From Farm Boy to Pilot to the Pentagon

From his youth on a farm without electricity, to flying missions over southeast Asia, to the heights of power running part of a nuclear weapons program, 83-year-old John Guiling has seen it all.

The 1969 University of Colorado Boulder master’s graduate speaks most fondly of his time as a pilot.

"I just had a marvelous, wonderful time flying the hottest stuff in the sky," Guiling said.

Initially stationed in Albuquerque, Guiling worked extensively with the then-new jet fighters, including the F-100, the first Air Force fighter capable of supersonic speed in level flight. Much of Guiling’s work involved flight tests to see how weapons systems would work in real-world conditions. Some tests went better than others.

“I was supposed to chase another fighter through a 4 g loop to get pictures of a bomb separation. Somehow the leader got into a 5 g pull up and I blacked out. My ears were still working and I heard someone say, ‘turn left’. I still remember wondering which way 'left' was when you were going straight up while blacked out. Fortunately, we did not collide,” he said.

The dawn of the jet era allowed planes to fly higher than ever before, and pilots like Guiling were among the first to see the earth from 50,000 feet.

“This was before the airliners were using jets and well before the astronauts took mankind out of the atmosphere. We jet jocks had the upper air to ourselves and the view from that altitude is breathtaking,” he said.

It was an exciting time for Guiling, but the 1957 launch of Sputnik brought him back to earth, literally.

"Sputnik got fired and the Air Force switched from wanting pilots to wanting engineers. They sent me to the Air Force Institute of Technology for a degree," he said.

After earning the degree, he spent much of his time on the ground, working in a military office, until a registered letter from top brass set in motion his time at CU-Boulder and eventual nuclear missile work.

"That letter scared me. I had 15 years of service when it came. You needed 20 years to retire, but it wasn't discharge papers. They wanted me to get an advanced degree," he said.

Guiling was one of five airmen sent to the University of Colorado Boulder aerospace program.

He took classes from legendary faculty members in the department, including Dr. Adolph Busemann, the namesake of the CU-Boulder Busemann Advanced Concepts Laboratory.

After graduating, and following a pit-stop flying C-130E’s in Vietnam, his master’s degree earned him a job in Washington at the Pentagon, where he oversaw part of the SRAM (Short-Range Attack Missile) air to surface nuclear arms program.

"I got that job because of the University of Colorado. I had my own multi-billion-dollar line in the federal budget," he said.

SRAM weapons flew on the B-52, the FB-111A, and the B-1B. They were in service from 1972–1993.

Since retiring, Guiling has been active in charitable endeavors with the Round Rock Area Serving Center outside Austin, Texas. He’s been a regular volunteer, and played a central role in starting a partnership with a major Texas electric utility that has provided over $1.37 million to help poor Texans pay their electric bills.

"I don't know why I'm still here. The Grim Reaper was close when I was a pilot," he said. "I've been able to live all my dreams. I'm pleased as punch I've been able to do all I have and can give back.”

"Over my life I've had three different people tell me something I've always taken as a compliment. They said 'John, from where you started to where you ended up was a long way'," he said.