Living to Fly, Flying to Live

Mike KukulskiUSAF 1981-2001

Southwest Airlines 2001-Present

The beginning…

Starting off right…

High School Senior Portrait, 1977

Enjoy the hair while you can!

I Loved the Academy food…

The first women at USAFA highlighted the need for changes…

What kind of training? Ar-mee training, Sir!

Pilot Training – Now we’re talking…

21 Years old – solo in the T38…

First Flying Assignment – OV-10 Bronco at Sembach Air Base, Germany, 1983

OV-10 was a Forward Air Control (FAC) aircraft, used to direct air strikes against ground targets

…like this Russian tank.

Nice beret, dude!

Flying in the Alps…

…and then in the California high desert near Victorville…

… where I met her…

…she seemed to be a reasonable match for a fighter pilot…

…which led to this.

I transitioned to the A-10 in 1985, and flew it until 1990 at:- Suwon Air Base, Korea- RAF Bentwaters, England- RAF Alconbury, England

Just your basic A-10 hero pilot…

Living the hard life overseas…

Transitioned to the F-15E Strike Eagle in 1990…

Then something else happened…

Flying over burning Kuwaiti oil fields in 1991

My backseater, Hound, and me before a flight…

All American family at Seymour-Johnson AFB in North Carolina…

My backseater in 1992 was Baby Huey…

Had 2 deployments to Saudi Arabia, then moved to Luke AFB, AZ to instruct in the F-15E

…Followed by a stint as an operational test manager at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Then back to the A-10 at Pope AFB, North Carolina, where I was the Support Squadron Commander for the 23rd Fighter Group, the Flying Tigers

Another deployment to Kuwait – here we are refueling over the Red Sea…

Retired on March 23, 2001

Started at Southwest Airlines on March 29, 2001…

…Still Living to Fly, Flying to Live