look up at the TV and they were

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still showing replays of it, and
I couldn't believe it. Another part of

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the story, before I get into
the actual testing, is when I graduated

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from pilot training, one of the
things I had to do is go to

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water survival train, and it just
so happened. My water survival class also

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included the first astronaut class with the
female astronauts, so all the first all

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the first female astronauts were in that
And it also turned out later that the

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commander, the pilot, Judith Resnik, one of the engineers that were on

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the Shuttle, were a challenger when
it exploded and were killed. We're also

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in that class. I sat next
to Sally Ride on a bench and you

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know, reporters from newsweek, Time
magazine, everything converged on her to talk

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to her, and I asked her
what type of work did you do prior

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to this that She laughed and said, this was my first job, being

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an astronaut. But I guess the
reason I'm pointing to that is it's kind

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of ironic that all those things happened. When I graduated from Test Pilot school,

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I was working before I went to
the B two Combined Test Force.

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I was working in a thing called
Test Operations, and it's where they have

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test pilots who hadn't been assigned to
the Test Force yet doing you know,

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miscellaneous projects and things like that.
I came into the office one morning.

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I was the first one there.
In the phone rang I picked it up,

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and a voice on the other inset, We've got a bunch of people

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from NASA talking about this crazy some
kind of shuttle escape system. We need

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a test ball over here to take
the meeting. So I said, okay,

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I'm here, and one thing led
to another, and I was placed

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in charge for the Air Force project
management. NASA had come up with an

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escape system after the Challenger accident.
Prior to this, there was no way

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that a crew could exit the vehicle. There were no escape pods or nothing

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that they could do. So NASA
wanted to come up with an escape system

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that at least could get the astonauts
out under a controlled descent, and the

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first idea they came up with were
these rockets made in Thailand, that would

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be stowed on the airplane and would
jerk the pilots out and engineers under rocket

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thrust. You know, anybody knows
putting a rocket and ammission source in a

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vehicle is not safe, especially after
what happened to Apollo at one. So

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they did away with that idea and
what they came up with was this telescoping

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pole under spring titchen that would extend
out and get the ninetieth percentile astronaut that

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is the smallest petite astronaut safely around
the leading edge of the wing. So

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what they needed to test this were
a bunch of naval test pilot or test

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parachutist. If you can imagine that
the people that tested parachutes as if you

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know a test pilot is not too
bad, I can imagine testing a new

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parachute. You know you can't pull
that going over and landed somewhere. So

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what an amount Toude is. We
ended up having five different organizations from the

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departments of Sense and that. So
I was in charge of the testing part

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of it, getting the test planned
together. I had to get approval for

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a technical review and safety review at
Edwards Air Force Space. I had a

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NASA chief engineer. It was on
the other side. He brought a team

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with him. We had the deceleration
branch, which means parachutes and brakes and

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that sort of thing. At Edwards
we borrowed a C one forty one from

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Airlift Command and NASA designed a Shuttle
hatch mock up that they put in the

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bike of the C one forty one, and we went out at ten thousand

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feet and this crazy crew of naval
test parachutes and they had different sized people

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but on the suit that was designed
for this, and the parachute was very

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heavy, and so they came off
this pole at over two hundred and twenty

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miles an hour at ten thousand CE
and tested it over about ten or fifteen

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flights. And it was very high
visibility project because all the things had been

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accomplished for the Shuttle returned to flight
program except for the escape system. So

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this was the last thing we had
astronaut with us. Stephen Nagle was there,

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00:27:15.240 --> 00:27:18.799
George Pinky Nelson was there, who
was on the flight that was going

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to test it. So we're micromanaged, but we managed to get through.

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The escape system was certified. We
didn't kill anybody, in the test parachuts

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branch. We had some pretty rough
bruises because they landed hard and fast.

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But it was an exciting project.
A lot of great people came together in

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a high energy, high pressure or
stressful hazardous test and it was certified,

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it was put on the shuttle,
and it flew the rest of the missions.

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Duanna didn't quite get you two space, which I know was your dream

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when you joined the Air Force in
the first place, but you played a

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direct role in making sure that the
people who did go would be safer than

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they had been before. So how
gratifying was that for you? You know,

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I'd like to say it was hugely
gratifying, and it was, but

359
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you know, you just hate the
circumstances that caused it. To lose a

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whole crew like that was tragic,
but they did have options after that.

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It was gratifying. I was able
to work with NASA. It was a

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team effort. There are a lot
of people that contributed to that. We're

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talking with Dwayne Ruddy's a US Air
Force veteran, and Dwayne another assignment that

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you had that really fascinates me was
as a test pilot and much more.

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As we'll get to in a little
bit for the B two, otherwise known

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as the Stealth Bomber. This is
late eighties, early nineties, so very

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early in the game for the B
two. How did you get that assignment

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and what exactly was the assignment?
It was an interesting thing, and you

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know, I don't know if you
have any educational programs going out any students

370
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in your audience. I imagine there
are, but it was kind of a

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learning experience. You know. One
of the things I was told when I

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came into the Air Force was if
you want a better job, be the

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best at the job you'd have,
and you never know who you're going to

374
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meet along the way. So I
was in that organization. I was telling

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you about where test pilots did miscellaneous
projects before they were assigned to a Combined

376
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Test Force. One of the projects
I had was a T thirty eight target

377
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test. You know T thirty eight
as a supersonic trainer two seater and it

378
00:29:30.079 --> 00:29:36.319
was flying T thirty eight as radar
targets for the FF team Combined Test Force

379
00:29:36.480 --> 00:29:41.839
at the time various altitude. So
we had people from other Combined Test Force

380
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come to help us, and I
was a project manager for that so before

381
00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:49.880
each flight, I got the flight
plans ready for each crew, you know,

382
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did everything for him. So I
just handed them to all the package

383
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that they needed, got the weather
reports, coordinated the range and all those

384
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:03.880
things, and briefed them before each
mission. And there maybe four or five

385
00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:07.839
of these flights. Well, there
were two guys that were flying, and

386
00:30:08.480 --> 00:30:12.759
they were from some place on the
other side of the base. Nobody knew

387
00:30:12.799 --> 00:30:18.000
what they were doing. I didn't. I didn't know them very well,

388
00:30:18.440 --> 00:30:22.880
but thanks, and I guess a
month after that, one of the guys,

389
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Lieutenant Colonel John Small, tapped me
on the shoulder one day when I

390
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:33.960
was leaning against the scheduler's desk in
this organization that had all the test pilots

391
00:30:33.119 --> 00:30:37.079
working on projects, and he said, Dwayne, come outside, I want

392
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:41.759
to talk to you. So they
got my interest up. That's true.

393
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I wonder why we're going outside.
And he came out and he said,

394
00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:48.440
I have an opening for a test
pilot. We're considering you. Could we

395
00:30:48.440 --> 00:30:52.079
get a resume And I said or
what for? And he says, I

396
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:56.920
can't tell you. Are you still
interested? Oh yeah, oh yeah.

397
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So I gave him a resume and
a couple of weeks later, he said

398
00:31:02.480 --> 00:31:04.680
you're in. You're hired, and
I said, what am I gonna be

399
00:31:04.680 --> 00:31:08.960
doing? Said, well, we
can't tell you to your special access clearance

400
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.039
comes through. I said, he
said, you still enterests it. Oh

401
00:31:14.119 --> 00:31:18.160
yeah. So when my clearance was
done, they told me to come over

402
00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:22.759
as to a place called South Base
where this combined Test Force was. So

403
00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:26.400
I had I had to go through
a buffer gate. Then they met me

404
00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:33.079
at the entry point. They showed
their badge and then I had to go

405
00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:36.799
through a turnstyle. Then they had
we went into another building and they had

406
00:31:36.839 --> 00:31:40.640
to put their card on a door
to take me into the other part.

407
00:31:40.720 --> 00:31:44.359
And during this whole time, I
thought, well, I'm a tanker guy,

408
00:31:44.880 --> 00:31:48.680
I'm a reconnaissance guy, so this
must be some new reconnaissance aircraft.

409
00:31:49.240 --> 00:31:52.559
You know. That's the only thing
I could figure out. So they put

410
00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:55.880
me in a room. They said
we're going to show you a film before

411
00:31:55.880 --> 00:32:00.279
we talk to and they started showing
the film and it was to stealth bomber

412
00:32:00.279 --> 00:32:06.440
and I was, what is a
tanker and a wrecke guy doing in a

413
00:32:06.559 --> 00:32:10.119
bomber combined test force? That was
a question my mom, I was really

414
00:32:10.160 --> 00:32:14.440
excited to say but you know,
I don't do anything about bombers. That's

415
00:32:14.519 --> 00:32:16.240
nothing that I've ever done. And
so when they came back in the room,

416
00:32:16.319 --> 00:32:20.599
my first question was why am I
here? And they said, well,

417
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:23.480
all the people we have or be
fifty two guys, f one,

418
00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:29.640
eleven guys, be one guys.
You know, we're looking for someone that

419
00:32:29.799 --> 00:32:35.839
is from outside this experienced space,
you know that can ask the stupid questions

420
00:32:35.920 --> 00:32:37.960
like why are we doing it this
way? You know, and the answer

421
00:32:38.039 --> 00:32:42.960
isn't tradition because we've always done this
way. There's got to be a good

422
00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:45.920
way to do it. So,
you know, I was the guy that

423
00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:50.519
they brought in that asked all the
dumb questions, you know, being a

424
00:32:50.559 --> 00:32:53.640
hillbilly, I was pretty good at
that. So that's how I got hired.

425
00:32:53.720 --> 00:32:58.000
It's one of my favorite stories.
But it's an important lesson for anyone

426
00:32:58.160 --> 00:33:01.039
saying, you know, even it's
you're doing a job, maybe you don't

427
00:33:01.119 --> 00:33:05.119
attach much importance to it. You
know, do the best you can,

428
00:33:05.480 --> 00:33:09.599
and you don't know who might be
watching what you're doing, and that's how

429
00:33:09.640 --> 00:33:15.480
you get to the next level.
And so you ended up having a considerable

430
00:33:15.480 --> 00:33:17.279
bind of input in a lot of
different areas here from what I've seen,

431
00:33:17.480 --> 00:33:23.480
it was avionics, flight control systems, in flight performance and much more so.

432
00:33:23.559 --> 00:33:29.599
As you're working to get to peak
performance and all those and other areas.

433
00:33:29.960 --> 00:33:31.279
How do you know you've hit the
sweet spot, that you've got it

434
00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:36.200
exactly where you wanted. As you're
developing these things, it's a massive team

435
00:33:36.279 --> 00:33:39.440
effort. You know, the chest
pilots are on the maybe you could say

436
00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:43.599
the leading edge of it, but
you know, the combined chest force head

437
00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:49.319
over a hundred assigned pilots of all
types, weapon systems officers, flight test

438
00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:54.079
engineers. There are four defense contractors, three Air force commands. You know,

439
00:33:55.319 --> 00:34:00.160
the combined chest force head over a
thousand people. So there were some

440
00:34:00.519 --> 00:34:07.839
massive team effort going on. And
the interesting thing about the B two was

441
00:34:07.159 --> 00:34:14.320
it came at an intersection of several
different emerging technologies. It was after the

442
00:34:14.599 --> 00:34:19.840
F one seventeen stealth fighter, which
I believe I've got this right, would

443
00:34:19.880 --> 00:34:23.079
appear as a small bird on a
radar screen and had the same radar cross

444
00:34:23.079 --> 00:34:30.119
section as a small bird. Then
there were advancements made in the B two

445
00:34:30.159 --> 00:34:35.079
and how it did magic on radar
that they said the B two is like

446
00:34:35.119 --> 00:34:40.039
a small insect like a grasshopper on
a radar, So that's how difficult it

447
00:34:40.159 --> 00:34:43.599
was to see. And that,
you know, that was years of testing

448
00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:51.320
that people were working on. There
were also the emergence of new ways to

449
00:34:51.400 --> 00:34:54.360
do flight tests using fiber optics measure
nds. You know, we had over

450
00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:59.519
ten thousand measure ends on the aircraft
that were reported back to you know,

451
00:34:59.639 --> 00:35:04.719
thirty of forty engineers in a control
room. So all that was going on,

452
00:35:04.800 --> 00:35:07.840
and then there was there was a
new concept about doing most of the

453
00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:12.239
testing on the ground before it ever
got to the airplane, or doing you

454
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:17.880
know, computational fluid dynamics, computer
wind tunnel testing. We had a replica

455
00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:21.519
of the B two that was called
the Iron Bird, and they would shake

456
00:35:21.639 --> 00:35:24.239
it and make sure that it could
stand the loads. On the ground.

457
00:35:25.239 --> 00:35:30.840
We had a thing called flying test
bed where all the offensive and defensive and

458
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:37.320
navigational instruments were placed, so they
were testing those on another aircraft. Was

459
00:35:37.719 --> 00:35:40.880
C one thirty five flew a lot
of those missions where they had all of

460
00:35:40.880 --> 00:35:45.719
this, all of these instruments and
systems figured out and proved truthful before they

461
00:35:45.719 --> 00:35:50.280
were replaced on the airplane. You
know, that was a new thing.

462
00:35:51.039 --> 00:35:54.880
We had an avionics test laboratory where
on the ground they would go into detail

463
00:35:54.960 --> 00:35:59.920
and testing with these avionics before they
even put them on the flying test bed.

464
00:36:00.760 --> 00:36:05.679
So it was it was the beginning
of a new era in flight testing,

465
00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:08.760
development and operational flight test, and
that continues to this day. So

466
00:36:09.239 --> 00:36:14.719
it was a very interesting time to
be in developmental flight tests. Last question

467
00:36:14.760 --> 00:36:20.159
on this topic, Dwayne, you
mentioned the great team effort in helping with

468
00:36:20.239 --> 00:36:24.800
the UH Shuttle crew escape system.
You talked about a thousand people working on

469
00:36:24.960 --> 00:36:30.280
this. UH. If you've got
everybody focused on the goal and egos aren't

470
00:36:30.280 --> 00:36:35.079
getting in the way, it can
be a very good experience. But there's

471
00:36:35.079 --> 00:36:37.199
a bunch of bureaucrats and a lot
of egos that can be a miserable experience.

472
00:36:38.039 --> 00:36:40.880
What was the key to UH to
this going well? How was your

473
00:36:40.880 --> 00:36:45.480
experience with the B two bomber development. You know, I think this has

474
00:36:45.519 --> 00:36:52.280
repeated over and over again with the
United States military. You know, it's

475
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:57.480
UH, it's commitment to the mission. You know it's realized, and that

476
00:36:57.920 --> 00:37:00.079
we all have to pull it together. You know, some people may call

477
00:37:00.159 --> 00:37:07.800
it crew coordination or leadership. By
example, there's a lot of different words

478
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:10.960
for it. But I think one
of the things that's made America gray is

479
00:37:12.000 --> 00:37:16.079
just this history of doing this.
I know, the American Veteran Center talks

480
00:37:16.119 --> 00:37:23.800
about World War Two guys and the
sacrificial devotion to the mission to realize it's

481
00:37:23.840 --> 00:37:28.639
not my ego, it's not what
I'm doing. It's important. It's it's

482
00:37:28.679 --> 00:37:31.480
what everybody else is doing. And
right now I'm looking in my office that

483
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:38.440
my farewell photo where everybody signs it. You know, there's fifty signatures there.

484
00:37:38.880 --> 00:37:44.039
You know, it's been great working
with you. You know, GWayne,

485
00:37:44.320 --> 00:37:47.280
thanks for being a friend when I
needed one. It's difficult not to

486
00:37:47.320 --> 00:37:52.239
get emotional about it. But you
know, just like my uncle's talked about

487
00:37:52.239 --> 00:37:59.360
their war experiences, you know,
all the stories that you've interviewed veterans about

488
00:37:59.480 --> 00:38:02.079
all this worries, in the videos
that you have on your website. You

489
00:38:02.119 --> 00:38:07.199
know, all of the veterans that
I'm at at Thomson Hood Veteran Center in

490
00:38:07.239 --> 00:38:12.599
Wilmore, Kentucky, you know,
fighting their last battle against Fanicha's You know,

491
00:38:12.639 --> 00:38:15.559
it's a family thing, it's a
patriotic thing, it's a country thing.

492
00:38:16.280 --> 00:38:20.639
It's a thing about freedom. It's
a beautiful way to say it.

493
00:38:21.079 --> 00:38:27.719
Dwayne, very very happy to hear
that type of camaraderie going into these critically

494
00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:30.960
important projects, so many of them
that you were a part of. We're

495
00:38:30.960 --> 00:38:32.480
going to take one more break here
and when we come back, we're going

496
00:38:32.559 --> 00:38:37.800
to talk about what you just mentioned. You're honoring of veterans in Wilmore,

497
00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:42.960
Kentucky at the Memory Impairment Unit there
for our veterans. Our guest today is

498
00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:46.800
Dwayne Rudd, Us Air Force veteran
due to reconnaissance pilot, stealth bomber test

499
00:38:46.840 --> 00:38:51.760
pilot. He was also, as
we mentioned, a critical test pilot for

500
00:38:51.760 --> 00:38:55.320
the Space Shuttle crew escape system developed
after the Challenger disaster. And when we

501
00:38:55.360 --> 00:39:00.679
come back fading away at Wilmore,
I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles.

502
00:39:02.239 --> 00:39:07.360
This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbez. Our guest in this edition

503
00:39:07.480 --> 00:39:12.920
is Dwayne Rudd, Us Air Force
veteran, YouTube reconnaissance pilot, stealth bomber

504
00:39:13.000 --> 00:39:15.559
test pilot, and he was also
the chief test pilot for the Space Shuttle

505
00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:22.000
crew escape system following the horrific Challenger
disaster. As I've mentioned a few times,

506
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:27.400
now in the course of our conversation. He's also an author. Background

507
00:39:27.400 --> 00:39:31.480
twenty fourteen, he published the book
Fading Away at Wilmore and Duyne. It's

508
00:39:31.480 --> 00:39:37.440
about your time getting to know and
learn the service stories of veterans battling dementia

509
00:39:37.480 --> 00:39:42.679
another memory impairment at a facility in
Wilmore, Kentucky. And so the book

510
00:39:42.719 --> 00:39:45.360
is partly about their stories, but
it's also about their battle against dementia,

511
00:39:45.480 --> 00:39:49.760
their last battle. As you have
mentioned it to me, how did you

512
00:39:49.800 --> 00:39:52.639
get connected to these veterans in the
first place. After my Air Force career,

513
00:39:53.159 --> 00:39:59.239
get hired by United Parcel Service Carolines. My first position was as a

514
00:39:59.320 --> 00:40:02.119
Boeing seven when he seven flight engineer. Then it was a seven twenty seven

515
00:40:02.159 --> 00:40:06.800
first officer, and then I spent
the last fifteen years as a Herbus three

516
00:40:06.880 --> 00:40:12.840
hundred captain. The frequency that we
flew with uts it's typically either two weeks

517
00:40:12.840 --> 00:40:15.119
on and two weeks off, or
a week on and a week off,

518
00:40:15.119 --> 00:40:19.159
So I'd be gone a week in
home a week or gone two weeks in

519
00:40:19.239 --> 00:40:22.920
home two weeks. So it was
a tough schedule. But on the other

520
00:40:22.920 --> 00:40:24.079
hand, when you're home, you're
home, so it gave you time to

521
00:40:24.119 --> 00:40:29.719
do things well. Unfortunately, my
father, who was a veteran I spoke

522
00:40:29.719 --> 00:40:35.199
about him earlier, developed the indications
of Alzheimer's. And if any of your

523
00:40:35.239 --> 00:40:38.559
listeners have a loved one or experience
with dementia, they know that that's a

524
00:40:38.559 --> 00:40:44.760
battle, that's a war, and
their different phases of fighting that battle.

525
00:40:44.800 --> 00:40:50.360
In the beginning, you get occasional
help. It was my mother taking care

526
00:40:50.400 --> 00:40:53.920
of him by herself. I'm an
only child, and then it got to

527
00:40:53.960 --> 00:40:59.920
be where it was too much for
her. So my dad was in her

528
00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:05.719
the army in Kentucky, and since
we lived here in Louisville, Kentucky,

529
00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:08.639
he was able to qualify for a
veteran's long term care facility in Wilmore,

530
00:41:08.719 --> 00:41:15.079
Kentucky, called Thompson Hood Veterans Center. So he went to Thompson Hood Veterans

531
00:41:15.119 --> 00:41:22.400
Center and the first year, I
was overwhelmed with the love and care that

532
00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:27.960
the staff, from the doctors and
the nurses, to the rehab specialists,

533
00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:35.400
to the janitors, cook, you
know, the chaplain with how much they

534
00:41:35.440 --> 00:41:37.119
loved these guys. One of the
first things they told me when Dad went

535
00:41:37.159 --> 00:41:42.840
in was we loved these veterans like
our children. And I thought at the

536
00:41:42.880 --> 00:41:45.119
time, well, that's a nice
thing to say. But I come to

537
00:41:45.159 --> 00:41:52.400
find out that it was true that
the people that worked there loved these guys.

538
00:41:53.039 --> 00:41:59.719
Most of them were World War Two
guys who had Alzheimer's disease or terrible

539
00:41:59.760 --> 00:42:04.320
part Conson's disease, things like that. And so my father was in the

540
00:42:05.480 --> 00:42:08.960
mobile dementia ward and all the wards
at the hospital were given names of the

541
00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:14.239
president, and my dad was in
the Eisenhower unit. So after I was

542
00:42:14.320 --> 00:42:16.639
there about a year, I had
this urge inside I want to do more.

543
00:42:17.480 --> 00:42:22.119
So I volunteered to work in the
dementia unit. And at the same

544
00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:25.639
time I had I said I need
to document this somehow or other. So

545
00:42:27.400 --> 00:42:32.320
I started writing, I learned how
to do video, I started buying cameras.

546
00:42:32.320 --> 00:42:37.119
Going through cameras, I found people
that were willing to talk and interviewed

547
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:42.840
them. So I got on a
creative trajectory to say, how can I

548
00:42:42.920 --> 00:42:45.360
document these guys stories and the people
that were taking care of them, and

549
00:42:45.400 --> 00:42:49.719
the struggles with the family. And
you know, it was like a military

550
00:42:49.840 --> 00:42:52.519
unit. These guys were in their
wheelchairs. Some of them were like sergeants

551
00:42:52.599 --> 00:42:57.400
yelling at the people like stopped,
stop that running around. You know,

552
00:42:57.480 --> 00:43:02.360
it's like a military unit fight this
battle against this brutal foe called dementia.

553
00:43:02.519 --> 00:43:08.400
So I just started writing and filming, and I had a series of articles

554
00:43:08.639 --> 00:43:15.559
published in National magazine about it that
gave me encouragement to go ahead and write

555
00:43:15.559 --> 00:43:19.280
a book. I filmed a documentary
about him. I took short parts of

556
00:43:19.320 --> 00:43:23.360
the documentary and inserted them into the
book, Fading Away at Wilmore, that

557
00:43:24.000 --> 00:43:29.000
is on Amazon now. It has
eighteen video segments, ten audio segments,

558
00:43:29.039 --> 00:43:36.719
photographs, and pencil sketches. So
it was just an overwhelming desire to salute

559
00:43:36.719 --> 00:43:39.519
these guys and to talk about the
love and the care they were getting from

560
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:45.840
these people at Thompson and Veteran Center. Dwayne, you obviously went into this

561
00:43:45.079 --> 00:43:51.760
project with a tremendous amount of respect
and reverence for our veterans. And as

562
00:43:51.840 --> 00:43:58.400
you went through this project, how
did it perhaps enhance your respect for them,

563
00:43:58.440 --> 00:44:01.880
knowing how they were approaching the final
battle? And at the same time,

564
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:06.159
what do you hope people take away
from your book if they have the

565
00:44:06.239 --> 00:44:08.199
chance to read it. Well,
the first word occurs to me and ask

566
00:44:08.199 --> 00:44:14.599
your questions courage. You know,
the primary characters in the book all had

567
00:44:14.639 --> 00:44:19.920
combat experience. One was a medic
that landed in Normandy fought his way across

568
00:44:20.400 --> 00:44:27.079
spoke French and German fluently. Another
one was on a famous destroyer, the

569
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:30.800
USS Sterret was involved in a huge
battle off Wild Canal. Another guy was

570
00:44:31.679 --> 00:44:38.039
a fighter pilot that ended up getting
shot down and was in Skylark seventeen first

571
00:44:38.039 --> 00:44:44.039
several years talking about how terrible that
was. You know, just everyone I

572
00:44:44.079 --> 00:44:49.119
talked to had a story. My
dad had a story. So they faced

573
00:44:49.440 --> 00:44:53.760
this terrible battle with the same courage
that they faced the battles to preserve our

574
00:44:53.760 --> 00:44:59.519
freedom. It was difficult watching them. Some morning someone would say, well,

575
00:44:59.599 --> 00:45:01.480
where's Larry. I haven't seen Larry, And they go to Larry's go

576
00:45:01.519 --> 00:45:05.119
to Larry's room, and you know, he's passed away in his chair,

577
00:45:05.400 --> 00:45:07.039
just like that. So that's where
the name of the book came from,

578
00:45:07.079 --> 00:45:12.639
this, you know, fading way
Wilmore. People attribute that to General MacArthur,

579
00:45:12.719 --> 00:45:15.159
and he did say that, but
it was actually from a marching song

580
00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:20.960
that they had at West Point.
That was an old British gospel song that

581
00:45:21.079 --> 00:45:24.840
talks about that we are all fading
away, fading away, so I felt

582
00:45:24.880 --> 00:45:30.320
my job, my mission, within
the midst of this tragedy and suffering all

583
00:45:30.360 --> 00:45:32.880
these heroes, I'd walk into the
room and there there would be, you

584
00:45:32.920 --> 00:45:37.480
know, medals on the board,
you know, citations where this one guy

585
00:45:37.480 --> 00:45:40.519
who was a pology to save the
plat Tennis soldiers on the ground straight in

586
00:45:40.639 --> 00:45:45.039
German positions. You know, I
just felt I've got to somehow tell this

587
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:49.559
story for each one of them.
They're fading away six hundred a day.

588
00:45:49.599 --> 00:45:53.519
I'd be surprised for more than maybe
two hundred thousand, So they're all going

589
00:45:54.320 --> 00:45:59.159
from sixteen million down to a few
hundred thousand, you're correct about that.

590
00:46:00.239 --> 00:46:05.400
A couple of quick questions before we
close our conversation here, Dwayne. First

591
00:46:05.400 --> 00:46:08.440
of all, a very distinguished military
career of your own. As you look

592
00:46:08.480 --> 00:46:12.280
back on it, what are you
most proud of? You know, I

593
00:46:12.400 --> 00:46:15.360
mentioned teamwork before. I think in
every place that I've been, just the

594
00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:21.760
incredible people that I had the honor
to serve with. You know that somehow,

595
00:46:22.039 --> 00:46:25.159
this guy from the hills and hollers
of West Virginia would would find himself

596
00:46:25.199 --> 00:46:32.079
amongst these these people, these patriots
willing to sacrifice. You know, that's

597
00:46:32.440 --> 00:46:37.360
the honor that I had, that
I was able and as few small ways

598
00:46:37.400 --> 00:46:43.800
to serve my country, and any
of those type of feelings I had were

599
00:46:44.079 --> 00:46:47.840
vastly surpassed in my you know,
my years at Thompson had Veterans Center with

600
00:46:47.920 --> 00:46:53.400
these guys and fighting the battles that
they caught, and the sheer courage not

601
00:46:53.440 --> 00:46:58.079
only with all the combat experiences I
learned about, but in facing this last

602
00:46:58.119 --> 00:47:01.440
brugal enemy. And finally, Wayne, we just talked about how you collected

603
00:47:01.920 --> 00:47:06.199
veterans stories. It's what we do
here at the American Veterans Center as well.

604
00:47:06.360 --> 00:47:10.320
So talk about the importance of that
in preserving stories and the work that

605
00:47:10.360 --> 00:47:14.519
we do and the work that you've
done and others are doing to make sure

606
00:47:14.559 --> 00:47:19.119
that as these veterans fade away,
and even the young ones too, that

607
00:47:19.159 --> 00:47:22.559
we make sure we have these stories
for future generations. Well, you know,

608
00:47:22.599 --> 00:47:25.400
at this point in my life's Greg, I'm interested in passing on whatever

609
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I have, whatever I've learned,
whatever I have of value to the next

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generation, just as I learned from
my uncle's growing up about their combat experiences,

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about the importance of teamwork, about
courage and the face of fire.

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I think in my own mind,
it's to tell these stories so that the

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generations come and can appreciate that,
just like I appreciate it hearing about it

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growing up is I'm sure you've heard
about it, doing these stories, perhaps

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00:47:55.159 --> 00:48:00.320
your own experience with family members.
It is. We've got a passing on

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00:48:00.360 --> 00:48:06.239
to the next generation. Instill it
in them, and if we don't do

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that, where are they going to
get it? You know, we need

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to give them the truth that we're
locked in a struggle. This country is

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locked in a struggle with darkness,
you know, with tyranny versus freedom,

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00:48:20.519 --> 00:48:24.119
with life versus death. So we
have to look to the guys that were

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before us and passing on to the
next generation. Well, Dwayne, it's

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00:48:28.760 --> 00:48:32.280
been a fascinating conversation and a powerful
one as well. We thank you so

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00:48:32.360 --> 00:48:37.239
much for your service to our nation, to our veterans with your book and

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00:48:37.280 --> 00:48:40.239
the time you spent there and other
efforts that you do in that area.

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00:48:40.320 --> 00:48:44.400
And we also of course thank you
for your time today. We really appreciate

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00:48:44.440 --> 00:48:45.920
it. Thanks so much. Great
as the players are talking with you,

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00:48:46.280 --> 00:48:50.519
thank you very much. Thank you. Sir. Dwayne Rodd is a veteran

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00:48:50.519 --> 00:48:53.280
of the US Air Force. He's
a YouTube reconnaissance pilot, test pilot for

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the B two Stealth bomber. Also
was the chief test pilot for the Space

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00:48:57.639 --> 00:49:01.440
Shuttle crew escape system following the Challenger
disaster. His book, still available on

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Amazon dot com, came out in
about twenty fourteen, is entitled Fading Away

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00:49:07.119 --> 00:49:21.639
at Wilmore. I'm Greg Corumbus and
this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this

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00:49:21.800 --> 00:49:25.360
is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for
listening to Veterans Chronicles, a presentation of

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00:49:25.400 --> 00:49:31.440
the American Veterans Center. For more
information, please visit American Veterans Center dot

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00:49:31.519 --> 00:49:37.239
org. You can also follow the
American Veterans Center on Facebook and on Twitter.

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00:49:37.400 --> 00:49:43.159
We're at AVC update. Subscribe to
the American Veterans Center YouTube channel for

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00:49:43.360 --> 00:49:47.119
full oral histories and special features,
and of course, please subscribe to the

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00:49:47.199 --> 00:49:52.679
Veterans Chronicles podcast wherever you get your
podcasts. Thanks again for listening, and

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00:49:52.760 --> 00:49:55.519
please join us next time for Veterans
Chronicles