Flight of the Intruder

So yeah, and Top Gun didn't come out until the next summer.

I was unaware of the movie.

So, uh, in the end, there was a recruiter on the mall at Purdue who was giving out aviation contracts and riding.

And the funny thing about recruiting at that time, and, and this coming from a former deputy commander of Navy recruiting, was that when you passed the AFOQT or the, uh, what we call the FAUFAR/PFAR testing, they would give you an airplane ride.

At the time, the Hornet didn't have that capability, and neither did the Tomcat.

And so the only strike aircraft with precision weapons ability on the ship was the Intruder, and we took that very seriously.

There was a movie, Flight of the Intruder, based on a very good book, and that made me really respect the platform.

I loved flying the missions over Somalia.