Word: risner
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...South Viet Nam. With fuel and ordnance still to spare, the Thunderchiefs swung back north, destroyed a key railroad bridge in North Viet Nam. Only then did the pilots of the U.S. Air Force's 67th ("Fighting Cock") Tactical Fighter Squadron follow their leader, Lieut. Colonel James Robinson Risner, back to their base at Danang...
Perfecting His Skills. In most previous U.S. wars, Thunderchief Squadron Leader "Robbie" Risner would have been an exception, not a rule. The commander of the Fighting Cocks is no spring chicken. At 40, he still bears scars from his teen-age days as a rodeo rider in Oklahoma, where he grew up. He has been flying combat aircraft for 22 years. He was a Korean War ace-with eight MIGs to his credit. His left eye is permanently bloodshot as a result of zooming so close to a MIG kill in Korea that the ejecting Communist pilot struck Risner...
Last January, as leader of the Fighting Cocks, Risner was transferred to Danang from Okinawa, where his wife Kathleen, an ex-Army nurse, and their five sons still live. Since then, he has led 18 missions against North Viet Nam-including three last week. His $2,500,000 Thunderchief fighter-bomber is a remarkable instrument of warfare. It can carry twelve 750-lb. bombs or eight pods of 19 rockets each, and has a six-barrel, 20-mm. cannon that can fire 4,000 rounds per minute. Loaded, it weighs 48,400 Ibs., and its top speed exceeds...
...such equipment successfully requires the highest degree of human ingenuity and precision, and despite all his experience, Risner spends most of his waking hours perfecting his skills. "You never get good enough," he says. "A complacent pilot gets killed...
...What I Had Been Taught." Only a few weeks ago, Risner almost got killed. But his professionalism saved him. He now describes the experience with almost clinical detachment: "The target that day was a radar station in North Viet Nam. I was janking [changing altitude and direction continuously] when I got hit by ground fire. They got me four feet behind the cockpit, in the engine. I had to make a 180° turn to get out over the sea. When I got to the coastline, I figured I was safe. But in the water was an enemy gunboat...