I can’t find the picture right now, but I distinctly remember seeing a picture of either a B-2 or an F-117 that had the pilots name below the cockpit and the guys rank was Brigadier General.
Made me believe that all stealth aircraft needed high ranking people to fly for security reasons.
It was pretty common to paint the base’s top-level flying unit commander’s name on a plane. I’m gonna bet that BG was the commander of the B-2 wing. Here’s the official USAF bio for a guy who was the unit commander there a couple years ago and was a BG at the time. BRIGADIER GENERAL PAUL W. TIBBETS IV > Air Force > Biography Display
It’s also common that if some high ranking visitor, say the air component commander of some regional command, is to fly in one of your airplanes his name will be painted on it for the flight & the photo op then replaced with some local pilot’s name a few hours later.
I wonder how well “What officer ranks actually fly?” correlates with “What officer ranks actually lead from the front in the infantry and armor?” At what rank will an infantry officer command from the back in a command center? At what rank will an armor officer no longer sit in a tank during a battle?
What kind of roles/units are these?
IME up close and personal with the US Army infantry, O-5s were out in the mud maneuvering with the rest of us, albeit not leading any charges over the wire. The O-6s tended to be pretty well ensconced in HQ facilities well back. Whether those were prepared buildings or a cluster of mobile trucks, tracks, and trailers varied. They were certainly at risk of absorbing an enemy artillery or air strike. But not much risk of enemy small arms fire unless an awful lot of stuff had already gone really, really wrong.
Ref USAF O-7s:
For example, the USAF’s one and only B-2 wing as discussed just above.
When I was at Nellis in the mid 1980s the 57th Fighter Weapons Wing (57FWW) owned the USAF Fighter Weapons School, the Aggressors, the Thunderbirds, plus a whole alphabet soup of other mostly secret stuff. Unlike my combat wing (474TFW) of three F-16 squadrons which was commanded by an O-6, the 57FWW was commanded by an O-7. Who flew regularly
Wiki sez that unit is currently structured as the 57th Wing: 57th Wing - Wikipedia.
USAF sez the commander is still an O-7: http://www.nellis.af.mil/About/Biographies/Display/Article/722788/brigadier-general-jeannie-m-leavitt/. My, my! Things have certainly changed since my era.
In his book Every Man a Tiger, written with Tom Clancy, Chuck Horner says he was still flying F-16s as a 3 star general. He wasn’t going into combat but he was retaining his combat readiness.
Thanks. This was more what I was asking - at what rank someone would be unlikely to fly in combat.
When it comes to fighter pilots, the lower officer ranks tend to make up the majority because these pilots are younger. As you age and obtain higher rank, wisdom usually lets you know you don’t want to do that anymore.
In the USAF “heavy” world, Wing Commanders (WG/CC - most are Colonels/O-6) are qualified to fly the airframes the Wing operates, but often they aren’t considered Mission Ready (MR) pilots. Every O-6 and higher pilot I ever flew with in the KC-10 was NOT a MR pilot in the -10, and was required, by regulation, to have Instructor Pilot (IP) supervision while occupying a seat with access to the flight controls. Some of them needed the supervision due to being unfamiliar with the -10, a few of them needed frequent & forceful IP intervention on every flight to keep from busting airspace or airframe limitations… and one of them would’ve been just fine with a regular line pilot in the other seat, and only needed the IP to satisfy the regulations.
I have heard stories from the USAF fighter world that some WG/CCs make the time in their schedules to fly enough to stay MR (and teach the young guns a thing or two). Others fly just enough to keep their flight pay coming, and require IP supervision when they do fly. This is anecdotal - I’m not a fighter guy.
That’s pretty much the fighter story too.
For the two seat airplanes, some of these guys are still good enough & fly often enough to fly solo no sweat. And shellac the occasional overconfident lieutenant.
Others go only with an IP in the back seat. For the single seat airplanes with two seat versions there’s still typically the option to have the IP in the back; most units own one two-seater for just such purposes. For purely single-seat models – currently A-10, F-22, and F-35 – the IP is in the other airplane of the flight and the Big Cheese isn’t going anywhere without a chase that is in effect leading from behind.
Again, in DoD “flight pay” has not been dependent on doing any actual flying since the 1970s. But that doesn’t alter the fact that most guys with wings on their shirt really like to do it at least a little as a break from the drudgery and pressure of office work. Big Cheeses can usually arrange to get the flying they want, whether that’s a bunch or a smidgen.
A quick survey of Wikipedia says that during the Vietnam war era, two USAF Major Generals (2-star generals) were killed in action: Robert Worley and William Crumm.
Did they have the stick at the time of death? Impossible to know, but they were both rated Command Pilots, and the mission profiles (reconnaissance flight for the former, heavy bombardment for the latter) don’t really have room for sightseers.
Caveat is that was 1968, an eternity ago in Air Force history.
More recent example, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Lt. General (3-star) Robert Bond, Vice-commander of US Air Force Systems Command, killed piloting a “specially modified test aircraft” at a not-publically disclosed base in the Nevada desert. Allegedly, at Groom Lake, a captured MIG-23. In 1984. Also a long time ago, though more recently than the Vietnam era examples earlier.
In 12 O’Clock High, the group commander was a brigadier general and he flew daily combat missions. Was that realistic?
That’s also one of those very, very specialized corner cases. IOW an exception that proves the rule.
While I am taking him at his word, when I worked for a prior Air Force Major General, he told he took an F-15 out for a spin during the Gulf War “just because he could”.
I read that James Doolittle was Lieutenant Colonel until after his famous raid, at which point he was promoted. So he flew a mission that was as close to a suicide mission as they come, at that rank.
As commander of his “squadron” that would be 100% normal then and now.
IIRC, the BG was filling a colonel’s slot as the wing commander or a higher officer in the chain of command had relieved the colonel of command.
Sorry my bad.
You are the first to notice my miss typing when signing up. I did not notice the error until the next day and thought what the heck.
I always thought his point was that old Snipes are more generous with their steam: letting it loose wherever they may. Unlike younger more inhibited self-conscious Snipes who might hold their steam.
Sorta like Hugh Hefner’s attitude to semen in his elder years: Time’s a wastin’! Spread it far and wide!
In another interpretation, **Snnipe70E **has certainly always been generous with his opinions which are mostly hot moist air. 
(FTR just kidding: your posts are always full of good info and interesting perspectives, but the joke’s too good to pass up.)