Master Aviator Wings Within just a few days after COL David Fleming Officially retired on January 31st, 1988 as State Aviation Officer for the Kentucky Army National Guard, word was received from Washington that the 28-year old, twin-engine Cessna U-3B airplane, COL Fleming's plane, was also being retired -- a fitting end to a 38-year aviation career of flying Bird-dogs to Blackhawks.
David Fleming COL David Fleming was a native of Fleming County and a descendent of its founder, Colonel John Fleming (1). Fleming enlisted in the Kentucky Army National Guard in October 1949. In 1953 he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 149th Regimental Combat Team (now the 149th Armor Brigade) where he was assigned as a platoon leader in the Heavy Mortar Company. Finally, in 1956, when the unit changed its mission to artillery, Fleming attended Army flight school and returned to the Kentucky Guard. "When I started out," Fleming recollected, "we had two airplanes, two mechanics and six pilots tucked in a back corner of a hangar in Lexington. Back then we had an L-19 and an L-17 (which was later traded for a U-6A Beaver), and in 1957 we received our first helicopter, a Bell OH-13."
"I went to helicopter flight school in 1960 ... it was an Air Force flight school for Army pilots at Gary Air Force Base in San Marcos, Texas ... and not long after that, the Kentucky Guard got some more OH-13's, followed by a few OH-23 Hiller's."
Shortly after COL Fleming was appointed commander of the Army Aviation Facility in 1970, Kentucky's first UH-1 Huey landed at Frankfort. During his tenure, Kentucky Army Guard aviators flew 74,352 accident-free flying hours in a fleet of military aircraft that grew to include the U-9, T-42, UH-1B, UH-1D, UH-1H, UH-1V and finally, the first entire company of UH-60 Blackhawks to be fielding in the National Guard in the United States. When asked how the KYARNG aviation program had changed over the years, COL Fleming replied, "It started out as a small section that provided an aerial observation platform for the ground commander ... now it's evolved into the aviation brigade -- the fourth combat brigade of the modern Army division. The advent of the Aviation Branch in April of 1984 really had a lot to do with that ... now I think that while aviation continues its mission as a division combat element, it will also have to turn its attention to air-to-air combat in order to survive on the battlefield."
White he claimed the Bell )H-13 was "the smoothest flying aircraft we ever had," the U-3 was still known as "Colonel Fleming's plane" in the Guard aviation community, even though he admitted he felt the U-3 had some inherent flaws ... "It works you hard because it is basically unstable, and anyone who's ever flown one will agree with me, but it has a pretty decent speed of 185 knots and good range ... I enjoyed flying it."
And what if the Army had said he could keep the U-3 to fly in his retirement? "I'd take it," Fleming chuckled. "I've flown in every state of the continental United States but Maine, and I wouldn't mind taking the U-3 up there!"
The Army Aviation Support Facility was named in COL Fleming's honor in May 2000.
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(1) COL John Fleming was an early settler who built one of three forts in the county in 1790. In 1798, Fleming County was named in his honor and became Kentucky's 26th county.
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[Information submitted by CW4 Harold Canon April 30, 2003]