Chapter 4 THE Comeback

Lake at Pokara, Nepal

by S.R. Oberst

Note to the reader: It's time to digress at bit. Prior to Charlie's ill fated cross country trip, he received a flight evaluation by the Squadron Fight Examiner, Captain SK Reamer. By all accounts Charlie's performance bordered on incompetence. Even the most rudimentary flying skills were a challenge to Charlie's ham fisted techniques. As a consequence, he was downgraded to co-pilot status. How did Charlie, so lacking in judgment and ability, regain aircraft commander responsibilities? Let's see how Charlie resurrected his career:
Charlie failed THE Checkride on a Friday. By Monday he was plotting THE Comeback. SK had busted Charlie back to co-pilot in-training status. This meant that he could not fly without an instructor pilot on board. It probably did not help Charlie’s ego when our Detachment Commander, Lt Col Brad McMellow, passed his own SK checkride, albeit with a “needs training” notation on the evaluation sheet. But instead of showing any embarrassment or regret over the failed checkride, Charlie’s true character rose to the top. In a closed door session with McMellow, overheard through the office wall, Charlie blamed the checkride failure on the weather, the aircraft, and the evaluator. Strangely, and to my surprise, he did not blame me who had been his co-pilot. He insisted SK had been out to get him. He told McMellow he planned to take immediate steps to rectify the situation and regain his flight status.

Another Un-Leadership Moment:
When confronted with personal failure, Un-Leaders will blame someone else. They are incapable of accepting blame or taking positive steps to address a failure. Further, the Un- Leader will react with anger and take on the role of an injured party. It is also highly likely the Un-Leader will seek revenge on the people they blame for their failure.

Charlie immediately began a letter writing and telephone campaign to impugn the character of Captain SK Reamer. He boasted about a letter he wrote to the Squadron Commander, Colonel Andy Devine, claiming SK was a vengeful flight evaluator who made his reputation at the expense of the many capable pilots who he had failed his checkrides. He protested the manner in which his own evaluation had been conducted and demanded an immediate re-evaluation given by a fair and impartial flight evaluator. Charlie discovered SK was meeting the same promotion board for major that next year. He claimed SK specifically intended to hurt his promotion chances, thereby improving his own. Charlie also stated SK was jealous that he was an Operations Officer rather than a Chief of Flight Evaluations.

There were four instructor pilots in the unit, and McMellow insisted Charlie participate in training flights with each of them in preparation for his re-evaluation flight. Charlie did not take instruction well, so these training flights were a nightmare for the instructors. He would belittle their flying skill and complain about their instruction methods and critiques. Two of them went to McMellow and requested that they no longer be part of Charlie’s training program. McMellow asked Captain Dave Evalman, our unit Flight Evaluation Chief, to take a training flight with Charlie. Under Dave’s watchful eye, Charlie flew a practice checkride. Dave declared that Charlie needed more training, and as a result Charlie turned on Dave and attempted to make his life miserable. Dave, with less than two years remaining in the Air Force, infuriated Charlie by ignoring his taunts.

Whether it was due to Charlie’s campaign or just luck, the re-evaluation flight was scheduled with the undemanding Captain Bill Pansy. Charlie’s good fortune continued on the day of the flight with perfect flying conditions, light winds, and clear skies. I was the co-pilot - it sucks to be the junior guy. The evaluation flight was relatively uneventful. Pansy sat in the jump seat and was asleep during the instrument portion of the flight. He seemed more interested in a fly-by of Mount Rushmore than with the flight evaluation, so Charlie did a simulated rescue mission under the nose of George Washington.

Returning to the base practice field, Charlie’s emergency procedure performance was marginal. He cheated on the manual fuel procedure by not rolling the throttle back as far as he should. This went undetected by Pansy, so Charlie got away with flying in automatic fuel mode while giving the impression he was flying manually. As we hovered in to the final stop in front of the unit hangar, Pansy was already congratulating Charlie on a successful evaluation. Let’s just say that Santa had nothing on Captain Bill Pansy when it comes to giveaways.

THE Comeback was complete – Charlie had regained his flight status, but this did not end the saga. Rather it marked the beginning of a two year long effort to discredit, embarrass, and destroy Captain SK Reamer’s career. Charlie was relentless in his efforts. He was able to identify other pilots flunked by SK, and he recruited some of them for his many nefarious schemes. He obviously did not confide with anyone in our unit regarding the details, but we heard about peculiar things that happened to SK and instantly deduced Charlie was behind them. For example, we heard that following every trip SK took to one of the squadron's ten detachments, an envelope or package would arrive at his house from each place he had visited. The contents ranged from sexy lingerie or underwear to copies of “girlie”magazines or a flyer from a local strip joint.

A few weeks later most of the pilots in the unit got together at the Officers’ Club for a few beers. Usually we had a good time laughing about Charlie’s latest escapades, but THE Comeback and the ongoing vendetta were not funny. As we sat somberly enjoying our beers, someone said, “Too bad we can’t do to Charlie what he is doing to others.” Hmmm. The wheels started turning. What could a bunch of lowly pilots possibly do to the invincible Charlie Crown?