My Two Hot Wars & One Cold War

In 1949, Dale Ford joined the peacetime Air Force. Two days after he graduated from flying school, the Korean War started. What a jolt that was! Rather foolishly, he had not really considered that he might be called upon to fly combat someday. President Truman's order for our armed forces to support South Korea in their fight with North Korea quickly changed that. After about ten months of additional training, Ford found himself in the middle of that fight. He flew one hundred combat missions against the Russian Mig-15 in the swept-wing F-86 jet fighters of the 4th and 51st Fighter Interceptor Wings. He was not a hero or a jet ace. He was just a buck second lieutenant doing his job. Ford spent three years as a jet fighter pilot and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Ford went on to receive a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University. In 1956, he joined Convair Aeronautical Corporation, builder of the world's first supersonic bomber. He spent the next five years working closely with and flying with the B-58 test pilots as a flight test engineer. They blazed new ground taking this four-engine, 160,000-pound aircraft to twice the speed of sound in the 1950s and proved it was ready for production for the U.S. Air Force. Join author Dale Ford as he relives and relates one man's experiences through Two Hot Wars and One Cold War.