Robert M. Bond

Robert M. Bond (16 December 1929 – 26 April 1984) was a lieutenant general of the United States Air Force. He saw combat in Korea and three tours of Vietnam, before becoming an instructor and then vice-commander of an organization which developed and evaluated weaponry for the Air Force. He was decorated for his combat service and his peacetime role. He died in an accident in Nevada while flying a Soviet-built Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 jet fighter-bomber.

Early life and career
Bond was born on 16 December 1929 in Trenton, Tennessee, and attended Marion Military Institute in Marion, Alabama, and the University of Mississippi. He joined the Air Force in 1951 and flew 44 combat missions in the F-86 Sabre during the Korean War. He flew F-84 Thunderjets, F-86s and F-100 Super Sabres in Europe, and in 1958 he trained at the US Air Force Fighter Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base. In 1963 he became chief of the Strike Branch at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, and flew combat missions over Vietnam in the F-105 Thunderchief. After going to Staff College from 1965 to 1966 he served as F-105 and F-111 project officer at Norton Air Force Base, California. From 1968 to 1969 he flew 213 combat missions from Cam Ranh Air Base in Vietnam, in the F-4 Phantom. On 30 December 1968 in Vĩnh Lợi District in the Mekong Delta, Bond, by now a major, made multiple ground attacks in spite of poor weather and heavy automatic ground fire, for which he won the Silver Star. He was an F-100 instructor pilot at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, from July 1969 to January 1970, when he was given command of the 310th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron, the first Air Force unit to fly the A-7 Corsair. While there he became director of operations for the 58th Tactical Fighter Training Wing. In 1972 he served a third tour in Vietnam, this time in the A-7. In June 1973 he joined USAF HQ at the Pentagon in Washington D.C., during which time he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work in modernizing and integrating weapon systems. He worked in many of the Air Force's "black" programs, which were activities so undercover that they commanded secret funds to avoid scrutiny. In August 1978 he was sent to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, as commander of the Armament Division, Air Force Systems Command. In June 1981 he became vice commander, Air Force Systems Command, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland and was promoted to lieutenant general.

Death
On 26 April 1984 Bond was about to retire, and made a farewell visit to the 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron (the "Red Eagles") at the Tonopah Test Range. On a previous visit to Tonopah he had flown the secret YF-117A prototype. The 4477th clandestinely operated Soviet aircraft in the aggressor role to allow American pilots to develop and practice tactics against them. The MiG-23 BN fighter-bomber had probably been obtained from Egypt in mid-1977 along with 12 of the MS interceptor variant, as part of a deal with President Anwar Sadat. The MiG-23 was known as YF-113 in US service and was part of a collection of Soviet-built aircraft that the 4477th flew, along with a greater number of MiG-21s. Bond insisted on flying the jet after a cursory briefing over the cockpit rail, even though the MiG-23 was considered difficult to fly and pilots usually received several hours of ground instruction before flying it. On his second high-speed run, he was flying at 40,000 feet and over Mach 2, leaving the T-38 chase plane that was flying with him far behind, when a hydro-mechanical inhibitor activated, preventing him from disengaging the afterburner. It was designed to avoid sudden shut-downs at high speed that could damage the Tumansky R-29 engine, or even cause it to explode and destroy the aircraft. The recognized way to recover control would have been to pull the nose up, lose some speed, and wait for the inhibitor to release. At such speeds with the wings fully swept back to 72° the MiG had very limited pitch authority and was inclined to yaw and roll. Bond lost control, made a distress call ("I gotta get out of here") and was then killed in the ejection, when the slipstream broke his neck and shredded the canopy of his parachute. The aircraft crashed in the desert, diving in at a 60° angle and impacting on Jackass Flats, part of Area 25 that was still contaminated from NERVA nuclear rocket testing years before. Bond's body was discovered by an Air Force sergeant on his way to work, who removed the rank insignia from Bond's flight suit with a pocket knife before going to get help.

Aftermath
The death of a three-star general forced the Air Force to reveal that it was flying Soviet aircraft. There were fears that the publicity caused by the crash would lead to the exposure of the F-117 program, which was still secret at the time and was also based at Tonopah, but this did not happen. The Air Force would not officially confirm or deny that Bond was flying a MiG when he died, but leaked the information to a journalist, Fred Hoffman. The accident investigation was chaired by General Gordon E. Williams. The investigation report was kept secret, but one pilot who had seen it commented unsympathetically: "He should have read the flight manual." The report was required reading for American MiG pilots in years to come. There was some annoyance that Bond had written off an irreplaceable national asset. Work continued to make the KM-1 ejection seat used in the MiG-23 safe and reliable; another USAF pilot had been killed in an unsuccessful ejection from a MiG-23 in 1982. Maintaining the Soviet ejection seats included reverse engineering the pyrotechnic cartridges which fired them, as these had a relatively short shelf life and had to be replaced regularly as the chemicals degraded. Pilots over the age of 45 were not normally supposed to fly solo in fast jets; Bond was 54 at the time of his death. Lieutenant Colonel James Tiley, commander of the Red Eagles, was reassigned in July, though it is a matter of debate whether this was related to Bond's death. Bond was buried in Ashland, Mississippi, and was survived by his wife and four children. A memorial stone to him was placed in the desert where he crashed. Major Thomas E. Drake, an experienced MiG-23 pilot who frequently said "This airplane will kill you today if you let it", once emphasized the importance of good preparation to Colonel James Evans, who was preparing to learn to fly the Soviet types, by referring to "the General Bobby Bond Memorial Checkout: two take-offs, one landing, and a fatal ejection."