00:00:00JONES: Okay, today is April 15, 2025. This is an interview conducted in person at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison, Wisconsin. The interview is with Cynthia Joy Hubbard. Is it okay if I call you Cyndy?
00:00:26HUBBARD: Yes, please.
00:00:28JONES: The interviewer is Raleigh Jones, and the interview is being recorded for the Wisconsin Veterans Museum Oral History Project. Cyndy, tell us about your early years.
00:00:43HUBBARD: I grew up in, I was born and raised in Viroqua, Wisconsin, and my father was in the B-17 a turret gunner. He trained for it. He never went overseas, but because of that he was interested in flying, and that probably had something to do with my interest. When I was a senior in high school, he was learning how to fly, getting his private license. He encouraged me to do it, and I said, I'm not interested, I'm too busy with other things. And, uh -- Then I went to college to get a music ed degree. I knew I didn't want to be a teacher, but I loved music, and I thought that maybe I could do something with music. And my father, for Christmas in 1990, no, no, 1978, for a Christmas gift, gave me, paid for three flying lessons for me. And so after he did that, I thought, well, I should probably go to ground school. So I went to ground school, I was going to the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis campus. I went to ground school and I was doing my student teaching, which I didn't like at all. Not because of the kids, because I just didn't like it. And I got a letter from the Air Force telling all the wonderful opportunities there were for college graduates. And they had a postcard they wanted you to return. And on one list, they had this really long list of things men could do. First thing was pilot. Then they had the short little list of things women could do, this was 1979. First thing was nurse. And I was thinking, you know, if I went in the Air Force, I'd want to be a pilot. So the postcard stayed on my desk for a while. I'd almost throw it away, and then I quite wouldn't. Finally, one day I said, I'm just going to fill it out. So I wrote, pilot, under the woman's list, made a little box and checked it, sent it in, and thought, ah, I'll never hear from them again. But at least they'll know there are women out there who'd like to be pilots in the air force. And much to my surprise, I got a recall, a call from the recruiter saying, guess what, Cyndy? Women can be pilots in the Air Force now. Come and talk to me. So I did. And I went through the whole process. And I'm really glad I did. I was first selected to get into navigator training, which was fine.
00:02:59JONES: Let me stop right there. For purposes of context, had you graduated from college at this point?
00:03:07HUBBARD: Uh -- I graduated after I had the meeting with a recruiter because I was still up in Minneapolis.
00:03:14JONES: So essentially, you knew when you were going to graduate that you would go from there into the Air Force.
00:03:23HUBBARD: I knew I had applied, but I hadn't heard anything. I started the application process, but you have to do paperwork, written tests, and then you have go to Grand Forks for a physical, and all that happened after graduation.
00:03:34JONES: Okay, got it. Go ahead.
00:03:35HUBBARD: So we're now in 1979, and we're in the fall. I was working on my private pilot's license, and I got a call from the Air Force saying that you've been selected for navigator training. I said, great. And you go to officer training school. So I went in December 4, 1979, started officer training school, and I happened to mention to my flight commander that my plan was to, after navigator training, try to be a pilot. He said, oh, try to get transferred right now before you even start navigator training. And it was wonderful advice because I applied for the pilot training and I got in when I was still in OTS. So that was good. And when I graduated from OTS, then I went to. Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi for pilot training.
00:04:23JONES: Okay, let me let me back up.
00:04:24HUBBARD: Am I talking too fast?
00:04:27JONES: I'm going to slow you down. Just so I'm clear, the first type of school you were in was navigator school, no?
00:04:37HUBBARD: Officer Training School. I went to Officer Training School, which you have to do first to get your commission [as a second lieutenant].
00:04:44JONES: And and where was that?
00:04:46HUBBARD: Yeah, see, I'm going too fast, yeah. Medina Annex, Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
00:04:59JONES: Okay, and then how long were you in San Antonio?
00:05:01HUBBARD: That's twelve weeks at that time.
00:05:04JONES: Got it. Okay, and so OTS was twelve weeks, and then what happened next?
00:05:14HUBBARD: Then I got it switched to pilot training, like I said, and I went to Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. And Holly Wong and I were the first two women to go through pilot training at Columbus. So. We felt like we got stared at a lot, walking around base. And there was a woman there, an instructor IP named Mary Livingston, who had been in the first class of women to go through Air Force pilot training, which was in 1976 through '77. But she was only there about a month and then she was transferred somewhere else. But we got to meet her.
00:05:54JONES: How many total people in your training class in Mississippi?
00:05:58HUBBARD: I don't know anymore.
00:06:00JONES: Dozens?
00:06:01HUBBARD: Thirty, thirty-some. We were divided into two flights, and Holly and I were in one flight and then we had three Saudis. We're in the other flight. They purposely did not put the women and the Saudis in the same flight. That would have been awkward for the Saudis, I think. I was going to show you a patch. This was the -- we were class 81-04, and this was our patch. And we had the T-37 up there in the left, and then the T-38. These are the two airplanes we flew during pilot training. And then down here, they have a symbol of a man, male and female because we were the first class to have women in the class. And then this is for the Saudis, the palm tree, first class to have Saudis in with the Americans going through pilot training, so. And I think this stands for as none before or something like that.
00:07:00JONES: How long was your training at Columbus, Mississippi?
00:07:03HUBBARD: It's almost a year. It started April 1980, I guess, yeah, and then we graduated March 18, 1981, almost a year.
00:07:18JONES: So you graduated in '81.
00:07:20HUBBARD: Yeah.
00:07:22JONES: And let's talk a little bit about the training that you had. At this point, what was your rank at this point?
00:07:34HUBBARD: Second lieutenant.
00:07:37JONES: And were you a second lieutenant when you graduated?
00:07:41HUBBARD: Yeah. It's a two-years, two years then you're up for first lieutenant and then another two years you're up for captain. And then after that major is a little longer. Not everybody makes major.
00:07:54JONES: Okay, now, so in your one year of training, let's delve into that a little bit. What kind of planes were you flying?
00:08:08HUBBARD: T-37. It's a side-by-side trainer. And then the T-38, which was a tandem where the instructor sat in the back seat. And that was exciting. That's what the Thunderbirds used to fly. You put your arms out on each side if you had the canopy up and you could touch the outside of each side of the airplane. That was just so cool.
00:08:36JONES: Um.
00:08:39HUBBARD: Did formation flying, two-ship and four-ship.
00:08:41JONES: Now, at the time it was, so for this entire year that you were in training school in Mississippi, it was just you and one other woman.
00:08:50HUBBARD: Yeah.
00:08:51JONES: Everybody else was male.
00:08:52HUBBARD: Ah. Six weeks after us, another class started and there was a one woman in that class. And six weeks after that another class started and that was the first women to go through Air Force Academy in 1976. They graduated in 1980, so I think there were two women from, at least two women from that, but they were like twelve weeks behind us. And Dean Paul Martin came too. Dean Martin's son, he was there about six months after, he went through pilot training there.
00:09:34JONES: So he was in your class?
00:09:36HUBBARD: No, he was six months behind me.
00:09:39JONES: Um -- Postscript about him. I assume that you knew that he had an accident in his plane.
00:09:49HUBBARD: Yeah, died in an F-4, yeah, a long time ago, yeah it was sad.
00:09:58JONES: Okay. Um. What other--tell us some other things about the training process in Columbus.
00:10:14HUBBARD: I remember thinking it was some of the highest points of my life and some of the lowest points of your life, and you had to work really hard. You felt, I felt, I think all women, or first, anybody who's first to do anything feels a tremendous responsibility to the people who will come after you, can come after you if you succeed, if you do a good job. So I felt a tremendous responsibility to those women. And I think Holly and I did a good job. Think we--.
00:10:52JONES: Uh. Tell me about some of the lows.
00:10:55HUBBARD: Yeah, well, when you don't pass a checkride. And it's like, everybody doesn't. I think they almost do that just to humble you [laughs]. But that's a low, or when you--if you're scared. You know, people get scared, too. We had this poor captain who was in our class. He was the most senior person in our class, because most of us were second lieutenants. And he was a captain. And he got to the point where every time he even got in the van to go to the airplane, he'd start throwing up. He got sick doing the stalls and acro and stuff. But I didn't get sick, but I just bring up that you want it so bad. I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well. Lows.
00:11:44JONES: Um -- What about your male classmates? Okay, I assume there was hazing.
00:11:54HUBBARD: Um. I think what happened. No most of all, most of them were very nice. In fact,I love to bake cookies, I always have, so I would bake cookies for the guys, and guys in their early 20s, they'll eat a dozen cookies and not think about it. My name being Hubbard, I was called Mother Hubbard or Mom sometimes, so no I think overall, we got along well in my class. Starting off when they did the publicity on Holly and I that set us off in the wrong track with the guys because they said, well nobody took our picture or interviewed us, but I think I think we they realized we were okay. We could do the job
00:12:47JONES: I assume that was really the Air Force that was responsible for that publicity as opposed to you and the other person.
00:12:57HUBBARD: Oh, no, no. We would have never done it.
00:13:02JONES: Um. Give us some examples of the publicity that was associated with you and the training in Mississippi.
00:13:17HUBBARD: Well, it was just before we started. They had newspaper articles, we had newspaper articles written in the city newspaper and in the base newspaper and we did a, I think we were on the TV interview or radio interview, but I think it was TV interview because the T-37 room when Holly and I first got there had a lot of pornography underneath, they had glass, the table tops had glass on top so you could slide under things, slide things underneath the glass like maps, you know, things for checklists. But they also had naked women. I noticed that those weren't there when Holly and I started. But they said, oh, it wasn't because of you. It was because of another pilot, didn't like it, so.
00:14:06JONES: Um, had any of the people who were going through training with you uh -- were any of them uh --Air Force Academy grads?
00:14:25HUBBARD: No, that was the 1980s, so the two classes behind us. You mean the women?
00:14:32JONES: Well I just meant uh -- .
00:14:33HUBBARD: In general?
00:14:34JONES: In general.
00:14:35HUBBARD: Oh, probably. I can't remember.
00:14:40JONES: And had some of your classmates gone through ROTC [Reserve Officers' Training Corps]?
00:14:43HUBBARD: Yes, yeah.
00:14:45JONES: Okay. But had you, do you have any ROTCs in your background?
00:14:50HUBBARD: No, I never thought about doing such a thing.
00:14:52JONES: Okay.
00:14:56HUBBARD: Really, it was that Air Force letter from the recruiter.
00:15:02JONES: And that was what sent you down the path.
00:15:04HUBBARD: Yeah, sending in that postcard. I'm so glad I sent it back in. Yeah.
00:15:10JONES: Okay, so have we covered Columbus to your satisfaction and the experiences that you had there?
00:15:21HUBBARD: Something that, well, this reflected on all the places I was, the lack of women's restrooms.
00:15:26JONES: Okay, let's talk about that.
00:15:27HUBBARD: Because--there were buildings that had never had women. They'd clean 'em, probably, but they never were doing any classes or training in them. So I remember OTS, the bathroom we had to scrub, had latrines, I mean, it had urinals in it because it had been a men's restroom. But at least we had a restroom. At Columbus, there was one of the buildings, we didn't do a lot of training in there, but one of buildings didn't have a women's restroom, just had a men restroom, which I thought was interesting. And then when I was in C-5s, I remember, well, even in pilot training, we'd go to a place and it would take so much time to find the woman's restroom that finally we got, so the IP, the instructor pilot, he'd say, I'll clear out the men's room. You use it. I'll guard it. So we'd start doing that. And then Ramstein [Base Ops], I remembered air base in Germany, I said, well I'm going to find the women's restroom. There's got to be one. As I recall, it was on the fourth floor. And so I had to go up the stairs and then I got there and it had been turned into a janitor's closet because nobody, I'm sure all this has changed, but that's what it was like at first. And the flight suits were, they were slowly downsizing them so they would fit women better, but it all took time.
00:16:45JONES: Okay, so at the end of training in Mississippi, this is about 1981?
00:16:55HUBBARD: Mm-hmm. March.
00:16:57JONES: And so at that training and graduation, what happened next?
00:17:04HUBBARD: Survival training. There was--. It wasn't even called basic survival training. We had to go to Fairchild Air Force Base, and I should have looked this stuff up in Washington State. You go out with a group of people, and you pretend that you had to parachute out of the airplane. And all you have is your parachute. And you have a sleeping bag and stuff, but you have to, you know, you learn survival skills. We did that.
00:17:36JONES: How long was that?
00:17:37HUBBARD: It seemed like forever, but it probably wasn't that long. I don't know. I don' know, was it a week we were out there?
00:17:43JONES: Okay.
00:17:44HUBBARD: But it was March, and I remember it snowed, hailed, and rained when I was out there. And it was right, I was in the training when Reagan got shot. I remember that's where I was. And then after you did the survival training, then they put you into POW [prisoner of war] training. And it a mock POW camp. That was interesting, too, they put you in the—it was based on the experiences of Hanoi Hilton.
00:18:12JONES: And how long was this POW training?
00:18:14HUBBARD: Again, I don't know, it just seemed like forever. But at the end they have the Americans come and rescue you and they take their flag down and the U.S. flag goes up and oh, I mean, it was very touching. It was quite an experience.
00:18:28JONES: Um. Pivoting back to the survival training, when you were telling your story about that, I remembered an incident that happened during the Serbian War, where as I recall a pilot was shot down. I think it was an American pilot. And the survival training came into play because he was rescued but he had--. It was touch and go in the sense that he thought that the enemy would get him before the Americans did.
00:19:14HUBBARD: Oh yeah, yeah. Escape and evade, E and E, I think they call it.
00:19:21JONES: Okay, so after POW training, then what?
00:19:27HUBBARD: Then I went to, I didn't talk about when you, before you graduated from pilot training, you fill out a dream sheet they call it, the plane that you would like to fly, and your priority of which plane first. And I'd put the T-43, and I was real lucky I got my first choice, the T-43, which is out at Mather, Sacramento, California. T-43 is a Boeing 737-200 that they used to use to train navigators, which we don't. have anymore.
00:19:56JONES: Okay, and what is the name of the camp in the Air Force Base in California?
00:20:00HUBBARD: Mather Air Force base.
00:20:02JONES: Macer?
00:20:03HUBBARD: Mather, M-A-T-H-E-R.
00:20:05JONES: Okay. I thought it was pronounced math-er.
00:20:09HUBBARD: We always pronounce it Mather out there.
00:20:20JONES: I remember reading about the T-43s and I thought it was fascinating because why don't you tell our listeners what the plane was? What is a T- 43?
00:20:34HUBBARD: They'd taken out all the seats in the back, and they configured it for navigators. So they had twelve stations for, you know, twelve different navigators.
00:20:43JONES: But it's--but again, this is a reconfigured 737. Okay, go ahead.
00:20:51HUBBARD: So they had twelve stations, and then they had five sextant ports so that they could actually shoot. You know, we were used to celestial navigation. They actually practiced using a sextant and shooting. And so it was interesting to have the students back there doing that, especially since I almost ended up doing it myself.
00:21:14JONES: Okay, so let me interrupt. At this point, you were flying the T-47.
00:21:22HUBBARD: Mm-hmm. T-43
00:21:22JONES: T-43, and as you indicated there were places on the plane for essentially like twelve students and then there were --
00:21:37HUBBARD: And instructors.
00:21:38JONES: And an instructor for each student.
00:21:41HUBBARD: As I recall, yeah.
00:21:42JONES: Okay, so 12 instructors. And when you would take the plane up, you would have at least the twenty-four people on the plane.
00:21:52HUBBARD: I'm thinking they each had an instructor, but I could be wrong. I mean, there was plenty of room. And we would do Overland Northeast or Overland Northwest, Overland Southeast, or we do low levels, so different standard flights. So I have a certificate that says I did 100 Overland Northeasts [laughs].
00:22:14JONES: Okay, so what does that mean?
00:22:16HUBBARD: It's just a route. It took, went from Mather to somewhere in North Dakota and turned around and came back. And it was they were just you know navigating. They would give us take turns telling us where to turn and stuff like that
00:22:29JONES: Okay, now, on the T-43 -- Let's talk a little bit about the crew. I assume there was both a pilot and a co-pilot.
00:22:44HUBBARD: Mm-hmm.
00:22:45JONES: And what about other people?
00:22:47HUBBARD: Crew chief would sometimes fly with us.
00:22:53JONES: And did you, were you always the pilot or did you take your turn as the co-pilot?
00:22:58HUBBARD: You start out as a co-pilot, you go through training, and we would train with Western Airline, oh no, it was Piedmont Airline when I first started, because they had the 737 simulators and the Air Force did not, so we'd go to Raleigh-Durham, I guess it was, for simulator training. And then later it was Western Airlines out in L.A. [Los Angeles] that we'd go through the simulator training with. And then we did that annually. And I think you had to get so many hours and then you'd transfer to the left seat. You'd have to go through aircraft commander upgrade. And I can't remember if we had first pilots, too. Co-pilot, first pilot, and aircraft commanders. So you could sit, co-pilots could only sit in the right seat. The first pilots could sit in either seat, but they weren't in command. And then the aircraft commander could sit either seat but they usually sat in the [left] seat.
00:23:55JONES: How long were you the co-pilot?
00:24:00HUBBARD: I don't know.
00:24:01JONES: Was it a relatively long period?
00:24:04HUBBARD: I don't know, I should have brought my log book, I'm sorry.
00:24:08JONES: But I'm going from memory here, but as I recall, you were at Mather for about two years?
00:24:14HUBBARD: Three years.
00:24:19HUBBARD: And I ended up an instructor.
00:24:21JONES: Okay, [inaudible].
00:24:23HUBBARD: One of the fun things we did that I didn't mention was when they did—T-43s had to have some major—every once in a while airplanes have to go through major inspections. Once they go through, they really take them apart and put them back together, and then you have to do a test flight to make sure that everything's operating okay. And I got to--I forget what the title was, but I got to be one of those pilots. You'd go down to L.A. And you'd pick up a T-43 at Western Airlines, and and then you'd run it through a series of tests on your way back. So that was pretty cool being at LAX, you know, you felt like you were in the big time.
00:25:00JONES: Um, after you became an instructor, did that mean that instead of being in the front of the plane, you were back?
00:25:08HUBBARD: Oh no, I was the pilot.
00:25:10JONES: Okay.
00:25:11HUBBARD: When you had, the pilots are constantly having to go through you know training flights and things like that that's what that was about
00:25:19JONES: So at this point you are teaching other--um--.
00:25:24HUBBARD: Pilots.
00:25:25JONES: Other pilots. Okay. How long did that process take?
00:25:36HUBBARD: I'm sorry. It's--.
00:25:37JONES: Okay.
00:25:42HUBBARD: Too long ago.
00:25:50JONES: Let's talk a little bit about your life during the three years at Mather, highs and lows.
00:26:02HUBBARD: Um. Well, of course in retrospect, but no, it was good. My sister graduated from the University of Minnesota, like that's where I went also, and came out to California and lived with me in Sacramento. And then she decided to go to law school, so she went to law school in Sacramento. My brother eventually, my sister then was at, can't think of the before law school, but she went to [McGeorge School of Law]-- she was living in the dorms there, and then my brother, well, he took a break. Back before they called it the gap year, he just took a break from college and came out and lived with me. Everybody, you know, growing up here, it was just a dream to be in California. It just sounded like the best thing in the world, you know, had to drive down to LA, all that stuff.
00:26:55JONES: So while you were there, both at different times, both your brother and your sister lived with you.
00:27:02HUBBARD: Yeah, yeah they did. I had an apartment in Rancho Cordova, which is where Mather is officially, but it's a suburb of Sacramento, so call it Rancho Cordova.
00:27:25JONES: Okay, anything else about the Mather years that's on your list there that you'd like to cover?
00:27:31HUBBARD: Vicki Crawford was captain. She had been also in the first class of women to go through Air Force pilot training along with Mary Livingston, which I mentioned earlier. So that was nice to meet a woman that had been the first class in '76th through '77. And she and I then were the first T-43 all-female pilot crew. I used to go to a lot of static displays, you know, where you go to air shows and you just sit in the airplane. Because I was single and I'd never been to all these places, so I just, and the guys that were married it was hard for them to get away, but I could just go. So I would just go to all the static displays all around the country. It was a lot fun. And I also would go speak at they liked Air Force people to speak at middle schools or to different places, and I would do things like that. I think it helped because I had an education degree. I was used to being in front of people. So one California middle school actually named me an honorary teacher. They did a ceremony and everything. I have a plaque.
00:28:40JONES: So, during your time in Mather, I take it that in essence you were assisting the Air Force in various PR [public relations] endeavors.
00:28:50HUBBARD: Well, you could say that, yeah, I mean, I enjoyed it.
00:28:54JONES: Is this something that happened, say, once a week?
00:28:57HUBBARD: No, no, not that often, I don't think. And you'd hand out pens and swag, we didn't call it swag back then, but I remember having pens to give out. I must have had other things, pamphlets for sure, brochures but--.
00:29:15JONES: Okay, anything else on your sheet about the Mather years that we have not covered?
00:29:20HUBBARD: Oh, I know, something, when I was at Mather. The WASPs [Women Airforce Service Pilots], you know, the women that had flown World War II, they had luncheons where they would get the women who were stationed at Mather get us together with some of the women that were still in the Sacramento area. And that was the neatest experience. It was like the, we were just so impressed with those women and they were so thrilled that women were now a part of the active duty Air Force. It was a mutual admiration society, I always said. And I wish I had photos of that. I bet if I looked in back at some old, if I could find old Columbus Air Force base newspapers [meant to say Mather AFB newspapers], they would have photos of that 'cause that was just one of the neatest experiences. Yeah, they were just so genuinely happy for us, and we were so thrilled that they had done what they had done.
00:30:23JONES: So. In the eyes of those women, you were trailblazers and conversely you viewed--.
00:30:31HUBBARD: Oh yeah.
00:30:32JONES: The WACs [Women's Army Corps] as trailblazers also.
00:30:35HUBBARD: Yeah, WASPs--Women Airforce Service Pilots.
00:30:41JONES: What was the acronym WACS?
00:30:44HUBBARD: W-A-S-P.
00:30:47JONES: WASP.
00:30:48HUBBARD: Mm-hmm.
00:30:49JONES: Okay.
00:30:50HUBBARD: Because they had shown that women could do that job. And they were treated poorly, you know, at the end, they were just, all of a sudden, they were cut off. They finally got veteran status years later. But yeah, so it was gratifying to them to see us doing this.
00:31:14JONES: Anything else about that time period before we move on?
00:31:19HUBBARD: I don't think so.
00:31:20JONES: Okay. Uh, so what happened next in the military?
00:31:24HUBBARD: Oh, then we did another dream sheet, 'cause there's three years, and then you move on, typically. So, I put, I wanted to go overseas. I wanted be stationed in Germany, or mostly England, or Europe. So I put that. I even put the Philippines, which I was just because I wanted go overseas, but then one of my other choices of stateside was C-5, or C-141. And, uh -- I got my, I was awarded C-5 at Travis, which was good because that--.
00:31:57JONES: Okay, so let me stop you. So even though you wanted to go overseas at that point, that did not happen.
00:32:05HUBBARD: Right.
00:32:06JONES: Instead, you were assigned to the C-5 here within the U.S. Let me get this done.
00:32:18HUBBARD: But you end up flying all over the world in a C-5 anyway.
00:32:20JONES: Right. We'll get to that.
00:32:22HUBBARD: So that doesn't matter.
00:32:29JONES: Okay, and so you had put down on the sheet that you wanted to fly the C-5?
00:32:40HUBBARD: Mm-hmm.
00:32:41JONES: Okay, so in essence that's the assignment you were given next, correct?
00:32:44HUBBARD: Mm-hmm.
00:32:45JONES: Let's talk about that.
00:32:47HUBBARD: So that was in 1984, and I started, I think it was June, I think I've got the date. No, it was before then. You probably have the date there somewhere when I started. It was early 1984. Went to Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma, and it ended up that no women had flown the C-5 yet. So I got to be the first woman to do that. And as I said, you feel a tremendous responsibility to the women who will be able to come after you if you do a good job.
00:33:19JONES: Okay, let's, let's back up.
00:33:22HUBBARD: Okedoke,
00:33:23JONES: If you had gotten, if you had gone overseas, what would you have flown over there?
00:33:33HUBBARD: C-9, was the one I remember.
00:33:37JONES: And uh -- but you also put down uh -- that you want to fly the C-5 okay and you ultimately got your wish. Tell us what intrigued you about flying the C-5.
00:33:51HUBBARD: It was just MAC [Military Airlift Command]. I wanted to fly all over the world, I guess, a 141 or a C-5. Not sure why I put the C-5 ahead of the 141. I think I did. I'd have to look at the sheet to see for sure.
00:34:18JONES: When, can you go into a little more depth about the C-5 in the sense that our audience doesn't know what the C-5 is, okay? Could you tell them what it is?
00:34:36HUBBARD: At that time, it was the largest airplane in the world and flew all over the world, like I said. It had upstairs and a downstairs. The cargo compartment was huge. It was the only airplane that could hold an M-1 tank, I believe, or could carry one anyway. The tail compartment was the same size as the cargo compartment of a C-130, as I recall. I think the cockpit sits sits about 30 feet high, I think that's what they used to say. The front of the airplane opens up, the nose opens up the back opens up and then the airplane can kneel, even kneel or it can forward kneel and aft kneel. So if you even kneel you could drive stuff in the front while you're taking stuff out the back. So that was one of the things that they could quickly download and upload stuff if they needed to. Had a crew of at least two pilots and typically it'd be like ten people I think, but I think the minimum was like seven, five, because you'd have to have a crew chief. You had to have load masters, like I said, flight engineers. The upstairs has bunk rooms aft of the cockpit, one for the enlisted, one for the officers. There's a little sitting area in the back. And then way in the back, there's another set of stairs that takes you up to the passenger compartment, which you can't get in the front of the airplane. You cannot get to the passenger compartment because there's some HVAC or stuff in the middle there. It was big, 700-some thousand pounds at that time and now it's up to 800-some thousand I think and then once in the air you could be refueled and weigh more than that. Is that the kind of thing you're looking for?
00:36:37JONES: Yeah, I -- I was just flabbergasted at the size of the C-5. What I wrote down in my notes is that somebody described it as, quote, it's as long as a football field and as tall as a six-story building [The tail is that tall.], end quote. Another quote was that the cargo compartment is comparable to an eight-lane bowling alley. So now when you first went into a C-5, were you a co-pilot initially?
00:37:17HUBBARD: Uh-huh.
00:37:18JONES: Okay, and how long were you a co-pilot?
00:37:22HUBBARD: I never looked up those kind of questions. Sorry. It's the same thing. You were co-pilot for a while and then you were first pilot, and then aircraft commander.
00:37:30JONES: Okay. So let's talk about the first time you were the pilot, okay? This was, let's set the stage here, as I recall, this was June of 1984, okay. And for purposes of context, a woman had never flown a C-5 before that. What had to happen in the hierarchy of the organization for that to happen?
00:38:04HUBBARD: I don't know that. I don' know.
00:38:07JONES: But presumably one of your supervisors made the decision that Hubbard is going to--.
00:38:17HUBBARD: Oh.
00:38:18JONES: Break this.
00:38:19HUBBARD: It may have been that nobody else, it may have just been timing. I don't think it was because they looked at all the women pilots in the Air Force and said, oh, Cyndy's the one. No, I don't think that was it at all. I don't think that it was it, no. No, no, I can't take that, you know. It's just timing, I think. A lot of stuff like that is timing. You're at the right place at the wrong time, or the wrong place at wrong time. But I can say some of the things that they were concerned about, as I recall, with a woman flying a C-5. Would they be able to counter yaw if you lost an engine, you know, because you have to put in the rudder? Or on the ground, would they be be able hold the brakes well enough to do a static takeoff, where you run the engines up first and then you release them? Because typically you don't do that. You'd have to be able to do 180-degree turns on a narrow runway, and you had to really wind that nose wheel around, you know, use the steering wheel. They were concerned about that. Could they handle a crew that large? You know, things like that, so.
00:39:27JONES: Um -- so before it happened, meaning before you were the first woman to pilot a C-5, did you get pushback from any of your male counterparts?
00:39:45HUBBARD: Mm-mm. Mm-mm. And Altus did not do any publicity at all on it, which at the time I was very grateful for because of what had happened at pilot training, you know. And actually T-43s they did some publicity too, I remember, and yeah, it's just better when they don't as far as getting along with your fellow pilots. But it ended up not being good because then somebody else is getting credit for being the first woman C-5 pilot. But what I was going to say, I did want to say that you asked me about June 1984. I remember that first we did the simulator training, ground school, then the simulator training, and then we were going to do our first flight. And I remember in Altus they just, all the C-5s were lined up. I remember going out there the evening before the first flight, just standing there looking at one of the airplanes and just saying, it may sound goofy, but I remember saying, "It's you and me tomorrow, you know, we're going to get along just fine." I just had to stand there and look at the airplane a while.
00:40:48JONES: I would think it would be an overwhelming experience because a human against a C-5 is such a small, small thing. It's an equivalent to being up in a tall building and looking down at people where we say they look like ants.
00:41:08HUBBARD: Yeah, well not quite that much, but yeah, but it's very it's hydraulic so it flies nicely, you know The hardest thing about a C-5 the most difficult thing was taxiing. This is so big you didn't want to hit anything really That was the big thing. But yeah, I just remember looking at those airplanes thinking, yep.
00:41:28JONES: So, after that first run, then it just, I assume that you were flying them all the time.
00:41:41HUBBARD: Yeah, yeah. I did want to mention the first, that morning then when I got the alert call, 'cause you get the alert call when you're supposed to report. And I got a phone call, which I was expecting, of course, you know, hello, is this Captain Hubbard? Yes, this, this is Captain Hubbard. No, I speak, I need to speak to Captain Hubbard. This is Captain Hubbard. No. I need speak to Captain Hubbard, the pilot, this is Captain Hubbard. And then It was like he put the phone down, he's going -- And he came back, um, ma'am, this is your alert call. So the word hadn't gotten out to him either. I thought that was so funny. No, I need to call. Speak to Captain Hubbard the Pilot.
00:42:27JONES: Um, so -- you've got the first flight under your belt and then dozens more follow. How long were you flying C-5s then?
00:42:45HUBBARD: Till 1987. Three years
00:42:46JONES: Okay, so you were flying with them for basically three more years.
00:42:47HUBBARD: Mm-hmm.
00:42:51JONES: Okay? Um and during those three years, tell us where you were flying to.
00:42:58HUBBARD: Oh, we flew everywhere. All over. It's easier to say where we weren't. You know, I'm like, I never went to Israel. I never was in Israel.
00:43:10JONES: Well, just name off some of the countries you went to.
00:43:13HUBBARD: Well Europe, you'd go to Mildenhall in England, Ramstein in Germany, you go to the Azores Lajes on your way depending on the weather if you needed to refuel there. We went to Yokota in Japan, we went to Subic Bay in the Philippines, Clark Air Base in Philippines, Guam, of course, Andersen Air Force Base, Hickam in Hawaii. Elmendorf in Alaska. I did an around-the-world trip where we landed, one of the places we landed was Diego Garcia, which is a little horseshoe-shaped island south of India and the story there is when women first started flying they had to I've heard this is true, lock them up in the hospital just to protect them because there were no women on that island.
00:44:12JONES: I've heard stories from other veterans who were--.
00:44:14HUBBARD: Oh, have you heard that?
00:44:15JONES: Saying it who were in Diego Garcia who had similar experiences.
00:44:22HUBBARD: Yeah, so when I was there, women were cleaning by then, they were, I don't know if they were stationed there, but I know there were women on the island, but I still, I did not go back to the dorm, to the q [quarters] alone. I waited for somebody else to walk with me. Cairo, that was interesting, there was dogs, feral dogs running all over the airport, And then I went in to get the weather. And I remember, you know, these people, a guy standing, there was a soldier, he had to go past. And then before I went upstairs, I had to hand them my passport. And they kept it till I came downstairs. And you'd think, oh, geez, you know, what are they doing with that passport? And the weather office looked like something out of a science fiction movie or something. But the weather report, it was interesting. It was all really interesting. I can say that.
00:45:18JONES: Now, when you were making these trips all around the world, presumably you were hauling stuff. Stuff. And tell us some of the things that you were hauling.
00:45:31HUBBARD: Well a lot of the stuff was just basic. It seems like we always had toilet paper and stuff like that. I don't know if that's true, but a lot of equipment. We would do helicopters and we would do, one time we did those little submarines that the Navy uses that Tom Clancy--.
00:45:52JONES: I remember reading about that, I thought that was very interesting to have a submarine--.
00:45:55HUBBARD: Yeah.
00:45:56JONES: On a C-5.
00:45:57HUBBARD: Tom Clancy even had mentioned that the C-5 in one of his books that carried that. And then we had just done it not long after.
00:46:06JONES: And I remember also reading that C-5s can transport helicopters and planes and tanks and in essence the biggest pieces of military equipment that are out there.
00:46:22HUBBARD: The M-1 tank, that was the big one. No, all sorts of things. And when we came back from Ramstein or Mildenhall to Dover, we would sometimes have HR, you know, human remains, because Dover is where they all go. So that wasn't uncommon, and sometimes they were World War II people, they said. So, that was always interesting. I mean it's a box. You couldn't see anything. Some story I was gonna--.
00:46:56JONES: When you transported human remains, were those, did you take those to Delaware?
00:47:03HUBBARD: Dover, yeah.
00:47:12JONES: Um, when I have seen pictures of the transportation of the stuff you were describing, I was just so taken as a layperson with the amount of weight involved and to say to myself, holy cow, there must be so much work that goes into determining where that stuff is situated in the plane.
00:47:45HUBBARD: Yeah, to get it loaded properly.
00:47:47JONES: To get it loaded properly.
00:47:49HUBBARD: Load masters have a very important job, that's for sure.
00:47:55JONES: So the loadmaster was simply one of the people on the, they say the ten-person crew.
00:48:01HUBBARD: So there'd be three load masters or three or four. Yeah, because that's pushing those pallets around. I mean, that's a heavy, heavy job.
00:48:13JONES: When you were flying the C-5s. First, I assume you started with C-5A, and then later did you fly the C-5B?
00:48:26HUBBARD: Yeah, they strengthened the wings.
00:48:30JONES: Uh -- any uh -- any stories you want to tell us on the sheet about uh things we have not covered about the C-5.
00:48:42HUBBARD: I wanted to tell a story about transporting President Reagan's stuff for his second debate with Mondale in October of 1984. We went to Andrews Air Force Base, and you just can't imagine the amount of stuff that has to be transported when a president goes somewhere, and it's probably only grown since I did it in 1984, but I wrote down we had Secret Service people. We had two limos, two presidential Marine Huey helicopters, two vans, trucks, Secret Service personnel, like I already said, and we took it from Andrews to Richards-Gebauer Air Base near Kansas City, Missouri. And when we were en route, you could look down, you could see all this stuff, and I asked one of the Secret Service guys if I could go down and look at stuff, and he said, okay, but he had to come with me. So we're walking around and I saw the president's limo and I said can I sit in that? He goes okay, so I opened the door and I'd see I knew where Reagan sat so I slid all the way over to the side there where he sat and there was a little white microphone that was corded back in those days and I remember pulling it up and say looking ahead and saying, "It's about time a woman sat here" and then putting it back down. The Secret Service guys, you know, it's like they can't smile. But I just, and still they haven't all these years later. But then I looked straight ahead in that car, and of course the windshield glass is thick, bulletproof stuff, so that was cool. So that was a fun trip, asking them about the different presidents and stuff like that.
00:50:32JONES: Um. Any more stories about the C-5 that you wanted to tell?
00:50:40HUBBARD: Oh, I think of another one, one time General Brown, which was the 22nd wing or something like that, commander, ordered me to come to his office. So I went in and General Brown said that Shirley Temple Black is going to be getting a ride in a C-5 and I need you to get some uniform for her, everything she's going to need to ride in the plane. I said, okay, sir. So I went and got the stuff, I didn't know what size for sure to get, you know. But I got the stuff, went back, took it to them, and then I said, well, I don't think I talked to him. I think I talk to his aides. But I said well, don't you think that I should be able to fly with her? You know, I'm the only woman flying the C-5. Shirley Temple might get a kick out of that, you know. Oh, we'll see, we will see. But I didn't get to. But later, a few months after that, General Brown, next time he saw me, he said, Shirley Temple said the flight suit you got was too big. Okay. Sorry, Shirley. Oh, I know another one. I'm sorry, am I talking too many stories here? No, we're fine. A couple more C-5 stories. This was in 1986. I was aircraft commander. We were at Sigonella Air Base, which is a Navy base in Sicily near Catania. And we went to a USO [United Service Organizations] show, which I'd never been to before. I thought, you always heard about USO shows. And it ended up Miss USA and some of the other fellow contestants were putting on a show with a guy that was an emcee. I don't know his name, but I saw him on a Love Boat show by the way. Recently I saw, I know that guy. But anyway, we watched the show and then the next morning I went out to the flight line early when the guys were the flight engineers. The flight engineers and the load masters always went out the plane before us to load the plane and do their checks and things. But I went early for some reason. And The cargo compartment, the nose and the back was closed, so it was pitch dark inside. And the sun, I remember, it was a beautiful sunny day. The sun was shining in my eyes. There's one set of stairs that goes up to the plane into the cargo compartment. And then you take like one step, and then there's another set of steps that takes you up to cockpit. So I was walking up the outside stairs. I couldn't see anything inside, because it's pitch black. And just as I stepped into the cargo compartment this woman. Like this. She was coming down the stairs but I couldn't see her. I was nose to nose with Miss USA. She would have seen me coming. She must have thought, oh, she'll move aside from me. I'm Miss USA, but I didn't see her. So I remember thinking as I nose to nose with her, that is the most beautiful complexion I have ever seen in my life. I mean, perfect makeup, perfect everything, you know. But then I said, oh excuse me, and I stepped into the cargo compartment on the side and then she just smiled, I guess, and went on down. I can't remember, we didn't talk or anything, so. So then I went inside up to the cockpit, and a flight engineer was probably having the thrill of his life because it was two or three Miss USA contestants were there sitting in chairs listening to him talk about the C-5. And I just had a question for him. I didn't mean to stop it, but I just, you know, excuse me, but you know I need to ask him a question. And it was like they thought, well, this is our chance to leave. And so the three of them got up and left, and I'm sure he wanted to shoot me, because you know, that was the thrill of his life. And then, just when I was putting together the thing that I sent you about the history of the 22nd Military Airlift Squadron, I was wondering Miss USA, I wonder what her name was. I'm thinking she was Miss Texas, but so I Googled it, and it had, she was indeed Miss Texas before becoming Miss USA. And then it said, the first runner up was Miss Ohio, Halle Berry. I said, what? I met Halle Barry? Because I think she was one of the women up in that cockpit. So, but back then, you know, you didn't take, well, I didn't know Halle Berry anyway, but you just didn't pictures all the time. I just don't have that many pictures of inside the airplane. It's funny. But anyway, yeah, so 1986.
00:55:21JONES: I wanted to get that story for sure.
00:55:26HUBBARD: I can think of, let's see, a couple more, if you've got time. The broken plane at Clark Air Force Base, Clark Air Base, the Philippines. We were supposed to get home for Christmas. My parents were at my house in Sacramento, my brother and sister, and we had a broken airplane, which is not unusual with the C-5, especially in the Philippines, it seemed to always break at Clark. But anyway, we were sitting there December 25th, so I have a picture of the crew. Some of us in the crew anyway, kneeling in front of the C-5 and it says, you know, Merry Xmas 1985, no 1986. But it ended up that the Air Force does try to get you home and I don't know if we ended up deadheading. They gave us another C-5, if they fixed that one, I can't remember. But we ended up getting home, because you cross the international date line, so you're going back to -- so it was December 25th for many, many, hours for me that year. But I got to be home with my -- or Sacramento anyway, with my family for Christmas. So the longest Christmas of my life.
00:56:36JONES: Another good story. The breakdown at Clark was kind of part of a bigger picture, was it not, in the sense that the C-5 had a reputation. Why don't you tell us about that?
00:56:57HUBBARD: Hydraulic leaks. It's a lot of problems with hydraulic leaks. The crew liked the Philippines because of, you know, things, the women in the Philippines, and so we did tend to break at Clark. And other bases too, but that was one of the bases we tended to break at.
00:57:24JONES: Tell us about some of the other problems that pilots encountered with the C-5.
00:57:30HUBBARD: The big thing is there's something I wrote about because the big thing I think of is hydraulic leaks.
00:57:36JONES: Okay, I don't remember the specifics. I just remember that from the Pentagon's perspective, there were, the C-5 was just considered a kind of a problem child.
00:57:52HUBBARD: They still fly 'em though.
00:57:53JONES: I know, they've been a workhorse. My research indicated that they go back to 1968, and there have been roughly 125 C-5s.
00:58:08HUBBARD: Oh, really.
00:58:09JONES: Approximately. But you spent a significant amount of time in them. I remember that you got a certificate. Tell us about that for.
00:58:24HUBBARD: Thousand hours.
00:58:25JONES: A thousand hours. Tell our audience what that involves.
00:58:31HUBBARD: A lot of sorties, a lot of flying. Yeah, but I'm probably compared to guys that went into the Reserve and it probably is small. I don't know how many total hours I got, I didn't look that up.
00:58:46JONES: You're a member basically of a thousand-hour club.
00:58:50HUBBARD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure the guys had two, three thousand, I don't know.
00:58:58JONES: Well, to me as a layperson, I mean it's a significant threshold. It's analogous to me, as a person, to say a truck driver who's a member of the million-mile club.
00:59:12HUBBARD: Yeah, right, right, right.
00:59:20JONES: Do you have a guesstimate on how many hours you spent, say, in the T-34?
00:59:25HUBBARD: T-43.
00:59:29HUBBARD: These are really good questions, but not the ones I thought to look up. I did not bring my log book, so I can't tell you that.
00:59:40JONES: Um, why don't you check your notes and see if there's anything else on the C-5 that we'd like to get recorded?
00:59:48HUBBARD: Well, I did, I forgot all about these things over here I was supposed to be showin' you.
00:59:55JONES: Why don't you pick them up and just show them, kind of face them toward the camera and describe each one of 'em for the audience.
01:00:09HUBBARD: This is just newspaper articles that were done when I first got selected to go into navigator training. So they say navigator training on them. But one is the Vernon County Broadcaster, which is my local newspaper, from Viroqua, Wisconsin, and then the La Crosse Tribune, which La Crosse is the near larger town near Viroqua. This, when you, I wonder if they still do, oh no, they don't have T-37s anymore. When you soloed, first soloed in a T-37, you used to get dunked in the dunk tank, they call it. And I don't remember what the story is of why they do it, but I have the picture of me being drug through the mud here by the guys before they dumped me in. And then you can see me as I go in and then as I'm getting out. And then this is me soloing in a T-38. Must have been a formation flight, but there would have been two of us, another airplane, to take the picture, obviously. This is what we call the hero shot. Here, everybody had to have their hero shot, and this is doing the middle school when I was in T-43s, talking to one of the schools. And I don't know, is the reflection bad, since it's still in the [protective sheet]?
01:01:28JONES: I can still see it.
01:01:29HUBBARD: This is the my T-38 flight. The T-38, our class was divided into two flights, as I said earlier. So this is my flight. So it gives you an idea how many were, if you double that, that would be how many we're in my class about. But everybody signed it. It's kinda cool. I'm here, and then Holly, the other woman, is hiding back up here. You can barely see her up there. That's that one. This is a program that was made for the graduation from pilot training. And everybody's hero shot, everybody had to have that and a little story about you. And I did want to mention that they did a typo on me, which I'd forgotten about until today when I was showing it. It's a--. Here's my hero shot. They had a little bit about you and then what airplane you were assigned to. But it said that in high school, Morgan became interested in flying. And there was no Morgan. So that was totally false. Should say Cyndy. That. This must have been an Air Force photo when I went through, was made first lieutenant. I'll cover up the, it's got the Social Security number on the bottom. A photo of Vicki Crawford and I, Vicki Crawford and I when we flew the T-43 together. And then this is my dad and I at Minneapolis Airport, the Air National Guard base there. He came up when I, T-43 was there for some reason and my parents came up to see me, so that was nice. Them. T-43 Squadron. So you can see all the guys. And then I'm right here in the front row. And then when Columbus Air Force Base, I said Holly and I were the first two women, when they had their 50th anniversary, they had articles from the past, and one of them was they had the article when Holly and this is not a real good picture, but when Holly and I, this was one of the press releases that was taken in 1980 when we started pilot training. So, they had us in their paper for their anniversary. This is me in the right seat of a C-5, because I was an air refueling instructor. So that was my last flight as air refueling flight. It was a training flight. And then this is after I passed the checkride for aircraft commander, I have the whole crew got them on the stairs and we got back to Travis, so that was a happy day. And I got a couple more here. This is me flying the left seat in a T-43, and you can't probably see, but in the background is the Grand Canyon. This was a low-level Grand Canyon route that we did. It wasn't very low-level, but it was for our purposes, the navigator training. Picture of my parents when they came to visit me at Altus. And then this is it's the Smithsonian They had, this was back in 1984. They had a little thing about military aircraft airlift command and the C-5 was on top, so I've got a picture of me with that. Brought a couple of patches. I showed you the class 81-04 patch. Air training command patch. You see that on my sleeve in some of these photos. Our T-38 flight. We were the Raven flight, nevermore. Quote, quoteth the Raven or something like that. T-43s. I can't remember at all what the cat was about, smoking or tiger, whatever this is. Navigator. Maybe it was, no. I don't know. I forget the story, but that's a nice patch. I don't have my C-5 patch. I couldn't find one to show you, but it's of a donkey because the 22nd Military Airlift Squadron initially was carried cargo over the Himalayas in World War II.
01:05:50JONES: The hump.
01:05:51HUBBARD: It wasn't in the C-5, but yeah, the hump, over the hump. Yes, and that's what our patch shows is a donkey with a pack on his back.
01:05:59JONES: Right, that's what the picture of the donkey is for.
01:06:02HUBBARD: Yeah, yeah. All right. So, anyway. Those are my--.
01:06:06JONES: So you've covered all the pictures and all the patches.
01:06:09HUBBARD: Yeah.
01:06:10JONES: Okay. So you were flying the C-5 for three years. Have we covered the experiences about the C-5 on your sheets?
01:06:27HUBBARD: Yes.
01:06:28JONES: Okay. So at this point, you've been in the Air Force now for close to seven years.
01:06:42HUBBARD: Mm-hmm. Close to eight years, yeah.
01:06:43JONES: Uh--let's take it uh--in your personal story uh--let's go back to after the C-5 what happened next?
01:06:54HUBBARD: Then I had to decide whether to get out or not.
01:06:56JONES: Right, tell us about that decision.
01:06:59HUBBARD: It was a difficult decision, and there are times now when I've been looking back through this stuff that I said, oh gosh, I should have stayed in. But there was a glass ceiling back then. And women weren't squadron commanders. Women weren't allowed to fly fighters. And you needed to be able to do those things to really succeed, to go anywhere in the military.
01:07:22JONES: So, so let's back up on that. The Air Force was letting women fly C-5s, obviously, but not fighters.
01:07:32HUBBARD: Non-combat airplanes, yeah, 130s, C-5s, C-141s, yeah all those, but no fighters, yeah. They could fly KC-135s which refueled the fighters, but they could fly the flying gas station, as we always said, but they couldn't fly the fighters. But then Desert Storm changed it, in '91, I believe, is when it changed. And I'd gotten out in '87. So, at that time, the best two flying jobs were Delta, thought to be Delta.
01:08:06JONES: Okay, before we get to that, I'm just trying to get my bearings on the dates here. So you got out in '87 and then the policy that you were talking about of women not flying fighters changed after 2001.
01:08:23HUBBARD: I think it was '91, 1991, Desert Storm.
01:08:27JONES: Okay.
01:08:28HUBBARD: The first woman fighter pilot, I'm sorry I can't remember her name, but she was at the Oshkosh Air Show in '23. I think she was there last year too, but I saw her in '23.
01:08:46JONES: So, from your perspective though, back in '87, you were looking at your personal crystal ball and what you saw was the glass ceiling. Okay. And so, you made what decision?
01:09:03HUBBARD: I made the decision to get out of the Air Force.
01:09:12JONES: Okay, so let's tell us how that unfolded. Okay, meaning what you make the decision and then how much longer do they keep you in after?
01:09:24HUBBARD: Oh, well, my, you have a certain enlistment period. If you don't re-up or agree to stay on, then they let you out. You had to do six years after pilot training at that time.
01:09:37JONES: Okay. So you were in the Air Force for how many total years?
01:09:43HUBBARD: Almost eight. Seven and a half for sure, but something like that.
01:09:55JONES: Okay, so -- after you decided to leave the Air Force 1987, then what? Did you come back to Wisconsin for a while?
01:10:12HUBBARD: Did I? Probably for leave or something, but yeah, I mean.
01:10:17JONES: But you decided to go into the private sector at that point.
01:10:20HUBBARD: Yeah.
01:10:21[30 minutes and 48 seconds redacted by narrator.]
01:10:22HUBBARD: I could talk about Oshkosh.
01:10:23JONES: Uh, before we get to that, the I just wanted to see if I had anything else about that time period. Okay, no, I don't have anything else, so let's move now to Oshkosh.
01:10:41HUBBARD: Okay, 2023 when Top Gun: Maverick came out, my daughter got really excited about flying and she thought she wanted to be a pilot, which I thought was fine. So she wanted to go to Oshkosh and believe it or not I had never been to Oshkosh, to the big air show there in July. I thought, man I have been to enough air shows, enough static displays, I really don't need to do this, but she wanted go, so okay, let's give it a try. And it was fantastic. I loved it. I don't know what makes it so special, but I loved Oshkosh. We went in '23 and in '24. But the really cool thing about 2023 was the C-5 came. And I remember when it taxied in, the whole crowd just goes whoosh around that airplane. And I thought, I've got to get Joy in that airplane. I just stood there because it takes them forever to get everything set up to let people in. But they finally did, and so I walked up to one of the pilots and I introduced myself. I used to be in 22nd MAS. There was even some people from my—now it's the 22nd A.S. Airlift Squadron instead of what a military airlift squadron [MAS]. He said, When were you there? And I said, '84 to '87. He said it sounds about right. He let Joy and I go up in the cockpit, and they were so nice and so friendly. And that was a wonderful experience, to introduce her to my airplane. And then we started thinking, gosh, wouldn't it be fun to go back to Travis? My sister lives out in Modesto, California. She never left California. And so we, I, because I had this contact now with the 22nd, I said, is there any chance we could visit? So in March of 2024, Joy and I visited Travis Air Force Base, and they couldn't have been nicer. I mean, they just treated us like royalty. We did the tower tour, which I don't think I even did when I was stationed there, and then they showed us the squadron building, which when I was there, it was like something from World War II, And now it's this beautiful new building. And the squadron had seven women pilots, seven. And I got to meet four of 'em. And that was very gratifying to me, to see those women. And everybody was friendly, the whole, everybody, they introduced us to everybody. It's another full circle. And that's why I happened to write that history that I did, because the 22nd, they have a history, and they said, oh, you should look at our history book while you're here. So I opened it up, and there was nothing from the like '80s. And it wasn't just because I wanted anything about me. It was like every, all of us. So I got another pilot, and I contacted who I hadn't talked to for twenty-five years, and he and I put together some stuff for their history books. So that's how I happened to write that, but that was good because it really got me going through all this stuff.
01:14:12JONES: I found it very interesting.
01:14:15HUBBARD: Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad. It brought back lots of memories.
01:14:20JONES: I thought it was very well written and I enjoyed the accompanying pictures that--.
01:14:25HUBBARD: Oh, thanks.
01:14:26JONES: Were some of the ones that you showed today.
01:14:29HUBBARD: Right. Yep.
01:14:34JONES: Um, anything else on the sheets there in front of you that you wanted to tell us in terms of stories about anything that we've missed?
01:14:51HUBBARD: Well, I just wanted to say, why did I agree to do this interview? And well, part of it was because I wanted to set the record straight that, and I hope this isn't too egotistical or anything, but I wanted it to show that I was the first woman C-5 pilot. The woman in Dover, Dover just did publicity and Travis did not. That's it, you know, so whoever wrote the books would've looked it up and that was the only woman they would have found so.
01:15:24JONES: Let me interrupt ya. We really didn't cover that in the interview, and I think we would be remiss if we didn't. So let's give the audience a little more background about that part of your story and how the addendum.
01:15:43HUBBARD: Okay.
01:15:44JONES: Came to be. So take it from there.
01:15:47HUBBARD: When we were at Oshkosh in 2023, I told you, because we were talking about what I'd done in the Air Force and I told her I was the first C-5 woman pilot. So she being the, you know, young person she is with her phone, Googled it. You know, who was the woman C-5 pilot? And my name did not come up. I go, what? So then I looked into it and there was a book written about the C-5. And the woman from Dover. The first woman pilot at Dover was listed as the first woman pilot. But like I had said earlier, Altus did no publicity. Travis did no publicity. And at the time, I thought that was great, because I didn't like it. And it didn't help my with getting along with the guys, the pilots. But then I realized in 2023 that history had it wrong. And, uh -- I just thought that I should set the record straight. So I called Scott Air Force Base, got in touch with their email probably, and the book is out of print, but they did an addendum to the book because they wanted proof of course. So I had all the proof, log books and certificates and things that I could prove that I had been through in '84 and she was '85. I did that, I guess, part of it was just because for my daughter, I guess. Part of it is because you feel a lot of responsibility, like I said earlier. I just felt like I should get the record straight.
01:17:29JONES: That--anecdote I think also is illustrative of your career in the sense that you wanted--you were indeed a trailblazer and it's important for the historical record to be accurate and that's what I was alluding to, and now when Joy Googles it, the addendum page--.
01:18:03HUBBARD: I hope so, I don't know.
01:18:05JONES: Will, ah, will turn up.
01:18:07HUBBARD: Yeah, maybe this interview will help.
01:18:09JONES: Yes, yes, yes it will.
01:18:10HUBBARD: [inaudible].
01:18:11[28 seconds redacted by narrator.]
01:18:12JONES: Anything else, any other stories that you want to include in this tape recording.
01:18:19HUBBARD: I would just encourage everyone to, you can do so much more than you think you're capable of. Don't sell yourself short. If you have some dream, something you wanna do, but you think, oh, I can't do that. Try anyway. Try. You just don't know. You don't have to be in the military. It's anything. Go for the gold, you know. So, that's my big thing. You can do more than you think you can. Thank you very much.
01:18:53JONES: So--so with that, this interview is concluded, and I would just like to note on the record that we thank you very for your service to the Air Force, and we also thank you for agreeing to this interview today.
01:19:12HUBBARD: You're very welcome. Thank you for asking.
