Mike Vivian is my favorite Instructor Pilot   by Ike Sweesy, F-104 IP
of my entire flying career

February, 2009.   Please pass on to Mike and Jane that my wife Sandy and I congratulate them on 50 years of marriage.   I’ll tell you, this gives Sandy a goal to keep struggling to tolerate her own obnoxious fighter pilot husband for at least another 13 years to equal Mike & Jane!

Mike, over my flying career I have checked out in 34 different types of airplanes from a Piper J-3 Cub doing 60 mph to a Falcon corporate jet doing 500, and to the Mach 2+ F4, F111, and of course the jaw-dropping F-104 Starfighter which still has your heart and mine.    After all of those checkouts, I consider YOU, Mike Vivian, to be my favorite IP of my entire career.   Hey everyone - if you didn’t know, Mike was expert and exceptional as a pilot and instructor, and also as a guy that was fun to fly with.  And, even to be around on the ground.   

When Mike drew the name Ike Sweesy as a student in the F104 checkout and Instructor program at Luke Air Force Base (gosh, was it really 30 years ago!!), I already had over a thousand hours and half of that as a fighter instructor myself.  Like all fighter pilots, I thought I knew it all (right Jane?!)  -  but I didn’t know the half of it!    Mike passed on to me his mountains of knowledge and technique and instructor skill.  And in the process, he didn’t even bruise my tender fighter pilot ego.   Thanks Mike!  

After I left Luke, I was assigned in Europe to the same “DOON Team” F-104 unit in NATO where Mike had also flown with our Nuclear Strike allies.    Since I spoke tolerable German (well, at least at the bar), every NATO base I went to I was compared with Mike Vivian.   I always came up short – both for my German grammar and my flying skills.  In Buchel AB, Germany, Herr Maas always loved to talk to me about Mike Vivian.  One winter afternoon after flying was cancelled due to fog … again,  I came back to the “Hotel Maas” bar, and Herr Maas greeted me with a beer.  Oh, I guess Herman was usually awake by 1 or 2 pm.   We had a beer,  or two,  or three, and Herman talked about Mike.  Finally, Herman took me down to his wine cellar and said, “Let’s drink a bottle of wine to Mike Vivian’s health.”  Well, it ruined mine!   So it was Herr Maas and not Mike Vivian that taught me, through lots of practice, that I could drink wine after Beer but not the reverse.   "Bier auf Wein, das lasse sein. Wein auf Bier, das rat ich dir,".  I've repeated that German phrase to lot's of puzzled friends for a quarter century.

Alas, I never got reassigned with Mike again, but I’ve kept up with my favorite Instructor Pilot for all the years since 1979.   

I’ve always admired Mike Vivian as a macho, 'shit hot' Fighter Pilot!      You’re the Best!

But, one thing puzzles me, Mike.     It’s sad, but just how did Jane get my favorite ‘stallion’ of a Fighter Pilot to live on “Gelding” Lane??   

- Ike Sweesy, F104 IP