Chief Flight Instructor: Mike Duc (Duke)

Mike Duc (Duke) is a retired Air Force Officer who started his career in 1972 as a jump forward air controller in the Air Force. That’s a person who parachutes into the combat zone and calls in air strikes to support our fighting forces on the ground!  Deciding it was more fun to fly, rather than jump from perfectly good planes, he earned an appointment to the Air Force Academy Prep school and followed that with a nomination to the Air Force Academy.   Mike graduated in 1978 with an engineering degree and later finished Air Force Pilot Training in 1979 and was assigned to fly T38’s as an instructor pilot in Wichita Falls, Texas.  His follow-on assignment as an A10 pilot (the Warthog) took him all around the world with assignments in England, Germany, the U.S and even some flying in Korea.  Mike retired as a Lt Col in 1997 and soon found himself employed by Southwest Airlines.  Along the way, he earned a Master’s degree in Aero Management from Embry Riddle Air University and taught as an adjunct teacher.  

 

Mike did not start out with flying in mind but his path, thanks to the Viet Nam Draft, led him to the Air Force.  We all take many different paths in our flying careers, and he certainly took an odd one, but here he is, and once the flying bug bit there was no stopping him.  Mike earned his CFI/CFII/MEI in 1981 while also serving as a T38 instructor Pilot and logging over 1,400 hours in a 3-year period!   His desire to fly fighters led him to the A-10 and he accumulated more than 2,700 hours flying the “Warthog” and loving every minute of it.   Following a great 25 years of Air Force life, he moved on to his second flying career at Southwest Airlines where he logged another 16,000+ hours of flying in 7 types of the Boing 737!  Mike brings over 22,000 hours of flying time and 39 years of aviation experience to Black Hound Aviation.  He also volunteers as a Civil Air Patrol check pilot and G1000 instructor working with adults and young cadets in the Civil Air Patrol.

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Mike lives in Cibolo TX and is married to Kay.   They have one daughter and 2 grandchildren living in Baltimore.