Krump, Donald L.
1968-1969 Left pilot training at Vance for the C-130 pipeline to SEA. Flew trash, medivac, and ABCCC (Airborne Command & Control) out of Taiwan, Vietnam & Thailand
1969-1973 Married Sharon and spent a four-year honeymoon in Hawaii flying A & H models Herks doing aerial recovery of de-orbited spy satellite film.
1973-1977 Flew highly-modified C-130 in support of US and allied special forces primarily in the infil, exfil and respupply roles often using the Fulton recovery system.
1977-1981 Air Command & Staff college in residence and stayed on the Air University faculty (to avoid a Pentagon special ops assignment thus missed the Eagle Claw effort to rescue the Iranian Embassy hostages).
1981-1988 Back to flying at Wright-Patterson. Four years as lead tester for all simulators bought for the USAF and our allies and then four years as Deputy Director of Flight Test Engineering in the test wing there flying testbed Saberliners. (Made 06 but gave it up to fly commercially.)
1988-1991 Flew 727s for Pan Am based all but six months in Berlin. Flew to 53 cities in 28 countries to include all major cities in both the West & East Block countries to include Moscow &Leningrad. Was in Berlin 1 1/2 years before the wall came down and 1 1/2 years after – interesting times! Pan Am shut down overnight stranding me in Panama City, Panama.
1991-1992 Spent looking for another flying job. Spent nearly four months in Alaska flying bush pilot in a Cessna 206 out of Nome. (Wouldn’t have traded that for any other flying experience.)
1993-2004 Hired by United Airlines. Survived twobankruptcies, employee-owned stock fiasco and still made Captain. Flew eight types of aircraft in twelve years to include everything Boeing had – 727, 737, 747-400, 757/767, 777 and finished up on the Airbus 319/320s. Mandatory retirement at age 60. Yea!
2005-Present Volunteer work with home building (Habitat), local and international churches while doing a lot of world-wide house-sitting for friends.