Kevin Farkas

During the Cold War, which officially lasted between 1945-1991, Kevin Farkas served as an avionics technician in the US Navy from 1983-1987.  He was attached to an F-14 squadron (VF-74, “The Bedevilers”) that deployed with the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV 60).

“When people ask me what I did in the Navy,” he says, “I ask them if they’ve ever seen the movie, Top Gun.  I worked on a lot of that stuff you see in the cockpit of those F-14 Tomcats.  Well, I actually worked on the black boxes connected to allof those instruments,” he says, trying to avoid the technical jargon.  “A lot of that work was very secretive, complicated, and mostly unglamorous.  I was no Tom Cruise, but I did help keep those birds flying.”