Under the radar no more
U.S. Air Force honors Norwalk veteran as low-flying pioneer
NORWALK — As an Air Force pilot participating in war games outside Las Vegas nearly 40 years ago, Howard W. Dixon maneuvered a C-130 cargo plane through canyons, mountains and above the desert floor to evade “enemy” fighter planes.
At the time, pilots were prohibited from flying lower than 500 feet. That didn’t help in avoiding enemy fighters or radar.
“The lower you are, the more difficult it is to see the airplane,” said Dixon, who now lives in Norwalk. “The lower you can go, from our perspective, the better, so they finally allowed us to go to 300 feet and before I left we had done some work at 100 feet.”
In 1981, Dixon envisioned a school that would teach such lowlevel flying skills. He presented his idea to the U.S. Department of Defense at the Pentagon, where it received support. Two years later, the Advanced Airlift Tactics Technical Center (AATTC) opened at Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in St. Joseph, Mo. Dixon was named its first commander.
On Nov. 3, he and his wife, Irene, returned to St. Joseph for the school’s 35th anniversary. The school now enrolls 700 students annually from the Air Force, Marine Corps and other branches as well as pilots from 18 allied nations. Its programs have been expanded from advanced aircrew and tactical flying to munitions-loading and sophisticated intelligence courses, according to a summary of the anniversary event.
Col. Byron Newell, current AATTC commandant, said the flying school is sometimes referred to as “Howard Dixon University.”
“Howard was the first commander and he was the driving force,” said Newell, before explaining the importance of the training. “The low-level flying is important because our job in C-130s was to delivery supplies to troops on the ground, and if you’re in a contested environment where people are shooting at you, the lower you fly the safer you can be. The lower you fly, the more you can use terrain for masking.”
Starting in 2019, the AATTC will present The Dixon Award annually to an individual or group of individuals who demonstrate the innovative, forward thinking by taking risks, according to the summary of the anniversary event.
Dixon’s road to the Air Force began at home. He was born in San Angelo, Texas, during World War II. His father was an Air Force flight engineer who flew B-29 bombers during World War II and the Korean War, and KC-97 transports during the Vietnam War.
The younger Dixon spent his early years in Tampa, Fla., where his father was stationed at MacDill Air Force Base, and later Bossier City, La., after his father was transferred to Barksdale Airforce Base. After college, Dixon worked as a middle school teacher before joining the Air Force in 1966.
Dixon attended pilot training at Webb Air Force Base in Big Spring, Texas. His first assignment was as an intelligence officer, and later safety officer, flying training instructor and director of operations, according to his biography.
At the time, the Vietnam War was under way, and Dixon came close to being sent to Southeast Asia.
“I actually graduated in 1969 from pilot training, and the last airplane from our unit went to Vietnam just was I was walking in the front door,” Dixon said. “Vietnam was still going on but they sent our unit to Europe instead.”
Dixon retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1988 and went on to pilot Boeing 747s to Europe, Africa and other destinations for various commercial airlines. While those journeys took him 35,000 feet above the earth, some of his fondest memories are of flying close to the ground at Rosecrans Air National Guard Base in Missouri.
“It’s a fantastic feeling to go back and watch what they’re doing today,” Dixon said of returning to the flying school for its 35th anniversary. “The award really got to me.”