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A Boy Who Loved Airplanes

A Boy Who Loved Airplanes

This book covers a time span from 1934 to 2010. It's a memoir of a guy who did a lot of things. Times of joy, fright, fun, challenge, pride, dedication, shame, sorrow, and accomplishment. I did things I'm certainly not proud of but balancing that, there were times when I rose to the challenge, did the right thing, and kept moving on down the road. Mix all that together and throw on some rose colored glasses--it was a great ride and it's still going on.

As an army brat there was every opportunity to see the world from many different viewpoints. Then, like father like son, the military became my way of life. The Army brat became an Air Force private, then learned to fly during a time when airplanes operated in direct response to the stick, rudder pedals, and throttle. The pilot was in charge of the machine and lived or died by personal skill, blind dumb luck, and sometimes Divine intervention.

Please take a trip with me down memory lane and see how an almost well spent life appears from the tail end looking back.

Author Donn Byrnes

DONN A. BYRNES, the son of a career U.S. Army doctor and his wife, was born on 29 May 1931. After many moves about this country, a short stay in Hawaii, and attendance in eighteen different schools, Donn graduated from Edison High School, San Antonio, Texas, in 1949. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in 1951 at age nineteen after three and a half semesters of pre-med at the University of Texas.

Progressing from PFC aircraft mechanic to Aviation Cadet and Air Force pilot, he flew F-84s and F-86Ds in the U.S., Japan, and Guam. In 1958 he and his family returned to the U.S. to attend an Air Force Institute of Technology-sponsored program in electrical engineering at the University of Texas, Austin.

Returning with BSEE in hand to Wright Field, Wright-Patterson AFB near Dayton, Ohio, in 1962, he negotiated an assignment to Project 665A (Reconnaissance/Strike). Unknowingly he had hit upon one of the seed programs for the SR-71 sensors. It was as sensor and systems integration engineer at Wright Field that Donn met Ken Hurley and, in early 1964, was briefed into the SR-71 program.

Absorbed by the Blackbird development effort, Captain Byrnes was transferred to Edwards AFB, California in July 1964, where he became the SR-71 Sensor Test Engineer and Flight Test Engineer. He left Edwards in 1968 to become Base Commander at Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Returning to the U.S. in 1969 he was reassigned to the SR-71 Program, and almost immediately transferred to the F-15 Program, where he was Airframe Projects Manager, Deputy Chief Engineer and, finally, Director of Projects. In 1975 Donn left the F-15 System Program Office (SPO) and assumed the job of Director of Engineering at the Air Force Contract Management Division, Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Colonel Byrnes retired in November 1978 after accumulating more than 3,200 pilot hours, most of which was single engine jet time.

Returning to engineering, he worked for DynCorp, Raytheon, BDM, and other technical services companies until 1987, when he and his oldest daughter, Kathleen, formed an engineering consulting and database management company.

Since 1977 Donn and his wife Sparks have made their home on a small patch of desert mesa near Los Lunas, New Mexico.