Flying high and low with the original Top Gun Pilot

Wed, Jul 17th 2024 at 12:40 pm - 2:00 pm

Jerry Beaulier was a former US Navy pilot who flew over 200 sorties in the Vietnam War

Flying high and low with the original Top Gun Pilot -

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The speaker was Jerry Beaulier, a member of the club and former Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy. In 1969 Jerry joined the first Top Gun training class where naval aviators and flight offices learn air combat manoevering tactics and techniques, then return to their units as instructors. He gave a fascinating insight into his time as a naval aviator, describing the different types of carriers, combat planes, catapult systems and defence systems of today, and how they have developed since the early carriers and planes of 1910 onwards. Carriers became bigger following the Korean War and a the newest Chinese Carrier today is 1150 feet long. Modern carriers can house over 90 aircraft and 5,000 crew members. Jerry described what it was like to fly an aircraft on and off a deck often in stormy seas, in the dark, at huge speeds, and he showed some wonderful videos of this procedure. In an emergency a plane can be readied and launched in 5 minutes. Jerry has flown 221 missions and 72 different types of plane including the Phantom and the Boeing 747. This talk was hugely appreciated by the members present who asked many questions. Colin Brown, presiding, gave an informal vote of thanks for this very interesting talk.