Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Hultgreen ranked No. 1 in defending the fleet from simulated attacks by enemy aircraft and in air refueling, the report said. She ranked No. 2 in tactics to evade enemy aircraft and in combined familiarization with tactics and aircraft. According to the report, Hultgreen had a total of 1,242 hours of flying time and 58 carrier landings, including 17 night landings.
I pulled that from an old LA times article. Doesn't sound to me like someone who is undertrained or incompetent.
Doing searches on her I see opinion very similar to astro14's coming from the center for military readiness and George mason university.
You’re like a blind man looking at an elephant...and telling me that it’s tall, skinny, and hairy...like a rope...
Once you let go of the tail, and are able to see the whole animal, you’ll know that just a few facts do not allow you to see the big picture, or the entirety of the situation.
Let’s start with “cold”.
Nothing cold about objective assessment. I don’t care one bit about your color, gender, or anything else. I care about your ability to fly. Perhaps, if those evaluating her were more objective, she would be with us here today, instead of dead and buried at Arlington.
Which is more “cold” - false feedback that makes the person feel good, while taking their life? OR feedback that paints reality, and allows them to live?
I never felt good about ending a career. I’m not “cold”. I had tremendous empathy for those young pilots who were not able to pass the program. I’ll give you one example - his name was “JD”. He was a great guy. Bright, skilled, everything you would hope for, but at night, at the boat, he could not handle the pressure. I did everything that I could for “JD”. Extra training. Personal attention. The best RIO in the squadron. Everything.
He got two tries. While on the Lincoln, off the coast of Miramar, JD performed badly on his second try at carrier qualification. So poorly, in fact that on his second night, he never was able to land and had to go back to Miramar. My good, good friend, “Doc” was there, had to deliver the news to “JD”. When Doc and I talked, he told me that “JD” was heartbroken. So, was I. You couldn’t find a nicer young man than “JD”. As I was talking to “Doc”, I mentioned how bad I felt (even though I knew that my decision was rational, and correct).
“Doc” corrected me. “Doc” lit me up and told me that I was saving his life.
On July, 20, 1993, “Doc”’s room mate and best friend “Planet” crashed aboard the USS Lincoln. Ironically, he was in VF-213, the same squadron that Hultgreen was assigned to, and on the same ship. “Planet” crashed spectacularly- the airplane broke up, and a fireball containing ruptured fuel tanks and the cockpit careened down the deck while most of the airplane was scattered over the aft end. The RIO survived.
“Planet” was dead.
Everyone loved “Planet”. Great guy. Great at the air-air employment of the airplane. “Planet” had been before a Field Naval Aviator Evaluation Board previously for poor landing performance at night. The CO knew he was having trouble. Everyone knew. But everyone loved him. Everyone thought he was a great guy. Everyone thought he should get one more chance.
They weren’t objective. Those making decisions weren’t...”cold”.
And “Planet” died as a result.
Not his fault. It was theirs. All those who failed to be objective. All those who failed to be “cold”. They sent him out night after night, in an airplane that was too much for him.
The same thing killed Hultgreen. A lack of “cold”.
But “Planet” died in obscurity. Not to “Doc” and his squadron of course, but to the rest of the world, it was another F-14 crash. Another statistic in a world where those kinds of things happened. He wasn’t feted on news Channels. His picture was never plastered on the front of magazines. No national mourning. No pundits heaping praise upon him.
No burial at Arlington.
He rests in obscurity at Washington Crossing United Methodist Cemetery - Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, where he was from.
Kara Hultgreen had Congressional and media attention from day one. Admirals called the squadron every day to ask about her progress. Representative Pat Schroeder (D-CO) called the CO personally and often to ask about her. That level of attention and scrutiny caused the CO of the training squadron to over-ride the “cold” (and objective) assessment of her instructors. After twice failing to qualify at the carrier (just like “JD”), she was given a 3rd chance. A chance no other Naval Aviator got. A chance that “JD” didn’t get and during that 3rd qualification attempt, the CO, who was NOT an LSO, pronounced her qualified.
But she wasn’t.
And her subsequent crash proved that. The specious and superficial “facts” that the media posted in the aftermath were an attempt to tell a story that wasn’t true. “No. 1 in defending the fleet”!!?? That training was done in a simulator. A simulator that didn’t even have motion. The pilot flew a console, not even a real cockpit, while the RIO worked the radar in a fixed base cockpit with an AWG-9 radar. The rest of her grades are specious. So what if you can defend the fleet IF YOU CANNOT LAND THE AIRPLANE ON A SHIP?? In that moment, your landing performance is a larger threat to the ship, the fleet, and your squadron than the enemy.
But only if enough “cold” thought is given to a pilot that can’t land a fighter at sea. Gender doesn’t matter, only performance does. And in that, both Kara and “Planet” had the same affliction - they couldn’t land the jet safely. Landing is the hardest of the mission sets in that airplane, at that time, and no one was willing to make the “cold” call.
The Navy released (leaked, actually, as it’s confidential) the JAG investigation to the public, for reasons known only to the senior leadership. No other mishap investigations, or JAG investigations, were leaked. But that investigation was charged only with determining whether she died in the line of duty (she did) and whether is was due to misconduct (she did not*).
The failure of her CO to be “Cold” put her in harm’s way without the tools to handle it. Just as “Planet”’s CO put him in harm’s way that night aboard the same carrier, and in the same squadron.
When you make decisions upon which rest people’s lives, cold, rational thought is a good thing.
*Misconduct is willful disregard of rules and orders. Ineptitude, or failure to do your job in difficult circumstances, is not misconduct. The JAG investigation cleared her of misconduct. It didn’t clear her of pilot error, it couldn’t, because that wasn’t its precept. The press, of course, twisted this around to crow that she was a hero, killed by a dangerous airplane that no one could fly. But that simply wasn’t true.
