In this captivating episode, host Kim Munson delves into the life and career of Steven McKenna, a former Navy pilot and author. Steven recounts riveting experiences from his time as a pilot, including the challenges of aviation officer candidate school, the rigors of flight training, and the thrill of carrier landings. Between reflections on values instilled by farm life and tales of military camaraderie, listeners will find inspiration and awe in Steven’s stories, which echo the bravery and commitment of veterans everywhere.
SPEAKER 07 :
World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, and her other wars and conflicts. America’s fighting men and women strapped on their boots and picked up their guns to fight tyranny and stand for liberty. We must never forget them. Welcome to America’s veteran stories with Kim Munson. These stories will touch your heart, inspire you and give you courage. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Here’s Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out my website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. And the show comes to you because of a trip that I took in 2016 with a group that accompanied 40-day veterans back to Normandy, France, for the 72nd anniversary of the D-Day landings of World War II. And returned stateside realizing we need to know these stories. We need to record them and broadcast them and archive them. So hence America’s Veterans Stories. I am so pleased to have in the studio with me Stephen McKenna. And he is a Navy veteran, a pilot, and he’s written a book, Fair Winds Following Seas and a Few Bolters. So Steve McKenna, welcome to the show. Thank you, Kim. Pleasure to be here. So let’s start with you. Tell us, where did you grow up, and did you always know that you wanted to be a pilot, or just tell me about that.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I grew up a little bit all over. I was born in Ann Arbor while my parents were still going to the University of Michigan. We moved to California from there and then West Virginia and ended up back in Michigan and rural Michigan. Actually, I grew up on a 365 acre farm for much of my childhood, which was great. Oh, yeah. You know, we had we had cows, we had horses, chickens. You know, it was a lot of chores, a lot of work. It was getting up before dawn to feed them. But it was a great way to grow up.
SPEAKER 09 :
That work ethic of rural America, because I grew up in rural Kansas. Now, we didn’t. My dad, we never had animals. He was just crop farming because he said, in the middle of the winter, I don’t have to go feed animals. But that responsibility, I think, is something that stays with you your whole life, Steve. Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely. Absolutely. Just caring for others, you know, protect if you take care of animals, you have to you have to feed them. You have to get up before dawn and feed them. You have to take care of them. You know, I had a cow when I was, I think. 11, I raised a couple of feeder cows and one of them got sick and ended up dying. And I spent the night in the barn with him in January because that was my cow. I mean, I was raising it for slaughter, but it was still my responsibility. And I felt, you know. He was sick and I needed to stay with him. So it does definitely help you instill that in you when you grow up in that kind of environment. So anyway, we grew up there, went to public schools, ended up going to Georgia Tech because it was the only school that accepted me at the time. But I’m glad, I’m super glad I went there. I was a co-op there, which meant it’s a five-year program where you work every other quarter to help pay for school. I worked for Delta Airlines while I was doing that. And I did not see a military future for me at any point. I didn’t plan on that. But as I was graduating college and starting my fifth year, I didn’t really know what to do. I had a very good time in college. I didn’t get great grades. So very social. Very social, yes, yes. But I’d seen the movie An Officer and a Gentleman the year before with Richard Gere, Deborah Winger, Lou Gossett Jr., which tells the story of a young man that… A little rough around the edges that wanted to make something of his life. And he went to the Navy’s Aviation Officer Candidate School. And, you know, my parents raised my sisters and I to be patriotic Americans, to appreciate the privilege of being born in a country with the values and liberties of the United States. So I went into a recruiting office and said, if I go to this school, will you really teach me to fly jets? And they said, sure. So I raised my right hand and swore the oath and was off to Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola in 1985. Wow. Was it what you expected? It was kind of like the movie, but it’s a 14-week program, and you’re trained by marine drill instructors, and they basically cram the four years of the academy or the four years of ROTC into those 14 weeks. So it was nothing like I’d ever experienced before. It was… Training mentally, physically, emotionally. My class started out with 70 people in AOCS. And by the time we graduated, there were 18 of us left.
SPEAKER 09 :
And they do try to wash people out. I have interviewed a number of different pilots, World War II and other wars as well. But they do make it really tough because they have to know who’s going to be able to stand it when you really get into it. And I remember one World War II pilot, he’s like, I do not want to wash out. That was one of the things he said, I don’t want to wash out. But it happens.
SPEAKER 08 :
It happened to a lot of people, a lot of friends of mine that I made there. But I was like the person you just interviewed. By the time they shaved my head and I spent all my money on uniforms, there was no way I was quitting. Do you have to buy your uniforms? Yeah, you did.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s crazy.
SPEAKER 08 :
You got paid back for them after the 14 weeks if you graduated. But if you washed out, you know, that 500 bucks was on you. And that’s a lot of money back then. That was a lot of money.
SPEAKER 09 :
Wow. Okay. So you, did you know Steve McKenna, just the mental toughness that it would take to not wash out?
SPEAKER 08 :
I think I had perhaps a better grasp than some of the other people there just because of what I’d gone through growing up, raising the animals, putting myself through college, working through college. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. You know, I felt I could do it, and I really wanted to do it. I wanted this badly. I wanted to be a jet pilot. We’ll get to that later. I didn’t end up flying jets. I ended up flying ETC Hawkeyes. But, no, it was, again, it was, those were some of the, I remember those 14 weeks vividly to this day because it was so intense. And, yeah. You know, you had the physical training where you got up at five o’clock every morning and you spent 45 minutes doing, you know, jumping jacks and up. What do they call them? Up downs and all that stuff. And, you know, it was actually very hard academically because to be a pilot, you have to you kind of have to understand aerodynamics. You have to understand aerodynamics. Math, you have to be able to calculate how much gas you have left, what your fuel burn is, lots of things like that. So it was a very intense experience, but very rewarding, and I certainly learned a lot.
SPEAKER 09 :
So 14 weeks. What happens after the 14 weeks then?
SPEAKER 08 :
So then you graduate. You become an officer, an ensign in my case in the Navy. And then it’s off to flight school. And I started flight school in Corpus Christi, Texas, VT-27. and the first plane i flew was the t-34c turbo mentor it’s a single engine fully acrobatic aircraft tandem cockpit pilot in front instructor in the back and uh I was there from October of 85 to July of 1986. And in the middle, we did a detachment to El Centro, California in the Imperial Valley for weather reasons. The weather was better there than it was in Corpus Christi. So that was the first and learning to fly the T-34C. And super fun. I’d never flown an airplane before or anything like that. It was pretty wild to learn.
SPEAKER 09 :
Did you love it immediately?
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, I struggled a bit at the beginning. You know, one of the things that I wrote about in the book actually was I couldn’t remember to raise my landing gear after I survived a takeoff. So I’d be, you know… Get the plane airborne, get it above the runway, and I’d be so excited that I wasn’t dead that I might forget to raise the landing gear. So my instructor gave me a hard time about that. But after a few flights, you kind of got the hang of it. And it was just, I’ll tell you, it was otherworldly to flip that plane upside down and then pull the stick back and just cascade towards the earth in a split-s maneuver. It was just… Yeah, I’m a scuba diver. Do you scuba dive? No, I don’t. Have you ever done that? So it’s like you’re in another world when you’re scuba diving under the water. Being up in the sky is the same thing. It’s a different world. It’s different than scuba diving where everything’s kind of slow and quiet. When you’re flying, it’s fast and noisy. But it’s hard to describe.
SPEAKER 09 :
So did you just say that you flipped the plane over so you were flying upside down?
SPEAKER 08 :
Inverted, sure. Yeah, you have to learn to do all the acrobatic maneuvers.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, speaking of that, speaking of that, I’ve got to find his name. And he was telling me, this World War II pilot, that he’d gone up with this instructor, and somehow when he was getting things lined around, he had unbuckled his seatbelt. And so when they did that maneuver, he was doing everything to stay in the plane. But, yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that. That’s not for everybody. I don’t think that’s something that I could do.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, that’s part of the aviation officer candidate school training as well. You did a lot of testing and things like that. There was a hyperbaric chamber where you went up and experienced hypoxia. They put you in a centrifuge kind of thing where they spun you around and, you know, made sure you didn’t get sick or anything like that. So, no, it’s not for everybody.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah, most definitely. Most definitely. So we have just a couple more minutes left here. So what else should people know about flight school? And we’ll continue on as well.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, so the T-34 was the first plane I flew. I ended up flying two other planes in flight school. But what happens after primary, which is the first plane you fly, is the selection process where the Navy – decides what plane you’re going to fly once you get your wings and graduate from flight school. There were four choices. So jets, helicopters, E-2s, which is what I ended up flying, and I’ll tell you a little bit more about that. Most people don’t know about that plane. And then fixed-wing aircraft. And you get to tell the Navy what you’d like to fly. But ultimately, if you’re first in your class, you get your first choice. If you’re not first in the class, they will take your preferences into consideration. But you will be assigned, according to a phrase I learned very well, which is the needs of the Navy. So I did not get jets, which I had my heart set on flying. I wanted to be like, you know, Maverick and Iceman. Yeah. Zach Mayo and an officer and a gentleman, I got my third choice, which was E-2C Hawkeyes. So that involved two other training planes. The next was a T-2C Buckeye twin-engine jet, which you actually get your initial carrier qualification in, which I flew out of Pensacola. And then I went back to Corpus Christi and flew a twin-engine King Air at VTV. What was that one? VT-28 to finish my flight training. And after that, I did get my wings and head to the fleet.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. Well, I’m talking with Steve McKenna about his experience as an officer and a gentleman. He’s written the book Fair Winds, Following Seas, and A Few Bolters. And so we’re going to continue the discussion here. The Center for American Values is located in Pueblo on the beautiful Riverwalk. And it was founded for several reasons. One, to honor our Medal of Honor recipients. over 160 portraits of valor of Medal of Honor recipients. But additionally, they are teaching these foundational principles of honor, integrity, and patriotism through many of their educational programs and also their On Values presentations. So for more information about the center, go to AmericanValuesCenter.org. That’s AmericanValuesCenter.org. And we’ll be right back with Steve McKenna.
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
Thank you so much for having me. To learn more, reach out to Teresa at 520-631-9243. Teresa would love to talk with you. Again, that number is 520-631-9243.
SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 07 :
Ha, ha, ha.
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. I’m so pleased to have in studio with me Steve McKenna. He’s written a book, Fair Winds Following Seas and a Few Bolters. And Steve is a Navy veteran and was a pilot. Wanted to fly jets, but you ended up with the needs of the Navy, I guess. So that puts you on, I think you… The E-2 Hawkeye, is that right? Did I write that down correctly?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yes, the E-2C was the version at the time, Hawkeye. Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
So what is, well, let’s see, we’ve gone through flight school. You’re now the needs of the Navy. What happens next? What do people need to know?
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, next, let me tell you another story first that I told in the book. Your initial carrier qualification when you do your first landing on a carrier is in the TTC Buckeye. And my very first landing was a bit interesting because… First of all, when you land on an aircraft carrier, it’s not like when you land at DIA and the pilot adds power, does a nice little flare, and squeaks the wheels down on the 10,000-foot runway. When you’re trying to stop a plane in about a 120-feet area, you fly a 500-foot rate of descent all the way into what is a pretty teeth-rattling collision with the flight deck. And that’s because you have to put the plane, you know, going 140 miles an hour or whatever in about 120 foot space. And so on my very first landing, I went high and then I pulled too much power and I landed pretty hard. So when I landed on that aircraft carrier the first time, my instrument panel actually sheared. And it came back into my lap and pinned the stick all the way into my stomach. Oh, my gosh. So if I had bolted on that, which a bolt is when you land beyond the wires and you have to go around and try again, that stick, the plane would have gone straight up, stalled, crashed. probably back on the flight deck, killing not just me, but some of the people working there. So I was eternally grateful that I did not bolter on that pass. I grabbed a four wire, the last wire, there’s four. Um, so that, that was an interesting story. And, uh, after that, uh, as I cleared the flight deck and told the, the air boss who’s in command of the flight deck that, you know, I had, I got a problem boss, my instrument panels in my lap. Um, Um, they sent a guy up to my jet, climbed up the ladder next to the cockpit with a roll of bailing wire. No. Like he was going to, he was going to wire this thing and send me to the catapult. And, you know, I, I wasn’t having that. So I shook my head no vigorously. And eventually I shut down and I got another plane and, and finished.
SPEAKER 09 :
So they were, so, so what is it?
SPEAKER 08 :
They have a very can do attitude in the Navy. It’s like, Oh, let’s just go.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
At least it wasn’t duct tape. So then in essence, they were going to send you off again. So you’re practicing. Is that right?
SPEAKER 08 :
Initial carrier quality, you had to get 10 landings. So, yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay. I got to think that the crew, when you knew pilots show up, they probably have some trepidation. Yes?
SPEAKER 08 :
You know, the men that work, it was men at that time only. There’s women now. But the men that work at the flight deck are… Incredible professionals. The flight deck is an incredibly dangerous place. An E2C has props spinning. You’ve got jet exhaust. You’ve got fuel. You’ve got ordnance a lot of times. But those people are just incredible professionals, and it’s orchestrated and run. There’s very, very strict procedures on a flight deck of what you can and what you cannot do, and they’re followed to the letter. So, you know, I don’t know that they were scared because we were young pilots that didn’t know what we were doing.
SPEAKER 09 :
And so explain this. This is in the title of your book, A Bolter. And you just referred to that regarding your first landing. So explain to our listeners what that is.
SPEAKER 08 :
So the title of the book is Fair Winds Following Seas and a Few Bolters. Fair Winds and Following Seas is a standard Navy farewell that you say you wish people fair winds and following seas, which is, you know, may your life be smooth and calm and peaceful. Things work out for you well. A bolter, the way you stop a 20-ton aircraft going 150 miles an hour in 400 feet is with cables that stretch across the flight deck and then a hook that’s attached to the tail of the aircraft, a tail hook that grabs those cables and brings it to a stop. A bolter happens when the pilot looks at the fantail of the flight deck and realizes he really doesn’t want to crash into that. So he adds a little too much power, and the aircraft touches down beyond those cables stretching across the flight deck. There’s nothing for the tailhook to grab, and that’s a bolter. He’s missed all the wires. So what he has to do is add full power, go around the pattern, and try again. Harder, quite frankly. So that’s a bolter. And during my time in the Navy, I mostly enjoyed fair winds and following seas, had a great time, great friends, great people, great experiences, but I also had a few bolters. And that’s the title of the book.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s got to be pretty thrilling to land a plane on an aircraft carrier. And for thrillings probably doesn’t even do it justice.
SPEAKER 08 :
It’s it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done. Now, I will say, you know, if you were to say, I’ll let you go out to the boat this afternoon and and. get a day trap lander during the day, I would do it in a heartbeat. If you said, I will let you do it at night, I would run away as fast as I could because there’s a big difference from doing it during the day and doing it at night. And did you have to do some night landings? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that’s one of the things. I mean, you realize that the United States Navy, other countries have aircraft carriers, but they’re nothing like ours. They have ramps, and they’re smaller, and they don’t have nearly as many aircraft as we do. The United States of America has 11 aircraft carriers, and they are the most advanced ships in the world. And 70 aircraft on them. And they are quite formidable, quite frankly.
SPEAKER 09 :
Going back to World War II, I remember my dad. I had two uncles that, well, actually, and then an uncle that married my aunt. So three uncles that served in the European theater. But my dad, so he was a kid during World War II. And he would tell me about different things. And he told me about the Battle of Midway, which I think that’s where we destroyed several of the Japanese aircraft carriers, which that was really pivotal in the war in the Pacific.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely. Yeah. Great movie that came out about that a couple of years ago, actually. Yeah. Did you see that one?
SPEAKER 09 :
I didn’t see that one. I saw the old one. I finally just saw the new Top Gun just recently. And it really was good. I really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER 08 :
I loved it. Yeah. The Top Gun movies are great.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. And I mean, you kind of live that. Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I joined the Navy in 85. Top Gun came out, I think, in 86. And that was a good time to be at NAS Miramar, actually.
SPEAKER 09 :
I bet it was. I bet it was. So let’s continue on. As I have seen these different movies, it kind of amazes me that pilots can go out and that they can find their way back to that little speck that is an aircraft carrier. Like in World War II, they didn’t have all the instruments that we have now, but it’s a pretty remarkable thing, Steve.
SPEAKER 08 :
Absolutely. And I still am flabbergasted by those guys that did it in World War II. They’ve got better stuff now than when I flew. When I flew, we didn’t have global positioning satellites or any of that stuff. So it was all beacons, like radio beacons. And that makes it kind of easy. It’s like, you know, it’s that way. So you go that way and you find the carrier.
SPEAKER 09 :
Yeah. Did you ever have any close calls regarding fuel and trying to find the carrier or anything?
SPEAKER 08 :
So I tell the story of two ridiculously dangerous landings on my first cruise in the book. The first one was trying to get to actually land on a runway, a stationary runway, not the carrier, on the island of Diego Garcia Island. In the Indian Ocean, which is a small militarized atoll, which the United States has had a base on since World War II. And that time we finished the mission and the plan was to land in Diego Garcia and the ship was going to come in there the next day and dock at its deep water port. But there was a thunderstorm like I’d never seen before that day. And it was it was just raining buckets. It was like people were dumping bathtubs on the windscreen and the wipers were working. You know, very, very difficult to see. Diego Garcia, you know, you talked about getting to the carrier. It also had just a beacon, so it didn’t have radar facilities, so it couldn’t see the airplanes. You could figure out where the runway was, but it couldn’t keep us separated. It couldn’t do anything. So the E-2C is the eyes and ears of the fleet. It’s got a radar. So we hung back, and there were a dozen or so other planes on that mission, and we sequenced them into the airport, lined them up to get them to land. But we were last. I was almost out of fuel. And there was no way to get back to the carrier because we didn’t have enough fuel to get back. So it was, you know, we had to land at Diego. And when… When I finally, you know, total clouds. We were in the goo. You couldn’t see anything. Again, no radar. So we just had to descend until we broke out of the clouds. When we did, the hangars of the runway were right below us. we finally spotted the field and I radioed the tower and said you know Black Eagle 602 field in sight and the tower controller I’ll never forget this he said Black Eagle 602 you’re cleared to land any runway at your own risk so he clearly it was a one runway airport so he was saying I could land in either direction he didn’t think it mattered much which I did normally you always want to land into the wind but he said it doesn’t matter and he clearly wanted no responsibility
SPEAKER 09 :
So I guess that might be code for he wasn’t sure if you’re going to make it.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, kind of. But again, that’s that’s when your training comes back in and you just, you know, you get the job done.
SPEAKER 09 :
Did you have a conversation with him afterwards?
SPEAKER 08 :
No, no, I don’t think I did. Not at all. I don’t think I did. Okay. But that was one. And then the second landing happened a few weeks later when we were on our way to Australia. And the ship actually was on the edge of a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean. And it was nighttime, middle of the night. And… And we had to get back on the carrier at night, again, at the edge of a hurricane. And when we made it, we were fine. But I was a landing signals officer. That’s the guy that stands on the side of the deck and helps the planes get aboard as well as being a pilot. So when I landed safely, I ran back out to the LSO platform to help the LSOs get the other planes aboard or really just to watch because it was dangerous. Incredible. The back of the aircraft carrier, the fantail as they call it, was moving. There’s a little meter that measures it. It was moving over 40 vertical feet, so 20 feet up and 20 feet down. And we’re trying to land aircraft on it. And we did. We got them all aboard safely.
SPEAKER 09 :
Boy, that’s a credit. I mean, that is – I just – I almost can’t even believe it. That’s amazing. And I did think of that World War II veteran, Fred Weiss. Fred Weiss. And he’s over – I haven’t talked to him recently, but when I interviewed him, he was – I think he was over 100 years old. Oh, wow. So pretty remarkable. Yeah. What kind of adjustments as a pilot do you have to make when you’ve got the carrier moving like that and you’re trying to land? You don’t have that many feet. You’re coming in with speed. I mean, I guess your training is what’s really going to have to kick in, yeah? Yeah.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, well, the way you fly that glide slope I talked about, the 500-foot-per-minute rate of descent down to the spot you need to land on, is there’s what’s called, they call it the meatball or the ball. There’s a lens where you’ve got a datum of horizontal lights, and then there’s five vertical lights in a cell, and that tells you whether you’re at the right glide slope, whether you’re the right distance above… ground the flight deck that you need to be to land in the precise spot and how you do it is when you go high if you go above glide slope that ball will rise so you see ball goes high you’re high ball goes low you’re low so you just adjust the power to try to keep that ball right in the middle and because that lens is pretty close to the center of the deck When the fantail is moving 40 feet, as it was off Australia, that ball’s still pretty stable because it’s in the middle of the boat. So it’s not rocking with it. So, yeah, you fly that. And then, again, I mentioned I was an LSO. The landing signals officers are responsible for… making sure that the planes don’t crash. If a plane is out of parameters, if it’s not looking like it’s going to be a safe landing, we’ve got lights that we can hit the button, and the wave-off lights come on, big red lights that flash until the pilot. Add full power, go around, and try again. Again, try again harder. You screw it up. So that’s how it’s done. Yeah, I don’t know.
SPEAKER 09 :
Boy, absolutely fascinating. I’m talking with Steve McKenna. He’s the author of the book Fair Winds Following Seas and a Few Bolters. The official Marine Memorial is located right here in Colorado in Golden at 6th and Colfax. It was dedicated in 1977, and it is time for a facelift. And the USMC Memorial Foundation is working diligently. to raise the funds to make that happen. And a great way that you can honor our military, to say thank you to those people who have put their lives on the line or have given their lives for our freedom, is to support the USMC Memorial Foundation. And you can do that by going to usmcmemorialfoundation.org. We will be right back with Steve McKenna.
SPEAKER 01 :
All Kim’s sponsors are in inclusive partnership with Kim and are not affiliated with or in partnership with KLZ or Crawford Broadcasting. If you would like to support the work of The Kim Monson Show and grow your business, contact Kim at her website, kimmonson.com. That’s Kim Monson, M-O-N-S-O-N dot com.
SPEAKER 06 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 07 :
God bless us. America, land that I love.
SPEAKER 09 :
And welcome back to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure and check out my website. That is AmericasVeteranStories.com. In studio with me is Steve McKenna, and he’s a Navy pilot, a veteran, has a book, Fair Winds, Following Seas, and a Few Bolters. And Reading books, having the book in your hand. I mean, I really like having a book in my hand. But this is a book that I think it would be great for people to have in their freedom library at home. So where can they purchase it?
SPEAKER 08 :
So, yeah, Fairwinds Following Season, A Few Bolters is available on many bookstores. It’s available online on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You can also, if you want a signed copy, you can go to my website, themckennaproject.com. And I’ll sign one and send it to you myself.
SPEAKER 09 :
And that is M-C-K-E-N-N-A, McKennaProject.com. I just opened the book up, and this is the second time I opened this up, and it has gone to a Navy Flyers creed. So I think that is a little message to me that we need to talk about that. So tell us about a Navy Flyers creed.
SPEAKER 08 :
So I put that in. That was actually read at my graduation from Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola by the commanding officer of the school. And I just put it in. If I can borrow it, I’ll just read a couple quotes from you. It says, I am a United States Navy flyer. My countrymen built the best airplane in the world and entrusted it to me. I choke up when I read that. They trained me to fly it. I will use it to the absolute limit of my power. With my fellow pilots, air crews, and deck crews, my plane and I will do anything necessary to carry out our tremendous responsibilities. I will always remember we are part of an unbeatable combat team, the United States Navy. And it goes on. I won’t read the whole thing. Oh, that’s neat. I thought, you mentioned reading is important. One of the reasons I wrote this book was I wanted to share my experiences, share some of my stories, but also hopefully inspire some people that while reading Becoming a Navy pilot or any military pilot or pilot in general, but especially a military pilot, is difficult. It’s a hard path, but it’s an incredibly rewarding path. One of my best buddies that I wrote about in the book, Spike, he wrote an endorsement quote for me, and he said, We were… We were patriots, like the men that sailed on the wooden ships years before, steeled in values, and we realized that nothing of value is free. That the things you really treasure and cherish are the things that cost you.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and I’m going to read the last part here.
SPEAKER 08 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 09 :
It says, Isn’t that moving? Yeah, it really is. So let’s talk about your plane. You were involved in the Cold War, the Gulf War. So did you fly the same? I mean, your expertise was in the E-2 Hawkeye, right? Correct. So that’s your expertise. Is that what you flew during your career?
SPEAKER 08 :
Correct. I did fly its cousin, the C2 Hawkeye, as an instructor later. But, yeah, you train for an aircraft and you fly that aircraft. You know, if you serve for 20 years, I served for eight and a half. I got out and went to law school, actually. But you typically fly one aircraft. Let me let me tell our listeners what the E2C is, because most people don’t know that. The E2C is called the eyes and the ears of the fleet. It’s got a 24 foot radome on top of it, a radar radar. which picks up other planes, other ships, and things like that. So the E-2 functions. And remember, when I was flying, we didn’t have satellites. We didn’t have GPS at that time. So the E-2 functioned as basically the quarterback of the air wing. So because of the curvature of the Earth, radio signals couldn’t reach the aircraft. They didn’t. Because of the curvature of the earth, they go in a straight line, and they’d miss the aircraft. So we were the point up at 25,000 feet of altitude of a relay between the carrier, where the admiral was given the ultimate orders, and all the fighters and bombers, which were 300 miles away, 400 miles away. And we would give the commands to them. And the Navy actually did command by negation. So we didn’t get permission. We would just tell the fighters, go get that ship. And then we’d radio back to the aircraft carrier, say, we just told the fighters to go get that ship. And, you know, if the Admiral didn’t want us to, he would negate us. He would give command and negate us. So the E-2C, it didn’t have any weapons. We didn’t have any chaff or flares or anything like that. You know, as we used to say, my plane may be ugly, but it’s slow. Our top speed was only 350 knots, which is pretty slow for a combat aircraft. But we were an integral part of the air wing because, again, we kind of gave the orders to all the tactical aircraft, the jets, the bombers, and things like that. And how many on the crew? Oh, yeah, great point. E-2 had five people on the crew. It’s the largest aircraft on the carrier, kind of by far. It had an 80-foot wingspan. And so there were two pilots, pilot and the co-pilot up front that sat side by side. And then in the back, the people that really did the work, we used to joke that we were just well-paid bus drivers. But the three guys in the back were the radar officers. Each one of them had a radar scope in front of them, and they were the ones that actually ran the show, talked to the fighters, talked to the bombers, told them what to do, talked to the ship back there. You know, and cleared everything up. So those guys were really phenomenal.
SPEAKER 09 :
OK. How many missions?
SPEAKER 08 :
Oh, boy. I have 240 traps, which is a carrier arrested landing. And you don’t count them when you’re in the right seat, when you’re actually not flying. So that’s, you know, 480, roughly about 500 missions, probably.
SPEAKER 09 :
Over an eight and a half year period. Okay. So you were involved in the Cold War, the Gulf War. So, you know, tell us about that. And did you ever engage the enemy? And being in a slow plane without any weapons would have to be thrilling if you ever engaged the enemy. But they probably, you know, if they’re going to take somebody out, they’re going to want to take you guys out. Right.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, we were kind of the quarterback, so they were after us. My first cruise was from December of 1988 until June of 1989. We sailed on the aircraft carrier, the USS Constellation, CV-64. And that was during the Cold War. I sailed out of California, so we did Western Pacific cruises, as opposed to the people that fly out of the East Coast. Norfolk, Virginia is where the base is. They go to the Med and stuff. We cover the Pacific and Indian Oceans. So that cruise, actually, it was Christmas Eve. I was flying with Rich Elder, and we actually launched on the alert. So that’s another kind of thing that people might find interesting is when you’re on an aircraft carrier, somebody’s always on alert, ready to launch within 30 minutes of landing. getting the order to do so. Middle of the night, you’re asleep, but you’re asleep in a flight suit. Your boots are right there. You’re ready to go. So we got the call to launch the alert because the Combat Information Center saw a plane coming at the carrier a couple hundred miles away. And so we launched on the alert. Again, I think it was the night before Christmas Eve, actually. And sure enough, we launched first. We had a couple Tomcats launch right behind us and flew out towards this bogey, which is what you call an unknown aircraft. Bandit is when you’ve identified it as actually an enemy aircraft. Sure enough, we we picked up what turned out to be a Russian bear, a Tupolev. I forget the designation, but it’s basically a large Russian reconnaissance airplane. And it spotted us and started flying. directly towards us um you know again we have we have no armor and it’s no defense it does but we you know again the guys in the back that run the show they they saw this and they told the tomcats um you know go get them and so they they flew out and they hooked up with the bear and got on its wing and persuaded it to turn around and go back to russia
SPEAKER 09 :
How do they persuade it?
SPEAKER 08 :
Or is that something that you probably… With big missiles hanging off their wings that… They suggested that maybe swinging the other way might be a good thing.
SPEAKER 09 :
I bet that was a little thrilling for you.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, that happened to me twice on that cruise, actually, where they came after us and we were fortunately able to get some fighters, again, to change their mind and turn them around.
SPEAKER 09 :
So that was during the Cold War, and you said that was from December of 88 to June of 89. Right. Okay, so then, what, you come home, and what happens then?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, so we got back, and let me say something about that, too, because I put this in the book, because it was one of the most moving experiences of my life. There are actually three moving experiences on that first cruise. The first was we lost a plane. We lost an EA-6B. Meaning, did you lose the crew as well? On the first cruise, they just never came back. We don’t know what happened to them. That’s got to be hard. Big ocean. But, you know, watching the caskets, empty caskets because we never found the bodies, you know, slide out the hangar to pay doors at the funeral to splash into the ocean was incredibly moving. The other happier moving moment. moment was when we sailed into Pearl Harbor past the sunken battleship, the Arizona. And we were all in our whites, white uniforms. And we encircled the four acre flight deck of the constellation as we sailed past that. And it was incredibly moving. Yeah. And then the third was when we got back from that cruise and pulled into port. You do a homecoming. And I got to tell you, the experience of watching 5,000 men come back after six months on a ship and be greeted by their wives, their parents, Mothers, their fathers, their children in many cases. Sometimes they hadn’t met them before, you know, or they’d left when they were one year old. And that was an incredible experience. But anyway, yeah, so we got back. In June, and we actually switched carriers. The Constellation was due for an overhaul, a service life extension program. So we switched to CV62, the USS Independence, which was fine, but the problem was the Indy, the Independence, was due to go out on deployment just a year after we got back. Usually you got 18 months to two years between deployments to do your work up and all your maintenance and all that stuff. But because we switched carriers… That was compressed to one year. So, you know, took some time off at the beginning, but then we were right back to, you know, getting everybody carrier qualified, getting everybody worked up, you know, going to Fallon, Nevada to work with the fighters and all that stuff. And then the next year, we departed on the Independence for another Western Pacific cruise. At that time, the… Had the Cold War ended by then? No, that was June to December of 1990. I think the Cold War actually ended at the end of 1991. But this was a Western Pacific cruise, and this was actually when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August of 1990. We were about to pull into Diego Garcia again. I think it was August 3rd. fourth when he invaded and we were going to pull in on the on the third when he invaded we were going to pull in on the fourth and so we missed our port visit and the independence and the battle group that sails along with it um headed up towards the persian gulf and to form in what president bush called operation desert shield and so we basically set up a a quarantine, a blockade of shipping oil out of the Persian Gulf. And oil was, of course, Iraq’s main source of revenue. So the idea was to restrict their money supply, which they got by selling their oil. And the India, actually, we spent over 100 days on station. So that’s 100 days without a day off, working every day. Day and night, 24-7.
SPEAKER 09 :
We’re going to quit whining then with our schedule.
SPEAKER 08 :
And that was very interesting. That was certainly exciting to be there. And this was real war. We actually left before the shooting started in Operation Desert Storm, which happened in January. But we had live armaments on all the planes. We were flying missions. I was actually… The Indy was ordered at one point to sail into the Persian Gulf, which is a fairly narrow gulf with Iran to the north and Iraq up at the top of it, Saudi Arabia to the south. And… It was the first carrier to go into the Persian Gulf since Vietnam, actually.
SPEAKER 09 :
As a layperson, that doesn’t seem to me like that’s a good strategy to get your carrier into a place that it might be difficult to get it back out of. I mean, does that make sense or not?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah. One of the Navy’s main missions is power projection. So the idea of an aircraft carrier is you sail it along the coast of a potentially unfriendly country, and they just see the awesomeness of it. I mean, it’s 1,100 feet long. It’s 16 stories keel to mast. It’s got 70 aircraft on it. So when people see that and they see the aircraft flying off of it, they don’t want to mess with it. You know, power through strength, right? People don’t get in a fight if they think they’re going to lose. So that was the point of why we sailed into the Persian Gulf. And I actually was not aboard the Indy. I launched at 4.30 that morning with Joe Peterson and a top NFO crew and about 10 fighters and some S3 sub hunters, some bombers. And we basically provided cover for the carrier as it went into the Gulf. So if Iran were to get feisty and decide to launch a missile or something, we, you know, We were going to take care of it. Wow.
SPEAKER 09 :
It’s fascinating. I’m talking with Steve McKenna, a Navy pilot, and his experience both during the Gulf War and also the Cold War. Absolutely fascinating. And a sponsor that I greatly appreciate for America’s Veterans Stories is Hooters Restaurants. They have locations in Loveland, Westminster, and in Aurora on Parker Road. And great specials Monday through Friday for lunch. And for happy hour, great place to get together with your friends to watch the sporting events and just have some great food. In particular, their fish and chips and their nachos are delicious. I hear that their fish tacos are quite good as well. So again, thank you to Hooters Restaurants for their sponsorship of the show. I’m talking with Steve McKenna, and we will be right back.
SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 09 :
Thank you so much for listening to America’s Veterans Stories. We are rebroadcasting some of the shows that we have recorded in the past because we have these amazing guests and these amazing stories, and we need to hear them. And so we thought that it would be a great idea to rebroadcast some of these so that you can hear our history and know our history because it is so important. So again, this is something that was recorded earlier, and thank you for listening.
SPEAKER 07 :
From the mountains to the prairies… And welcome back to America’s Veterans Stories with Kim Munson.
SPEAKER 09 :
Be sure and check out our website. That is AmericasVeteransStories.com. A fascinating conversation with Stephen C. McKenna. And he’s written a book, Fair Winds Following Seas and a Few Bolters. And you can buy that at any of the bookstores or online stores. But also… At McKennaProject.com, people can get a signed copy.
SPEAKER 08 :
The McKenna Project.
SPEAKER 09 :
The McKenna. Okay. The McKenna. And it’s M-C-K-E-N-N-A. TheMcKennaProject.com. We’ve got just a short time to finish up this show. What else should people know or what should I have asked you, Steve? Well.
SPEAKER 08 :
Well, you’ve asked great questions, and I’ve really enjoyed talking to you, and it’s a pleasure to share my experiences. Let me tell you a little bit about after my second cruise. We got back, and what I did before getting out of the Navy, I was an instructor pilot. And I instructed in the E2C, the same aircraft I flew in the fleet, training the replacement pilots to— fly it and to land it on the carrier for the first time. And that was a remarkable experience, actually, to sit in the right seat as the students attempted their first landings, especially on the carrier, especially at night, because you were literally almost sitting on your hands because you so wanted to take the controls from the student and just make sure they did it right. But you couldn’t because you had to let them do it and you had to let them learn. So it was both terrifying and tremendously rewarding to do that and to teach these people. And I was actually, this was at the time when President Clinton at the time authorized women to fly combat aircraft. So I was fortunate and blessed to be able to instruct some of the very first female aviators to fly combat aircraft. In my case, the E-2C Hawkeye, which was wonderful.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, and being an instructor, as you’re saying this, it reminds me of our driver’s ed teacher when I was in school. I think there was actually a break on his side as well. But it seemed all of us kids were talking about it, and we would always drop by his house. And we were wondering if maybe he was going in and getting something to steal his nerves as we were all driving. Okay. Women in combat, I have a good friend who we’ve had this discussion about women in combat. And I think I was really thinking about World War II. I did think it was a good idea that women would be in foxholes, in that kind of combat. But my friend had said, you kind of need to realize that this is different now than what it was back in World War II. In fact, we had a discussion on the show about women in combat. So that was really kind of groundbreaking. Is there anything in particular you remember about those first women combat pilots?
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah, I actually tell a story in the book, and this is a topic we could go on for hours, I think, about a female that I gave it down to. I failed her on a flight. And it was interesting because if I’d done that to a male, and I did that to males occasionally, not very often. But I actually ended up talking to several senior officers, including the commanding officer of NAS Miramar, who was a Navy captain in 06th. about that decision and I just explained to them I’m like look I don’t care that she’s a woman we have a syllabus and you have to perform these maneuvers satisfactorily she did not do so and she needs a couple more training flights to get back up to speed and continue with the program which They ultimately concurred with me, and she got the two training flights, and she was fine. She was a great pilot. But it really disturbed me that we were questioning the standards, which applied to everyone, male, female. It didn’t matter because she was a female. And to me, you know, we’re reading now where… You know, the diversity in airline pilots that we’re trying to have, you know, something about the FAA wants to hire people with severe disabilities. It’s like, no, I mean, there are criteria. It has to be criteria. And I wrote in the book about this, too, as well. I say that. You know, look, it’s a fact that most men are faster and stronger than most women. But it’s also a fact that some women are faster and stronger than most men. And I make the point that I certainly wouldn’t want to fight Ronda Rousey, play tennis against Serena Williams or swim against Katie Ligdecki because I would lose. Right. So that’s just the standards need to be the standards.
SPEAKER 09 :
And that’s that’s the discussion that Yvonne and I had. We agreed upon that, that the standards are the standards and they need to be adhered to. Steve McKenna, this has gone way too quickly. We have maybe about a minute left. What’s the final thought that you’d like to leave with our listeners?
SPEAKER 08 :
Let me close with how I closed my book in the epilogue. I closed by quoting Helen Keller. This was on a birthday card my wife provided to me, and it’s on a picture of an E2C that I have in my office. Helen Keller said, “‘Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.'” And I close the book with this line. Can you imagine such a statement from a deaf, mute, and blind girl born in a country without the freedoms, values, and innovations of the United States of America?
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely. And Steve McKenna, I thank you for sharing your story. These stories are so important, and thank you for doing this.
SPEAKER 08 :
Thank you, Kim. It was a pleasure.
SPEAKER 09 :
And my friends, indeed, as we are hearing these stories, we realize that we do stand on the shoulders of giants. And we are blessed to live in this country because of men and women like Steve McKenna. And so, my friends, God bless you and God bless America.
SPEAKER 07 :
Thank you for listening to America’s Veteran Stories with Kim Munson. Be sure to tune in again next Sunday, 3 to 4 p.m. here on KLZ 560 and KLZ 100.7.
SPEAKER 02 :
The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.
