Craig Covault, Senior Editor for Aviation Week & Space Technology Was Our Speaker November 19, 2003

By Sharon Martin

 

Our guest speaker for the evening was Craig Covault, Senior Editor for Aviation Week & Space Technology. Aviation Week is about 85 years old, and its sister magazine is Business Week. Craig has been with the magazine for about 32 years covering primarily space-related news, spending 20 years in Washington. Craig said reconnaissance and classified information is handled seriously He relayed a lot of stories dealing with security and National Space Policy. One story involved electro-optical transmission and technical capabilities regarding reconnaissance, etc. When the first Titan 3 at Vandenburg launched, Craig called Air Force Col. Dick Abel and told him that they were preparing a story on the subject. The next day, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Davey Jones) asked to meet with Craig. After Craig informed the Chairman of what he knew, Chmn. Jones told Craig the Soviets were unaware of these capabilities and therefore these satellites were accumulating highly confidential data. Craig agreed that it would be in the best interest to not print the story, and in return, Chmn. Jones made sure Aviation Week got briefed on future events.

Craig got his start by getting a grant from Readers Digest when he was a junior in College. His first day on the job was exciting when he got to fly simulators with Gene
Cernan. Since then, he's gone underwater in pressurized space suits (3 times), tested
manipulator arms, and flew one of the first ascent runs in the space shuttle simulator.
One of his most exciting flights was in a FB-111 when he flew supersonic.
He gets assignments all over the world. One of his favorite places is China, but the Chinese Communists are extremely difficult to work with. One assignment involved
going to old Soviet Bison bomber plant where the Chinese were maintaining and flying them. Another assignment took him to Tibet where he did a story on Chinese Airlines and came across military operations at a base where the Chinese version of the MIG21 was being flown from a 12,000 ft. field. His last assignment in China was to cover the Shinzu program.

From 1992 to 1996, Craig was Paris Bureau Chief. He did several stories on the war in Bosnia. He was traveling around Yugoslavia in a JointStars radar surveillance aircraft based on the 707 and saw several "disabled" SAM sites. He toured French Carriers and spent time with the French military. He also made several trips to Russia. He went to the Russian equivalent of Edwards AFB, located about 50 miles outside Moscow, where he took extensive photographs from a helicopter. When the pictures were published, the U.S. military discovered one of photographs showed a new Russian version of the Backfire. He also flew with the Russian Alaskan Air Command, and in a Bear with the Russian Bomber Force out of a base in southern Russia. The Bear had a state of the art warning system but the escape hatch was another story. The escape hatch involved a treadmill going down the middle of the plane with the premise that the men would roll out of their seats onto the treadmill and out the back of the plane. Craig asked the question "what would happen if you are upside down" and the answer he got was that they would just hang onto the treadmill. (An aside from Craig - the pilots and engineers flying the planes thought this treadmill was the dumbest thing they'd ever seen.) He also flew in a TU134, which is a Russian UBL with a Blackjack nose (cockpit).

Craig was in Russia when the Communist military coup and kidnapping of Gorbachov took place. He was traveling from Moscow to Star City (Russia's version of Johnson Space Center), amid tanks and armed military guards. When he arrived at Star City, the guard allowed him entrance because "no one told him not to." The next day Craig went by the Russian "white house" which had been barricaded up, and that evening at dinner he was in a small restaurant with two of his escorts. The escorts were extremely upset over the current events. Another group of diners in the restaurant (which turned out to be an engagement party) invited Craig and his escorts to join them. The people in the engagement party were a little formal at first because Craig's escorts were in uniform, but soon realized what "side" the men were on. Some of the ladies in the group stood up around Craig's chair and sang "America the Beautiful." Craig was moved to tears. As they were all leaving the restaurant, coming down the street were about 15 tanks, with a lead car flying the Russian flag, moving toward the Russian White House. After a short while, they heard gunfire. About 3:00 am, the same tanks returning awakened Craig. The next morning, all areas of communication were shut down so Craig could not file his report. He decided it was time to head back to Paris and attempted to get to the airport. The traffic in Moscow was impassable due to military vehicles and tanks everywhere.

Craig eventually made it to the airport, however, and much to his surprise everything was on schedule and operating normally. He flew back to Paris, and as the plane was taxiing to the gate, the pilot came over the loudspeaker and announced the military coup was over and Gorbachov was back safe and sound.