Lt. Col. David Landon, Retired U.S. Air Force Pilot

Lt. Col. David Landon (ret.), a 30-year Air Force veteran, is Gabrielle Giffords’ supporter of the week. Landon has been volunteering at Giffords’ headquarters since he retired from the Air Force in March. He decided to support Giffords because of the strength of her legislative experience. “Who wants to be a passenger on an airliner with an untrained pilot?” he asked.

Landon, 54, trained as a USAF pilot at Williams Air Force Base in Chandler, AZ in 1976, at which time he fell in love with Southern Arizona. During his career, he served as an F-111 aircraft commander and instructor pilot. He was also a mission crew commander on the EC-130E airborne command post. He flew an F-111F in the April 1986 Operation Eldorado Canyon mission against Libya. During 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, Landon was deployed to Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, as a strike mission planner. During NATO’s 1995 and 1999 Bosnian and Kosovo air operations, Landon served as an Airborne Battlefield Command and Control (ABCCC) Director of Airborne Battle Staff (DABS), coordinating and supporting air strikes. In 2003, Landon also deployed to the Combined Air Operations Centers (CAOC) in Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the start of the Iraq War. He has been stationed or deployed in six foreign countries throughout his career.

“When I retired from the Air Force, I had an opportunity to devote some time to a different form of civic duty and participation,” Landon said. “Being the father of daughters, I’ve been inspired to follow the endeavors of women who are pioneers,” he said, noting that he was supportive of the first class of female fighter pilots that entered the Air Force when he was at Williams Air Force Base in 1976.

“Gabrielle is also a pioneer,” Landon said. “Her small business experience is invaluable, especially in the cutthroat tire business. It gives her empathy for working-class values, like paying the rent and balancing a budget. I also appreciate a candidate who has a first-person appreciation for the source of most of our tax money, hard work! She’s also a third-generation Southern Arizonan, and understands Arizona’s border problems, and unique environmental issues.”

Landon, a native of Evanston, IL, and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, has three adult children. In addition to supporting the Giffords campaign, Landon currently assists his wife of 33 years, Nancy Landon, in running the Landon family’s small business in Tucson.