Interview-USAF Capt. Ken Curry B-52 Pilot Flight School and More

USAF Captain Ken Curry B-52 Pilot shares his training background.
An enemy SA2 surface to air missile exploded about 100 feet from the left wing of the B-52 he was piloting during a mission in Southeast Asia on April 9, 1972. The B-52 aircraft is on display at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton Ohio. Interview by NMUSAF Public Affairs and is in public domain.
After it became operational in 1955, the B-52 remained the main long-range heavy bomber of the US Air Force during the Cold War, and it continues to be an important part of the USAF bomber force today. Nearly 750 were built before production ended in the fall of 1962; 170 of these were B-52Ds.

[@mmichaeldonavon]

Hello Captain Curry. Your "presentation" has to be the best "airplane story" I've ever heard. I was riveted, as you told your story. I, as a Retired Avionics Maintenance guy, and have flown for over 40 years, have visited the Museum once, but for whatever reason, I don't think I saw 665. I was at Wright Patt to see my son graduate from AFIT. He received the best Thesis Award. :) Your story kept me on the edge of my seat - I was almost there with you. :) Your humility is beyond reproach - and it is genuine. During my 20 years in the USAF, I worked with several folks who worked the B-52's. One told me the Fuel Quantity Indicating System was a nightmare. :) We Avionics guys have changed our fair share of Coax cabling. :) My son is also now retired from the Air Force - he as an O-4, I as an E7. I know he will agree with me when I say: "We salute you, Sir." Thank you, Sir.

[@rbeard7580]

I like how he gives credit to the teams, including maintenance, as it took a lot of folks to make this work.

[@earlsmall9808]

Ditto

[@redbike6340]

Inspirational, an officer and a gentleman. Love the US 🇬🇧🙏🏻❤️🇺🇸

[@ashleymarie7452]

Capt Curry, I was an SP who walked around buffs at Loring in 1970. I served from 69 to 90. I would listen to you all day long. You are real people. I have a great deal of respect for you and (nearly) all the officers I served under. I salute you sir!

[@bobclary2121]

Need more story tellers like Capt. Curry, Thanks for the story, I have watched it twice. I was on Kadena 1965 to 1966, Tankers. Those KC-135's, F-f's and 105's never stopped taking off. There was a treaty with Japan that no Bombers would land on Okinawa, but a few in trouble did. It was nice to see them. Previous to this I was stationed with SAC at Glasgow, AFB, Montana, 40 below in the Winter, went TDY to Fairchild Spokane and when I returned to Glasgow, I put in for Viet Nam and got Kadena, best thing I ever did.

[@billroberts3864]

Fantastic interview by a very humble officer. He gives credit to all the folks who made him an outstanding officer.

[@waynefletcher9884]

Roger that!

[@ernietheattorneycom]

A great post here. Lest we forget these brave airmen. Thank you Capt.

[@pedrorodriguez2914]

S.A.C.61-65,Ellsworth S.D.28th.B.W.Great story,thank you for those memories and your service.😎🌴

[@justintime2277]

My dad was stationed in Thailand. Us Air Force 🇺🇸 He was a mechanic E6 Technical Staff Sergeant.

[@LongWalkerActual]

Awesome, awesome interview!! 👍😃👍

[@markdd2142]

One of the most amazing stories I have heard on Air Force heroics and the remarkable talents of this pilot and his crew. The way you describes this it was if I was there with you. Thank you for your service and this wonderful piece of history.

[@tomupchurch4911]

👽 Amazing...period. Well done and well told. Thank you for your service.

[@johnwoodall3791]

Captain Curry is the Opitpmy of a person whose persona to his Career is so refreshing to hear about And He is incredibly both honest and humble, As a Commander on a B 52 is a cool feat and his interview show's a man who's feet are firmly planted on the ground, Not above himself and his interview defines a man who has served the USA in the most important way and Under Challenges that were constantly always changing, Brilliant.

[@howegav]

Great interview, very interesting. Great to have his former air-frame in the background.

[@Convoycrazy]

I really enjoyed this interview, thanks for sharing this with us!

[@danmathers141]

He trained at Williams AFB. It's within a few miles of my house and is a commercial airport now. Many military planes come in to refuel and rest the crew after training.

[@larrswomback5823]

I could listen to this guy all day

[@geraldmorain3166]

Thanks for remembering the crew chiefs

[@richardcarr7702]

Yes, I know what you mean, about flying an airplane with a "bent frame." I occasionally found myself flying ship GNB, a Garuda Indonesia DC-9, in 1977. It felt exactly as you describe. I was a USAF pilot in the states when you were in Vietnam. Thank you for your service! Great telling of your "incident."

[@pfrost4011]

Thank you for your service.

[@peterzani7477]

Very nice Story Ken!

[@cynthiaraven9184]

Thank you!

[@jettsetter7]

The Navy had some iconic standards back in the day to not choose this guy 😎

[@rbeard7580]

You can say that again!

[@catchaser52]

You Are a Good Man Ken.

[@jaytowne8016]

I'd like to fly with Ken Curry, I hope he kept flying.

[@etradd1]

Ken, do you remember a navigator from Andersen AFB named Lt. Col. Ron Tradd? (70 to 72)

[@codered5431]

Hell id love to fly the b-52

[@Chilly_Billy]

Sadly, I just read he's not doing well. Cancer from exposure to Agent Orange coupled with dementia. He's on palliative care, if you know what that means. Friends were able to take him one last time to see the B-52 on the grounds of the USAF Academy. God bless, sir.

[@jackt6112]

I never had anything like this happen. What did happen when I just started "fright school" is they didn't have room for me on base so for it was somewhere between two and four weeks they had me in a motel off-base at the start of flight school. (The address I got on base was 13 LOL!) I was already a pilot before flight school so that tells you where I started. During that time another guy and his wife and kids were in the same motel and ran into each other at the swimming pool. He was there for transition training to another aircraft. He became friends with me and he invited me to a party and I said I'm not a drinker, I have nothing against it, I just don't like the stuff. He said, that's OK, there will be others like that as well and why don't you ride with us. So I did. Nobody there was drinking and it was more of family thing playing ball etc. and eating normal stuff. On the way back home he said why don't you come to church with us tomorrow. I asked him where, and he gave me the name of a Baptist church. I told him I'm not Baptist and just started at the Protestant church. He said, We both believe in the same Jesus an that's what matters. I felt a little committed for him inviting me to the party. So the next day I went to the church and tried to slide in incognito. The whole place got up and welcomed me and it was all the same faces I saw the night before. Then afterwards I was trying to slide out incognito and I guy blocked the door as I was trying to leave and said, You're coming to my house for lunch. I went there and his wife and kids were there and two other guys that was also starting flight school. He told us about his wife's accomplishments and he had a couple nice teenage kids. When we finished and we were about to leave he said I'm the assistant flight commander for your class. That church was nicer than the Protestant church so I just kept going there. One of the other two guys got baptized while we were there. He made sure all three of us had the best instructors. Sometimes he would crash my training and tell the IP he was taking me for the day. He would take me out and was real hard on me and teach me things that people afterward would say, How did you learn to do that? It wasn't me. It was because I had been hijacked by that church and then the assistant flight commander at the beginning of flight school. After that, he used his influence with the other commanders in the different phases. I had a chance to get dual-tracked but I had to be in top 25%, which I easily was. The commander told me I wouldn't graduate DG if I took it. I always was 1, 2, and only once, 3 in the standings. The percent difference in the standing of us three were often only hundredths of a percent. I decided I'd rather take the dual-track. Then the commander said you are eligible but it would have to be approved because now we are taking a risk of losing you and our investment. After some time they told me I had been approved. I was going to show them I could still be DG. That didn't happen. I missed the top 10% by one. The guy who got DG, Lance, was not serious at the academy, but in flight school he had skills that the instructors couldn't match. I don't believe I could have have beaten Lance anyway. He was gifted in ways that he never would have guessed. Ken is right though, it is a huge advantage when you are around the people that are the best at what they do and being kidnapped by the assistant flight commander was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. PS: Here is funny story you will like. Lance was paired up with another guy of like mind, Charlie, whose dad was a full Colonel while we were in flight school. Charlie had never been serious about anything before and just his face could make you laugh with his mischievous permanent grin. I stood out and I was well known as doing very well. His dad's eyes darted at me like he was saying , "Do something." In my eyes was something like, "I wouldn't know where to start." Unlike Lance, Charlie was not gifted in the cockpit, and it was pure entertainment to watch him shoot an ILS. "That's got to be Charlie with his signature rattle snake approach." Our tables were next to each other in instruments and I heard the IPs assessment of Lance's flight and it was glowing praise. Lance would freeze the needles. Then he started with Charlie and said, "Charlie, you didn't do very well..." Charlie slammed his hand on the table and said, "What! That's not fair! He was only on course once. I was on course hundreds of times!" "Hey Charlie! Let's go to the SIMs do some ILSs. See if you can write your name. (A CRT displays your ILS approach track.) You never know how things are going to shake out. The DG of the academy was middle of the pack in flight school. Lance was DG. Charlie was closer to the bottom where nobody keeps track so I don't remember. Lance got out early and nobody knows why. Charlie became a full Colonel like his dad and turned out to be a gifted commander and known for being able to turn things around where that was needed. (So hard for me to imagine) The DG of the academy, Dave, AKA "Mr. Professional", always wanted to teach at the academy and he did. He had 11 kids and one died of cancer in high school. After that he managed a project for navigation for a contractor which is all I'm at liberty to say. Jim, the one who was baptized, married a girl from Spain and has a nice family and is not far from me. He was always into snakes. One day we were flying and I asked, "Jim, what are looking for in a wife?" He said, "A Christian who loves the Lord, speaks Spanish (his study), and likes snakes." Later Jim married a girl from Spain. He asked to come over for a visit. He showed up and his wife was all popped out. She stayed out the house while Jim and I went for pizza. Were talking away and then there was the awkward silence when neither of had anything to say. Then I asked, "Well Jim, how did you do?" He knew exactly what I was thinking. He said, "I got two out of three. She doesn't like snakes." LOL! Ken lost half of his class. I don't know what we lost because I was across two. I do know I've never done anything as demanding before. Before I went dual track, we had a doctor, Mills, who said, "In med school we had times this hard, but never this hard for this long. It never ends." Also a guy I was paired up with, Randy, got out of the cockpit one day balling and shaking his head. I thought, "What the heck!" It would be the toughest time we would have, which of course we didn't know at the time. Randy did an SIE (Self-initiated-elimination) He was a great partner and we were doing well. I talked to the commander and said he is good as I am and in this phase I think even better. Don't let him do this to himself. He'll be glad you talked him out of it. He said, "It's not my call. When someone requests an SIE I can only do one thing." What bothered Randy, I was eating up because I was learning how to handle fast moving events under pressure and developing the thought processes and priorities to handle it. However another thing came with the SIE that I didn't expect. They told me I could not keep me with the same IP. I told my mentor assistant flight commander but he could not help me as that was the regulation when something like this happens. I ended up with a poor IP that was teaching things in a very non-standard way. I would not adopt his methods and my new partner would. He put my partner up with a good grade and me with a bad grade. After the check ride at the end of the phase my partner did very poorly because of the techniques he adopted, and I did very good because I didn't accept them. The problem is they average the two grades so that is what knocked me down enough to just miss the top 10% when dual tracked. However, the commander was right. DG is not within my reach on dual-track as my grades were not in the top 3 anymore and I doubt I would have been able to beat Lance anyway. Several of us had academic parity, but Lance had an edge on everyone in the cockpit in most of the phases. Randy had a commitment and was transferred to MI and to a base near where he was from to serve out his commitment. Him and his wife started out of the gate with twins, a beautiful boy and girl. Surprisingly, Randy loved MI and stayed in until he retired. What I believe Ken would agree with is it is odd that you can hardly remember the kids you went through school with or who all was in your wedding. However, you never forget or stop caring about the guys you spent the short time with during the hardest time of your life. Dave even offered to sponsor and mentor my son at the academy. It's still pictures, cards, and visits. I don't do that with my own siblings or cousins who live just a few miles away. Weird!

[@idolhanz9842]

Victor Davis Hansen needs to meet his brother..

[@mr.2d749]

🇺🇸

[@MrAndycm]

How did they go to the bathroom? Thanks

[@MonkPetite]

A bucket and or a relief tube.

[@garrykraemer8993]

There was a location that had provisions for inserting a trash bag and making 'deposits'. First one to use it is responsible for cleaning it; it is not the crew chief's job! There was a metal urinal with 45 degree flip up lid.

[@andrewjmcgee]

words fail...

[@billcwiklinski4594]

Not enough of these kind of guys in the world today ! Sorry but world seems to be filled with cry babies and spoiled brats ! I feel sorry for my grandkids