Rooster - Fighter Pilot: Flying and Fighting for the USA

by Col. Scott Saunders USAF (Ret)

Overview

"Rooster-Fighter Pilot" is a riveting story about a boy who had a dream about flying that he has never let go. He would concentrate while dreaming and lifted off the ground and flew over the fields and farms where he lived in France. He lived out his dream by going to the U.S. Air Force Academy and learned about flying through his aeronautical engineering course and by obtaining a private pilot license while at the Academy in the T-41 aircraft, a military version of the popular Cessna 172 General Aviation aircraft. The story continues at Undergraduate Pilot Training, where he learned how to fly low- performance and high-performance jet aircraft, the T-37 and T-38. He covers the challenges, trials, tribulations and victories involved with earning your pilot wings. After graduating from pilot training, Rooster takes an assignment in a vintage trainer, the T-33 just barely missing a front-line fighter slot. He sharpens his skills in instrument flying and 12 months later finally moves into the combat F-4 Phantom aircraft. Once completing the 12-month upgrade to the F-4, he proceeds to Thailand to fly 25 combat missions up to the end of hostilities on August 15, 1973. His follow-on assignment places him in the elite Aggressor force emulating the enemy and acting as a trainer and adversary for our own Blue Forces in the U.S. Air Force. He continues this role at Nellis Air Force Base and on to Europe at Royal Air Force Base Alconbury in the United Kingdom. After five years of flying Dissimilar Air Combat Training air-to-air training against the Blue Forces, he is able to rejoin them at Bitburg Air Base in the F-15 Eagle. Flying regularly against Aggressor adversary forces and our allies in Europe, he rises to a high level of proficiency and is promoted to major. That meant it was time for a staff tour out of the cockpit temporarily. He is assigned to an organization within the Air Staff at The Pentagon responsible for developing new weapons and avionics for the fighter pilot community. He takes this opportunity to field an advanced gunsight for our fighters and finishes his Air Staff tour as the Executive Officer for the Director of Operational Requirements for the Air Force. Finishing up at The Pentagon, he rejoins the Blue Forces once again in the cockpit of an F-15 and serves as the 12th Tactical Fighter Squadron Operations Officer known better as the Dirty Dozen. He implements pride, spirit, and discipline into the unit and an impeccable safety record for the three years he serves there. Rooster is still flying today instructing student pilots and flying Angel Flight patients to their doctors. The book finishes with the bottom line that he will always be a fighter pilot and continue flying as long as he can.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781667862521
Publisher:	BookBaby
Publication date:	08/29/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	162
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Col. Scott "Rooster Saunders, USAF (Ret)
Colonel Scott "Rooster" Saunders is a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force where he served as a combat pilot flying the F-4, F-5, and F-15, a Headquarters USAF Requirements Program Element Manager, the USAF Requirements Directorate Executive Officer at The Pentagon, and the Deputy Commander in Chief for the United Nations Command Executive Officer in the Republic of Korea. He is author of Creation of a French Aggressor Squadron and a Proposal Handbook.
He flew 25 combat missions in Southeast Asia and has flown over 10,000 air-to-air training engagements as a T-38A/F-5E/F Aggressor and F-15 A/B/C/D pilot. He also was influential at The Pentagon, spearheading the incorporation of a breakthrough air-to-air gunsight, AIMGUNS while serving on the Air Staff. He completed his service to his country as the Vice Wing Commander of the 36th Air Base Wing at Andersen AB, Guam, a strategic forward base in Asia. Since his retirement from the Air Force, he has acted as Proposal Manager for sixty-five proposals for defense contracts including one for the U.S Army at this writing.
Rooster-Fighter Pilot is a riveting story about a boy who had a dream about flying. He lived out his dream by going to the U.S. Air Force Academy, becoming a fighter pilot flying and fighting in air-to-ground combat and air-to-air training in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Asia. He is still flying today instructing and flying Angel Flight patients to their doctors.
He has a Bachelor of Science from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a Master of Science in International Relations from Troy State University and has graduated from the French War College program at École Militaire in Paris France. He completed two course of instruction. The first one was the École Supérieure de Guerre Aérienne (Superior School of Air Warfare) and the second one was the Cours Supérieur Interarmées (Superiour Interarmy School, or Senior Joint Warfare School).
He has had Air Force assignments in five overseas countries and travelled to 43 countries. He speaks fluent French, which helped earn him the highest grade a foreign student ever won for his thesis on creating a French Aggressor squadron. He was also awarded the highest honor in the Federal Aviation Agency for a pilot, the prestigious The Wright Brothers "Master Pilot" Award. He also won the Academic trophy in Undergraduate Pilot Training and The Commandant's Award at the Defense Language Institute.
Rooster provides flight instruction in single-engine and multi-engine aircraft and flies patients to their doctors. He has flown 3,800 hours in the Air Force and 1,300 hours in General Aviation. He has flown 125 Angel Flights.
He is married to Rhonda Saunders and has three children (Jennifer, Scott III, and Matt) and seven grandchildren (Isabella, Caroline, Ethan, Amelia, Catherine, Adalyn, and Ethan) from his late wife Patty Saunders.