My dream has always been to be a pilot; it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do; I just went about it in a different way than other people
When Capt. David was a kid, his father would take him out to the flightline at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, and put him in the cockpit of an F-111 Aardvark, as told by Staff Sgt. Katherine Spessa, 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs in the article Maintainer-turned-fighter pilot puts new skills to the test.
David looked up at his father and said, “One day, I’m going to be a pilot.”
“I guess I kept my word,” he remarked as an F-16 Fighting Falcon jet pilot with the 79th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron (EFS) at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
David’s journey began when he entered in the United States Air Force (USAF) in 2004. He became an F-16 avionics specialist, following in his father’s footsteps.
“It’s always been my dream to be a pilot, it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,” David said. “I just took a different route than most people do.”
That path includes going to school while working as a maintainer, a deployment to Balad Airfield in Iraq, and temporary assignments that required him to be gone three weeks out of every month.
“I have the best wife in the world,” he said. “She was stubborn for me when I didn’t want to do it, she was always there pushing me, telling me that I could, telling me it’s going to be worth it. ‘All the hard work, the sweat the tears, one day it will all pay off and you’re going to be where you want to be.’”
When David was accepted into officer training school and afterward selected for pilot training and the F-16 slot, he accomplished his aim. He now pilots the same plane for which he used to work as a mechanic.
“There’s always a giant support system behind anyone who gets to this point,” David said. He gives the credit to his wife, children, and supervisors throughout his Air Force career, along with a little timing, luck, and a lot of hard work.
David was sent to his first operational duty as a pilot after years of training, and he returned to the flightline as a pilot rather than a maintainer.
“Having that maintenance and operations background provides that extra piece make the cogs fit a little bit better,” said David. “They’re not really all that different, to be honest. We all want the same thing, we all want to do the same thing, we’re all fighting in the same direction.”
Capt. David’s talents as a mechanic have helped him gain a reputation as a pilot.
“The guy’s knowledge of the airplane, is beyond some of our more seasoned pilots because he’s had his hands in some places we don’t even know exist inside an F-16,” said Maj. Joseph, 79th EFS director of operations.
David’s first deployment as a pilot will be at Bagram Airfield.
“I always wanted to be the tip-of-the-spear kind of guy, the last link in the chain before taking care of bad guys,” he said. “The most rewarding part has been coming out here and being effective.”
When he isn’t on duty, David follows in his father’s footsteps by taking his children to Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina.
“Seeing that pure joy and pride in their faces when I have them come out to the jet and I taxi up and hop out…. There is no better feeling in the world than seeing my kids’ faces light up,” David said.
Since the Civil War, every generation of David’s family has served in the military. He’s the first member of his family to be appointed to the commission.
“I’ll probably be in the Air Force until they tell me to stop coming to work, whether I’m flying jets or not. It’s where I want to be,” David said.
Photo by Master Sgt. Cecilio Ricardo and Staff Sgt. Katherine Spessa / U.S. Air Force
