Following in his father’s flightpath: KC-135 navigator, pilot son continue 100th ARW heritage

  • Published
  • By Karen Abeyasekere
  • RAF Mildenhall
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Patrick Teal first arrived at RAF Mildenhall with his family Feb. 1, 1993, when he was almost 4 years old. His dad was a U.S. Air Force captain and navigator on the first KC-135 Stratotankers in the new fleet brought over after the activation of the 100th Air Refueling Wing in 1992. Now he’s back in his own right as a pilot and aircraft commander on the KC-135s at the very same wing at which his father served, and couldn’t be happier.

“Most of my childhood memories are from when I was young and in England,” said Capt. Patrick Teal, 351st Air Refueling Squadron, who lived in England until he was 12 years old. “I picked Mildenhall as my first choice after my last assignment, where I was an instructor at a pilot-training base.”

Patrick’s dad, then-Capt. Greg Teal, was stationed here until 1997, working at 3rd Air Force Headquarters – arrived at RAF Mildenhall exactly one year after the wing was stood up and served for four years at the 3rd Air Force headquarters, located in what is now the 100th ARW headquarters building. During that time he worked three different jobs, including initially helping stand up the standardization and evaluation section, working with aircrew from a variety of aircraft including F-111 Aardvarks and F-15 Eagles. Teal-senior also spent time as the aide-de-camp for the 3rd Air Force commander. He then spent a second four-year tour with the 351st ARS.

“In that role, I got to work with the wing commanders in different aspects, and help my boss understand tankers, as he was an F-15 pilot and really didn’t understand the tanker world,” he said, adding that even though he worked for 3rd Air Force, he still flew with the tankers and deployed with the 100th ARW.

Today the navigator position no longer exists as part of the KC-135 aircrew, due to significant upgrades in avionics and navigation systems, but back then navigators played a vital role in the mission.

He described how when he arrived in 1993, the tankers were a new mission to the European theater which previously had no refueling aircraft.

“Back then, there were no regulations or books written on how to do tanker operations in Europe,” remarked Greg. “That was one of the biggest challenges when the wing stood up. When I came in, I had just been part of training new aircrew at Castle Air Force Base, California, which is where new aircrew would come to learn how to be in the tanker. I was offered the job to come over to 3rd Air Force and be the KC-135 representative to help stand up the stan/eval and help the wing stand up their program for tanker operations in Europe.

He explained that when he first arrived in England, navigators were doing celestial and radar navigation. It wasn’t until his second tour in England when the navigator role began to diminish because of new software upgrade. Up to that point, navigators were responsible for planning all phases of the mission and directing the aircraft during the flight.

“This was before all the software and GPS was on the tanker, so one of the big roles for the navigator was to lead the rendezvous with the other aircraft,” he recalled. “There were different kinds of rendezvous which varied depending on the aircraft, whether they were fighters or heavy aircraft. We called them either point-parallel rendezvous, or en-route rendezvous, and as a navigator I did all of the calculations to make sure the aircraft rolled out right in front of the airplane we were refueling.

“It was also before weather radar in the airplane, so it was the navigator’s responsibility to direct around weather, to find all the different thunderstorms and make sure we didn’t fly through them,” said Greg.

The former navigator described the great experience of coming to a new country with his young family back in 1993.

“It was absolutely wonderful! Our fourth child was just a couple of months old. England is such a beautiful country and we fell in love with it. We lived in Newmarket and fell in love with all the aspects of that, then coming to a new wing which had just been stood up was exciting.

“Being able to write some of the new instructions, and to lay down some of the new foundations, it was great to be a part of that,” he said. “It was the newness of everything – new aircraft, new theater of operations, and there had been a big change in the Air Force as Strategic Air Command had gone away, Air Mobility Command had set up, and that’s where most of the tankers reside, except for the theater tankers which went to USAFE.”

Greg described how rewriting the way tankers operated in Europe would become especially important in the years ahead, as they were used more and more in many of the operations in the run up to Operation Allied Force.

“A lot of the folks who laid those early foundations laid a good groundwork to have successful operations in the days ahead. I really do think it was pioneering work to set up tanker operations in Europe, and those who started it out did it well,” he said.

The Air Force and his father’s military career had a strong influence on Patrick which led to him becoming a KC-135 pilot.

“My dad never pushed my brothers or me in that direction, but he was thrilled when I joined the Air Force,” said Patrick. “Working back at the same base my dad did means a lot to me.

“I didn’t set out necessarily wanting to be in aviation, but once I did, I wanted to follow a bit of the path that he had gone on because I saw how well it went for him and how much he’d taken from it,” recalled the pilot. “Being here is pretty special, especially when you can talk to someone and have shared experiences, and you know what each other is specifically talking about, such as this base, the KC-135s and this area.”

Patrick said his father was thrilled that his son was stationed at RAF Mildenhall, back where he started.

“It’s bittersweet – my dad and I have always been close, and now I’m across the ocean from him, but he’s coming over to visit me this summer,” the aircraft commander said. “I never had a desire to fly fighters or go down the fighter/bomber track when it came time to decide in pilot training. I didn’t know much about it, but it didn’t really fit my personality, so when I came to that fork in the road when it came to tankers or transporters, I thought the tanker offered a much greater variety of mission sets.”

Patrick said being back at RAF Mildenhall as an adult was completely different from being here as a child, but he was thankful to have had the opportunity to experience it as his father had.

“I have a great appreciation for what my dad did here – now I can see that it wasn’t just someone going to work each day. The Cold War had ended a few years before so rebuilding ties with Russia was going on; Operation Allied Force was going on in the late ‘90s, and Operation Provide Comfort was underway – all of which Mildenhall had its hand in, much like we’re involved in operations now.”

Greg said he kept his patches from his assignment at RAF Mildenhall, and when Patrick found out he was permanently changing station to England, gave them to his son to wear.

Even though he now has his own squadron patches from RAF Mildenhall from joining the 351st ARS in his own right almost 25 years later, on the first day at his new squadron Patrick proudly wore his dad’s patches on the sleeve of his flightsuit, and continues to keep the 100th ARW heritage in the family.