Why Smart Pilots Do Dumb Things is the title of Heater’s paper. It helped save the Red Eagles. However, this episode opens with a different lesson: never look at your ten o’clock at Groom Lake.
CJ “Heater” Heatley is back! We promoted him to four-star admiral on the spot. The check is in the mail.
So there he was, in a MiG-21 at the end of the runway at Groom Lake. Off his left side sat the weirdest-shaped thing he’d ever seen. Then the tower called: “Bandit 8, taxi back to the hangar immediately.”
He had just seen “Have Blue,” the precursor to stealth. Not even the vice president was briefed in. Consequently, Heater spent quality time in a pitch-black room inside a room, grilled by four men with no names.
First, though, Heater honors his lifelong friend Sam Young. As kids in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, they built rock cockpits on a red rock hill and flew imaginary fighters. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, Heater couldn’t throw rocks right-handed without clocking Sam.
So he threw lefty for years and became a southpaw pitcher. That’s where his call sign came from. Sam became a Marine gunnery sergeant, and his Purple Heart story from LZ Russell will stop you cold.
Furthermore, Heater closes the loop on a Sidewinder with locked fins that turned on his F-14. The admiral was in the back seat. He also tours Rosie’s Tomcat Ready Room in WaKeeney, Kansas. Its diorama is so detailed people think it’s a photo.
Why Smart Pilots Do Dumb Things: Inside the Red Eagles
Flying the MiG smelled like hydraulic fluid and an electrical fire. The gauges were Russian, except the altimeter and airspeed. The checkout took minutes, and there was no NATOPS.
Actually, the MiG-17 couldn’t even taxi like a normal jet. Its pneumatic differential brakes sent first-timers nose-first into the hangar.
After the program lost Hugh, the brass talked about shutting it down. Heater’s paper made the case to the general. TOPGUN’s best were dying in their first MiG engagements, distracted by the “gee whiz” factor. After debriefs and formation looks, they went home killing MiGs. The program survived.
Heater also shares a sobering tally: 348 of 512 Red Eagles have died. Plus: his lost Pentagon slides, his rejects on book covers, and 40 years of reader letters.
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