Wing

Welcome to Let's Wing It.

Today in the studio we are sitting down with an absolute titan of South African aviation.

He started his career walking the beat as a young constable at Pretoria Central in 1980 and retired just a few weeks ago as the longest serving pilot in the history of the South African Police Service Air Wing.

Serving under 11 national commissioners, he has logged an astonishing 16,900 flight hours, split almost perfectly between fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters.

He has flown almost everything from the Pilatus Porter to the Cessna Sovereign jet, the MD-500 and the BO-105.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the studio, Lieutenant Colonel Dov de Villiers.

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... added to the unit in which you, you, uh, are trying to go to because we have multiple units.

So now if we go to Air Wing, uh, and then go to Flying Squadrons, this will show you.

And these are all the flying squadrons that are in the book, so these are, these are all units that I've created, created the unit number, the patch, and, and everything.

We can go to the Wet Venoms, look at them.

So, so the Wet Venoms is, "No antidote," and then there's your 18th Fighter Squadron personnel.

This is so fricking cool.

Now- Where some of this gets funny, if you go back to Air Wing and go to Personnel, and go down to Pilots, and right on that first ring you have Tesla, uh, right there.

And scroll down a little bit and you'll see under his reprimands, he has a letter of reprimand for unprofessional conduct on 11 January.

And one of them, not surprisingly, was from the nearby Army base.

You may know Omaha, Nebraska is home to several groups that are involved with the national defense, one of them being the 55th Air Force Wing.

And Tech Sergeant Parker Reyes was one of the speakers, and he actually kind of kicked off the meeting, and he was giving some life lessons to the folks in attendance.

In particular, he mentioned talking about teamwork and how training prepares us for what we're going to have to deal with.

The trio did take off on foot and police do believe they would have suffered injuries in the attack.

This morning, the Air Wing has been out, along with the Critical Incident Response Team and DOC Squad, searching the Box Hill area and surrounding suburbs, trying to track those offenders down.

But they are still on the run this morning.

And police do believe this was a targeted attack.

It's not a problem." He said, "You actually qualify with your scores for about 80% of the jobs that the Marine Corps offers." He said, "Except anything in the electronics or aviation fields as far as avionics and shit go," because he said, "You know, your math scores weren't that great." He said, "I ain't gonna lie to you.

I'm not sure I could get you a contract l- that would allow you to touch a screwdriver in an avionics shop." He said, "I don't think they'd let you near a screwdriver in an air, air wing unit." Which I didn't give a shit, you know.

Um, and so I was intent on being an MP until he, uh, the recruiter actually stopped me because he talked to his boss and I guess a master sergeant and, uh, who was an MP.

And the, and this master sergeant went through my package and said, "Well, the issue's gonna be when he turns 19." I believe the issue at that point was you had to be 19 to go to the MP MOS school at, at, at whatever Air Force base.

Like, you didn't have a field jacket, field jacket liner, you know.

I mean, it was just so, it was just so unorganized.

So at the end of it, when we humped back to, to Camp Geiger, there were, the Marines who were going to other MOS schools like COM or the Air Wing or whatever, they were, they were given their orders.

And then you had the guys who came in on open contracts.

I'm not sure if you had the chance to look at it, but nearly 30 people have been arrested and six stolen vehicles recovered during a major operation targeting car thieves and dangerous drivers in Mildura.

Detectives, Highway Patrol and General Duties members from both Mildura and Dareton in New South Wales joined forces with specialist units, including the Air Wing, for the cross-border operation.

One arrest, which I've sent in, involved a Holden Commodore allegedly speeding through Mildura without headlights.

The air wing tractor vehicle from above is at allegedly reached speeds of 160 kilometres an hour before stop sticks brought it to a halt.

Two occupants then fled on foot, jumping fences in an attempt to escape, were arrested a short time later.

Overall, 28 people were arrested for offences including car theft, aggravated burglary, dangerous driving and drug driving.

Then they run away and then the police descend and arrest them.

How often, hey, Jake, how often would, in one foul swoop, you'd get 28 people, arrest 28 people? Oh,