Tim Daniel Interview

              John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis. Cold War Oral History Project Interview with Maj. Tim Daniel by Cadet Robert Crumpler, November 5, 2005
©Adams Center, Virginia Military Institute
About the interviewer:
Cadet Robert Crumpler ('07) is a member of the VMI Baseball Team and majors in History. He resides in Suffolk, Virginia and plans to return there upon graduation.
Crumpler: The following interview is being conducted for the John A. Adams Class of ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis as part of the requirements for History 387—History of Air Power. The interviewer is Robert Crumpler. The interviewee is Major Tim Daniel. Today’s date is November 5, 2005 and we are meeting at the residence of Mr. Daniel.
Thank you for being here today and taking your time to do this interview and give us your input. Can you please provide a brief biographical sketch of yourself and what, exactly, was your position in the Air Force? Just a brief rundown.
Daniel: O.K. I’m a 46 year old active duty major in the Air Force. I went active duty in January of 1983 so I have almost 23 years in. I went right into the pilot training program. I graduated from Old Dominion University and just went to see a recruiter off the street. They happened to be down at Reagan Air and they needed pilots and my timing, for once in my life, was right. I got in and have been in ever since.
Crumpler: What, exactly, brought your decision to devote this part of your life to the Air Force? Did you just, all of a sudden, go to see this recruiter? Could you see the benefits in it?
Daniel: I wanted to fly. I’ve always liked machinery, motorcycles, cars – everything. I could never afford to fly as a child, so I decided to see if I could talk the military into it. I passed the physical and passed the tests and, like I say, got lucky.2
Crumpler: Yes sir. Please describe a few of your overseas assignments, missions, what you did in each one – give us a few examples.
Daniel: My first operational assignment was A-10 at Myrtle Beach in the 353rd Fighter Squadron. While there we did a one-month overseas deployment over to Eglin Air Force Base and then over to a forward operating location in Germany. At the time it was classified. If we went to war with the Soviet Union, that’s where we would have deployed to. It was in Ahorn, Germany and we would fly up and down the border of East and West Germany at the points where the Soviets were expected to come across. The A-10 mission was anti-armor so we’d be concentrating on knocking out the Soviet tanks. After my tour at Myrtle Beach, I went over to Hawaii in an OV-10, which is a forward air control airplane. While I was there I deployed to Korea for a month, and we would go up and fly along the DMZ, simulating the North Koreans coming across. After that I went back and did a tour as an instructor of a training command in T-37s. I did a staff tour and I went back to A-10s at Moody Air Force Base. I deployed twice to Kuwait in support of Operation Southern Watch and flew about 100 hours over Iraq, mainly enforcing the no-fly and no-drive zones. After Moody, I went to Korea for a year flying the A-10 again. I flew about 60 missions along the DMZ and probably another 100 just around Korea. Came back to Cope Air Force Base in the A-10. That’s when 9-11 happened. Ten months later I deployed to Kuwait for six weeks, flew sorties against Iraq and then went over to Afghanistan and flew 19 missions in Operation Enduring Freedom. My squadron was the first committed to Operation Enduring Freedom and they came out with medals anywhere from Air Medals all the way up to a Silver Star. That Afghanistan deployment was my last overseas deployment.
After that I had 21 years of active service in and I moved to Langley because I wanted to retire in this area – in the Suffolk, Virginia area. They gave me a non-flying staff job at Langley. What I do now is oversee aircraft movements, so I’m what is called a delivery control officer. What I do is line up tankers, international flight plans, diplomatic over flight clearances for big aircraft movements. For instance, one of the latest moves I did was to move A-10s from Davis-Monthan in Tucson. They went from there to 3
Lajes in the Azores, Sigonella in Sicily, or into Al Jabar Air Base and then on over into Afghanistan. What I basically am is a project manager for them.
Crumpler: Out of all these, what do you feel has been your most interesting assignment? The one that you remember the clearest, that catches your eye.
Daniel: I would say the year I spent in Korea. Some of it is for selfish reasons because I was there by myself and for the first time I didn’t have to worry about my wife and two children. I could do what I wanted to. I flew a lot along the DMZ, traveled a lot, studied Tai-Quan-Do under a 68 year old grand-master over there and got a black belt. There was just a lot to do, so I would say it was Korea.
Crumpler: Just going into basic developments of aircraft, you’ve seen first-hand these recent developments. What do you think are some of the most noticeable ones and ones that are most useful to you and most other pilots? What do you think has been the best development?
Daniel: The best development, in my opinion, these days, is the global positioning system, or the GPS network. Our planes were upgraded with it. When I first started flying the A-10 in 1984 we had land-based navigation equipment and a map. We had TACAN (navigational aid), which gives you radials and we had DME (distance measuring equipment) which gives you mileage. We then upgraded to an initial navigation system or INS, from gyroscopes and that was a 10-fold improvement, but it wasn’t perfect. The A-10s have recently undergone a modification called Embedded GPS/INS and it involves a new ring-laser gyro and the GPS system. The GPS systems now are accurate to within three meters anywhere on the planet. That used to be a huge help at finding places, because when you go to a place as mountainous as Afghanistan which you aren’t familiar with, it’s tough. GPS, to me, has been the most significant development.4
Crumpler: If you were to design a modern aircraft, a basic aircraft, what would you say you’d want more of – the new technology, new innovations? What would you rather have an improvement on in your aircraft?
Daniel: Well, in my experience, the biggest improvement I’d like to see would be in the night vision technology. We are wearing night vision goggles now that are cumbersome, heavy, and somewhat power limited. I understand they are getting better, but I think improvements in nocturnal technology and probably some satellite communication right on the airplane. They are going to that now, but I didn’t have the chance to get that on.
Crumpler: Going back to your assignments and trips overseas, have there been any times that you’ve regretted certain decisions? Have there been questionable times where you had any doubts about your missions?
Daniel: No. I’ve always been comfortable and competent with what I’ve done. For all the faults the military has, I really haven’t seen them make any major errors. Maybe just little dumb things. But my answer to that would be no.
Crumpler: Based on your experience from working with pilots in the United States Air Force, what are your thoughts about the training and teaching that these pilots are getting prior to action? Do you believe they are getting the proper education? Should their training be longer or are they ready to go?
Daniel: Yes they are – and I’ve got 1,000 hours as an instructor pilot and as a flight examiner and I would say my biggest critique of today’s pilots would be – their training is outstanding, up to the point where they get operational, but what I saw slipping in was too many conflict scenarios. I think they need, in the operational Air Force, to return to the basics. More basic formation flying, more working the two-ship to try and incorporate these big gorilla packages [large and complex packages] and scenarios. They need to go back to the two-ship basic fighting element, like we used to do.5
Crumpler: So you’re saying they need to start more from a basic standpoint instead of these complex formations?
Daniel: Yes. From my opinion they’re throwing young guys into the fire with too many elements. They intentionally overload them and they’re not getting enough of the basic formation tactical maneuvering that they need.
Crumpler: If you met a new recruit in the Air Force, and he was to ask you what vital piece of advice you could give him, what do you think it would be?
Daniel: The most valuable thing a new recruit – a new pilot – can do in the Air Force is to increase his own value and that would be through continuing education. I, myself, got a master’s degree by going to night school. Second, get every possible flight upgrade you can. A new guy will come in as a wingman. The next upgrade is usually to a two-ship flight lead, then a four-ship flight lead. In the A-10s we had the search and rescue missions. You can upgrade to a forward air controller, you can be an instructor pilot and be a flight examiner. The more air crew type qualifications like that that you have, the more valuable you are to the Air Force and the more assignment opportunities you have. There are a lot more assignment opportunities for an instructor pilot than there are for a wingman, so I would say make yourself as valuable as you can to the Air Force.
Crumpler: When you’re home and in your free time, when you’re done with trips overseas – just as recently your time in Mexico and Acapulco – what do you do in your free time? Do you fly? Are you working constantly so you don’t have as much free time?
Daniel: Well, I’ve got a reasonable amount of free time. I’m in a very fortunate situation now. I have a friend who has a small airplane, a Cessna 177, that he parks two miles from my house on a grass strip, so I keep up by flying that. I live in a rural setting, on about 27 acres, and it’s a farming community. I help6
several local farmers and I enjoy doing that. Like I said, I’ve always enjoyed operating machinery and tractors and combines and that kind of stuff. I’m also in a garage band and we play private parties, things like that. So that’s what I do with my spare time.
Crumpler: That sounds good. I’ve always heard stories from guys on the farms that you flew under the telephone lines and such.
Daniel: Now that wasn’t just hot-dogging. I had a friend of mine who had a little airplane. I let him try to land it and he came in hot and fast so we had to go around and I wasn’t sure we had enough air speed to climb over the power lines. We certainly had enough clearance to go under them so I just made a command decision and went under them.
Crumpler: Yes sir. Going to the basic elements of the Cold War and your experiences when you joined the Air Force. How did you regard the Soviets as potential opponents during this Cold War?
Daniel: My first two assignments were to simulate the Russian threat. We always considered them to be very formidable. They were numerically superior, but they were technologically inferior. Also, I believe their command and control structure could easily be broken down and they relied heavily on orders. They weren’t independent thinkers. They were joined at the hip to base control. It would have been a mess, because quantity has a certain quality of its own and I’m glad that scenario never came to pass.
Crumpler: But you practiced. Were you ready for the worst if war happened?
Daniel: Oh yes. We used to fly. We had air-to-air combat pilots out at Nellis Air Force Base that were trained in Soviet tactics. They were called the Red Eagles. They sometimes flew Soviet aircraft – declassified now – and we would go out there and fight against the MiGs and fight against F-5s. They would have old Russian surplus tanks that we’d roll in and strafe and this kind of thing, so it was a huge 7
deal. I’m glad I never had to go to war. They expected the A-10 pilot, in the first couple months of that war, to have a life expectancy of three days.
Crumpler: I guess you’re very glad. To go along with that, did you find that the reorganization of the Air Force from its Cold War set-up in 1992 – Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command and Military Airlift Command – when they changed it to the Air Mobility Command and Air Combat Command, did you feel that was justified? That the reorganization was necessary?
Daniel: I did not. In fact, I think it was better the way it was. We had, for instance, Strategic Air Command with bombers and tankers. SAC did two things: drop bombs and pump gas, and they did them both very well. We had the Tactical Air Command with the fighters and the light attack airplanes, and we did what we did very well. Now they’ve joined them all together, and we’ve got bomber guys trying to make decisions on fighters and fighter guys trying to make decisions for bombers so, no, I don’t think that was a good move.
Crumpler: So you think they should have stuck to what they were – the bombers and tankers stuck to what their jobs were and other people stuck to their jobs – you know, working in conjunction and putting them all together?
Daniel: Absolutely. Let the experts do their own thing. And then they came out and tried to make these composite wings where they put tankers along with fighters at a base. There were all kinds of logistics problems that they couldn’t see coming down the road. It was better before they did this merger.
Crumpler: Can you think of any other important areas we haven’t covered or any extra comments that you’d like to pass along? Any words of advice? Anything you would like to say?8
Daniel: Well, I would encourage anyone who had ever had a desire to fly to give it a shot. The Air Force needs pilots. It’s not as hard as you think it is, but it is pretty demanding. If you want to do it, it’s out there and it’s a great opportunity.
Crumpler: Do you feel that you got leadership skills that changed your life? Were you already on a set path and do you think that it definitely changed your life?
Daniel: Oh, absolutely. No question about it. I mean, you look at people who have stayed in this small town their whole life and look at guys who have gone out in the military or whatever and come back. It just gives you so much of a broad range of experience and to meet folks from all over the country and do things like that. I have nothing but good words for the military.
Crumpler: Thank you for spending your time with me.
Daniel: O.K.