Naval Air Advanced Training Command
United States Naval Air Station
Corpus Christi, Texas
1stLT Guy L. Brown reported for duty at 1750 MAR 12 1955. I was then ordered to report "for temporary duty under instruction in a flying status involving operational or training flights in the Advanced Instrument Course." Navy Lieutenant Gore was my instructor and a good one he was. We had our first flight together in the hot 1440 horsepower T-28 on March 23rd. The heat under the hood in the back seat made concentrating a chore. On May 10th I had completed the training and earned a Standard Instrument rating. This segment of my training involved 57.6 flight hours, 42.9 of which were instrument flying. Precision, the ability to deal with vertigo and confidence in your instruments were the main lessons learned at Corpus. Here I am in the middle with two of my Navy buddies, Bob Bennett from NC and Bob Kotzebue from TX. Kotzebue never learned how to stand "at ease"!
As an aside, there was lots of good social life in Corpus. The town's folk were cordial to us and the beaches weren't all that bad if you hadn't anything else to compare with. I did!
I loaded what clothes and stuff I had in the small trunk and right seat of the Jag and headed for the Naval Air Station, Kingsville, TX on May 12. It was 4 hours from check out in Corpus to check in at Kingsville. Advanced training at Kingsville was the most fun of all. My first flight there on May 25th involved 7 practice landings with an instructor in the rear. It wa an area check ride among other things. How good it was to get in the front seat again! With one exception, all the other flights in the T-28 there were solo. You began to acquire confidence in your skills very quickly. By mid June, the T-28 portion of the Tactics training was completed and we were ready to move into JETS.
Our jet trainer was the Lockheed TV-2, a training version of the Air Force F-80 fighter. From the standpoint of power it was a dog. You best not ever get behind the power curve for it was an unforgiving act that you could easily pay for with your life. Aside from this deficiency it was a thrill to fly.
Here I am with buddies beside a TV. You can tell the only Marine (me) in the bunch by his uniform. Kotzebue on the right hadn't yet understood the command "at ease."
Liberty wasn't all that great around Kingsville. The Kings Ranch had a great country style restaurant but that was about it within a 50 mile radius. I did take a trip to Austin with my buddy Kotzebue. He knew some great hangouts there. I recall visiting a girl's college with him and waiting in the lobby while the woman on duty called for the girls to come down. We sat politely and talked but they weren't allowed out of the dorm so we left promptly.
The barracks there were old, made of widely spaced wood. It was not unusual to return to your BOQ room at days end only to find your bed covered with dust as dust storms were the "weather of the day."
My first flight in the TV was on July 7. For the rest of July and for 11 days in August I flew almost every day. By the last flight on August 11th, I had accumulated 55 jet hours and 60 landings; a very good month of flying. My log book now totaled 343.8 hours, just enough to time to be dangerous.
What a proud day it was on August 12th when I received my wings. I received Naval Aviator No. V-7807 and my Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) became 7333.
Here I was at age 24 and about to embark on an 18 year journey filled with excitement and great comradeship among the worlds finest.
I had a months leave so headed back to South Carolina to do some bragging and partying before heading back to the west coast. This time the journey would be in a Jag which would be quite different than the trip I had made a year and a half earlier in the Ford. Hawaii, here I come!
END OF CHAPTER ON ADVANCED FLIGHT TRAINING,
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