It's Academic
AFIT, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio,
1953-55
I had voluntarily given up fighter
operations as a way of life, one I dearly loved,
to spend two years studying aeronautical
engineering, with little flying, but with the
hope of becoming an experimental test pilot in
the future. I flew my last tactical flight for
many years, when I flew at Kirtland on 5 August
53. Big dreams require big gambles and this was
both, but not without trepidation.
I learned that my friend and greatest pilots
I ever flew with, Kenny Chandler had crashed
into a mountain on an instrument letdown, almost
exactly as it happened to our idol as cadets,
Lefty Selinger. One could never assume that
pilot error was the cause, since weather flying
was far more dangerous in those times for the
jet fighter pilot, usually without sufficient
fuel to make alternate airports, very limited
instrumentation, poor navigational aids and no
suitable or published jet let-down procedures at
most destinations.
Where there was no published descent, we
generally made a sort of teardrop, steep diving
descent from an ADF station, off airways and
often self invented by assessing the topography
of the area. Controllers were so unfamiliar
with the needs and capabilities of jet fighters
that they were seldom aware of our situation,
especially our need to spend very little time at
low altitude. They would like as not direct us
to stay in some distant holding pattern at low
altitude, until we were in emergency
situations. Unfortunately those kinds of
circumstances took a number of capable and fine
pilots, like these two outstanding airmen.
Martha, the kids and I moved into Air Force
housing, near Wright Field, the site of the Air
Force Institute of Technology, AFIT campus. The
quarters were apartments on two floors joined in
strings, which circled common grounds. Overall,
that development covered a very large area. Two
years there proved to be good for our family,
since there were lots of children, while the
friends and the neighbors had common interests,
as with all base life. It was an especially
fine atmosphere for raising children in the old
mode, where neighbors kept track, helped and
were not hesitant to report to one another.
AFIT had a reputation for excellent
undergraduate electrical and aeronautical
undergraduate studies and graduate degrees in
specialty engineering, other science and
administration associated with the Air Force
mission.
Our class had 48 students in two sections
with common subjects for the first year and then
split into electrical or aeronautical options.
AFIT officials realized that many students had
not been in college for some years and would
suddenly be in advanced courses as juniors. We
had an intensive 6-day, 6-week refresher in
mathematics: algebra, plane and solid geometry,
trigonometry, analytical geometry and undergrad
calculus, without which I would have been lost.
I hadn’t realized how my interest in the cockpit
had pushed all of that into my sub-conscious in
such a short span since high school and
college. The AFIT mathematics staff was
superior, and being my favorite, along with
physics, I took as many of those courses as
possible, which were invaluable in some of the
graduate courses we were offered in aeronautics.
There was so much difference in my attitude to
the subjects, when compared to studies in those
years of youth, because there was reality to the
subjects, a part of my future life, I hoped.
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B-25 at Wright Field |
Flying for the first year was limited to C-45
transports and B-25 bombers, but that provided
my first experience in multi-engine aircraft. In
my second year, we got T-33s, the two-seat
version of the F-80 jets, which helped me regain
some proficiency. Flying was an infrequent
diversion from education but I did have a bit of
sport from time to time.
For example, another student Capt. Dick
Miller, also a fighter pilot, and I decided to
try rat racing and scheduled 2 B-25s, with a
couple of classmates as co-pilots. A full
colonel approached to join me and sit in the
jump seat behind us so he could log “command
pilot” time. It was agreeable, if he concurred
in the aerial dogfight and he said that would be
O.K., but his stomach didn’t get the word. He
threw up, but the maneuvers continued. I
discovered that it was hard work trying to make
that bomber act like a fighter.
Just flying close formation was an arm
twister, compared to the easy response of a
fighter’s controls. I figured those B-17 and
B-24 jocks built up arm muscles on long combat
formations, just by staying in spread combat
positions.
Very few of our classmates showed up in my
future, but Dick was one of them. When I was at
Edwards AFB later, he had gone there to work as
an engineering/manager for Lockheed. Another,
Capt. Alton “Ike” Eichelkraut and wife, Fran,
were neighbors in Denver after I retired to
civilian work and they have been pen pals, ever
since. Quite frankly our social life in AFIT
was very limited due to family and the academic
pressure. Having completed two year of college
prior to that, I found that the professors at
AFIT, who were used to only dealing with
professional officers whose chosen careers were
dependent upon their success, didn’t spare us,
placing severe demands on our study time.
The best example was, Maj. Howard Lane who
worked hardest of all to complete the course and
would spend all his waking hours studying, and
with few sleeping hours. Near the end of two
years there were times he seemed to slip into
another world. Work and dedication prevailed,
and years later, he commanded the Air Force
Flight Test Center, and achieved Lt. General,
before retiring. I would cite him as one of the
hardest working guys that I ever met, anywhere.
In our senior year we were offered graduate
level electives. In one aeronautical
engineering course I received a lousy grade on a
test from Dr. Gunther Graetzer, head of the
Aeronautical Engineering Department because my
analysis didn’t suit his approach, though the
results proved correct. I had used a
mathematical three dimensional vector analysis
and was convinced it was correct and accurate.
He refused to accept it so, being a maverick, I
took the issue to one of our finest and
brightest instructors, Dr. Leno Pedrotti,
Physics Department. Leno, himself a young
maverick, confirmed my work, and courageously
discussed it with Herr Doctor, who recanted and
gave me full grade. Fortunately I didn’t have
too much time left to go, but enough for fallout
to hit and was reminded about winning battles
and losing wars. That kind of lesson never did
stick for long with me, even though it wasn’t
the best military attitude.
Our neighbor in the Wherry Housing project,
2/Lt. Forrest McCartney, could be counted on to
tutor me with advanced math courses, always my
choice electives. Forrest was a graduate
student in nuclear engineering and an
intelligent young man, who ultimately achieved
Lt. General rank. He is a gentleman of the old
south, who still lives near the Cape with his
wife ‘Miss Jane’. He commanded Kennedy Space
Center years later, when I was the V.P. and
General Manager of the Shuttle External Tank
Program, for Martin Marietta Corporation, after
I retired from the service.
I graduated from AFIT with a lot better
understanding of airplanes and flight than I
would ever have gained any other way, and that
education was the best of my life. It was
tailor made for at least three of my future
assignments, and greatly enhanced my future
after I retired from the service.
We graduated in September 1955 and because I
had already applied and been selected for Test
Pilot School, I was temporarily assigned to the
test unit at Wright-Patterson and enjoyed being
back in the cockpit, and flew 80 hours in two
months. It was great, after so little flying
for two years, to climb back into fighters,
F-80C and F-86. I also flew 3 flights in the
reliable old C-47, Gooney Bird, my last time in
that venerable airplane. Jimmy Joe Butler, who
later would fly F-105’s in Vietnam, as I did,
was chief of fighters, and facilitated my
regaining proficiency. The “testing” was
rather mundane, but a far cry from flying around
the flag pole in the T-33, C-45 and B-25 of the
preceding two years.
One project raised the adrenaline level for
the first time in a couple of years. I flew an
instrumented T-33 to Albuquerque to do some
calibration of equipment for FAA, flying in
tandem with a T-299
We were testing out of Albuquerque, and I
had to fly to Hill AFB, near Salt Lake City.
The weather was cloudy the entire route, even to
altitudes above 30,000 feet, but destination was
3000 foot ceilings. No sweat, I thought. There
was no alternate airport within range when I
would get there but that was not abnormal in
those days, and I could turn back, at least
until reaching a point of no return. A civilian
of the test team asked to go along for his first
jet ride, which was permissible, since he was on
flight observer orders.
When I was a couple of hundred miles from
destination and flying on instruments, and well
beyond any return, I suddenly lost all
navigation aids and the radios. We were low on
fuel because of winds, but the last calculated
winds indicated we had enough to go a bit
further west, beyond the Salt Lake to the
flatlands, then make letdown, avoiding the
mountains to the east of the base, which
certainly were sticking high up in the clouds
where we would normally let down. Since I had
no navigation aids the critical need was to be
past the mountain peaks. We sure weren’t
equipped to bail out in the snowy terrain and
survive, a risk frequently faced by fighter
pilots, who were seldom outfitted for that
eventuality in the states, even in single engine
aircraft.
I flew west as long as I dared in order to
achieve maximum margin away from the mountains
but trading against another risk because of fuel
state and the need to fly back to the base at
low altitude, burning lots of fuel under the
clouds. I started the blind letdown, and there
was no point in sharing the concern with my
passenger. We broke out of a heavy cloud cover
east of the base and with snow covered mountain
peaks surrounding us, poking into those clouds
we just exited. Once safely below, it was easy
flying visually between them to reach the base
and land. It was obvious that the headwinds had
grown severe in the late stages of our flying at
altitude.
A memorable note was the response of my
passenger, which was one of awe and amazement at
the beauty of the scene when we broke out among
the mountains. It was a fabulous view and he
had no inkling of peril, and I never spoiled his
impression.
Finally, the big day arrived and I received
orders to the Air Force Test Pilot School based
at Edwards Air Force Base, California, words
that were music to my ears. I had risked losing
my enjoyable life as an operational fighter
pilot just for that chance. Had I missed the
opportunity for TPS after getting my degree, my
life would have changed drastically into lots of
technical assignments, but little flying. I owed
Lady Luck my thanks; the old girl had come
through for me once again.
All four of us and our ever-faithful German
shepherd, ‘Sabre’, headed for California, in our
Ford Station Wagon, our first almost new car, a
$2000 bargain with only 4000 miles on it when
it’s owner transferred overseas. |