Pilots

Learning to fly wasn't even on Tobe Gooden's top ten list of things to do as graduation from the Air Force Academy loomed in 1966. He had every intention of becoming an aeronautical engineer, which was the reason he had entered the academy in the first place. But his best friend and roommate was bent on going to pilot training, so at the last minute Gooden impulsively chose to do likewise.

The two were thus able to stick together through flight school before embarking on similar career paths as Air Force fighter pilots. Gooden flew the F-4 on a combat tour in Vietnam and later piloted the A-10 Thunderbolt II ("Warthog"). He finished his 21-year-long Air Force career in 1987 as a colonel, commanding an F-16 unit in Europe. By then he had nearly 3,000 hours of flight time in tactical aircraft. Tragically, his former roommate had perished in the crash of an F-4 just a few years earlier. Shortly after retiring from the Air Force, Gooden hired on with Continental Airlines and began a career as a Boeing 737 pilot.

Gooden's story to this point would be typical of other fighter pilots who have adjusted to the more sedate world of airline flying, except that his past got the better of him. He found that he badly missed flying fighters. He had friends performing on the airshow circuit, and he considered leaving his airline job to join them in a jet aircraft demonstration team. But for various reasons the act did not materialize, and he continued with his straight-and-level airline career.

Things changed suddenly in 1992 when Gooden chanced upon a Soviet MiG-15 sporting a "For Sale" sign. The 1950-vintage fighter had been operated by the Chinese navy and was acquired in 1986 by the Combat Jet Museum in Chino, California. After extensive reconditioning, it was purchased by a private owner who intended to showcase it at airshows. He later changed his mind, and sold the aircraft to Gooden for $100,000. "It was a great deal," says Gooden of the purchase, for the MiG had been painstakingly restored by both the museum and its next owner. "It probably had $200,000 worth of work done to it before I got it." Gooden formed a new company, Classic Fighters, with the aim of marketing himself and the MiG in a solo airshow routine.

Checking out in the single-seater was not especially difficult for someone with his considerable experience. Afterwards, though, he realized that there was still a lot to learn about the MiG. Unlike the latter-day fighters with which he was familiar, the early Soviet design makes no use of hydraulically boosted control surfaces. As it approaches the high end of its 550-knot (Mach 0.93) speed limitation, the flight controls begin to feel as if they are stuck in rapidly hardening cement. Gooden discovered this trait during a low-altitude practice flight in which he pushed the MiG to its top speed in a shallow dive. After an agonizingly slow pullout, he realized why the MiG's control stick is so much longer than those of most modern jet fighters — the pilot needs the extra leverage to counter the high aerodynamic loads.

One should not take the flight characteristics of the aircraft lightly, he says. "Someone without a lot of fighter experience could hurt themselves in a hurry in this thing. But flown respectfully, well inside its performance envelope, low-level aerobatics are comfortable." Otherwise, he declares admiringly of the MiG, "It's built like a 1957 Buick."

More than 5,000 MiG-15s were produced, with some still in active service in half a dozen countries around the world. Parts are still being produced and are readily available on the world market.

All of which is not to suggest that the MiG is inexpensive to fly, for it isn't. At about $1,000 an hour (nearly $17 a minute) to operate, Gooden says nyet to impromptu joyrides. "With the MiG, I really have to think about fuel every minute." The aircraft's fuel capacity of 539 gallons equates to a cross-country endurance of just one-and-a-half hours. Gooden typically flight plans for Flight Level 370 and Mach 0.80, and he figures a no-wind range of about 450 nautical miles. Below FL250, the fuel burn increases drastically and range drops precipitously.

An ongoing challenge for him is getting ATC to understand the range limitations of the MiG. On one occasion he declared minimum fuel state to a controller who insisted on giving him a low-level routing at 14,000 feet. The fact that the MiG was still on the ramp, with tanks full of jet fuel and the engine not yet started, was a matter of considerable debate between the controller and him. In the end, his somewhat novel argument prevailed, and Gooden received the high-altitude routing he needed.

After yearning to return to the visceral experience of piloting a fighter, Gooden was surprised by how much he enjoys basic cross- country flights — in the MiG. "Needless to say, my airplane is the center of attention at any FBO that I taxi into. I usually end up talking myself hoarse about it."

Flying might not have been his first choice of careers, but becoming the only full-time MiG pilot in this country has Gooden convinced that it was the right one for him after all.