Page 144 - Never Fly Solo

10

Walk the Flight Line

Connecting with Your Wingmen

It’s rare for the squadron commander to meet you at your
jet after a training mission. So when I saw Lieutenant Colonel
Dodson approaching my F-16 with a stern look on his face, I
knew something was up.
“Waldo, we need to talk,” he said as I climbed down the
ladder from the cockpit and jumped onto the tarmac.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, and waited, a little uneasily, for what
was coming next. Had I messed up? Was I in trouble? I gulped.
Was something wrong at home?
“Waldo, Airman Tyler told me what happened before you
took off this afternoon, and I am not impressed.” His tone
was serious, and I instantly knew what he was referring to.
Just three hours earlier, during my after-engine-start
checklist, I had noticed that my jet was shorted five hundred
pounds of fuel. Not a huge amount but enough to cut my rare
and treasured air-to-air training mission by at least ten min-
utes (an eternity to a fighter pilot). Although atypical, some-
times the wing tanks just won’t fill up completely, and there

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