Clipped Wings
Missile
Test Wing, AFSC, Vandenberg AFB, CA, Jan 1960-
May’62
I enjoyed
serving under B/Gen. Joseph J. Cody, Commander
Air Force Systems Command (AFSC) Missile Test
Wing for whom I would work again, later at
Systems Command Headquarters. The most
gratifying part of this tour was that I found a
kindred spirit and very special friend in, Col.
Charles A. Allen, who was Cody’s deputy.
Vandenberg was a Strategic Air Command Base,
under a two-star general, with their Strategic
Missile Wing and we were tenants. Chuck was a
great guy and often my flying partner in the
T-33’s, available to us from the Strategic Air
Command base operations group, but only to the
extent of fulfilling annual minimums. My
friendship with Chuck Allen, who was the only
other fighter pilot on base, grew out of mutual
respect and with competition that continues to
this day, now with semantics only, in our
Christmas notes and infrequent responses
thereto. I remember so well a flight to Colorado
Springs to take his son, an Air Force Academy
Cadet, out for dinner just after he transcended
the Plebe stage. That fine young man ate a
steak big enough to feed a family, with nothing
left but the fork, and I suspect it was
damaged.
Chuck had
built a dune buggy and Martha and I went for the
ride of our lives on the beach one night after a
party, with Chuck at the wheel. He was a wild
and fun-loving guy, impossible not to admire and
respect. Other than that, there was little I
enjoyed about my tour at the Air Force Western
Missile Test Range. I happened by sheer chance
to meet famous test pilot, Chuck Yeager, for the
first time, when I was assigned to escort him
around base. He was there to tout a new concept
called “Quality Circles” to the employees on
base, including the large Martin Marietta staff,
in whose compound I had an office and direct
contact with the Major General’s staff at the
missile headquarters in Los Angeles. Later the
idea of Q.C. invaded other industry and the Air
Force, another of those fads that promise to do
great things by changing human perceptions, when
their only greatness is the income it provides
the psychology guru, the guys who graduated
college taking the course most took for a
breather. The Titan II missiles and silo tests
were our primary task. Years later, when I would
get to know the real Chuck Yeager, I was bemused
by the thought of him peddling a cult-like
concept of standardized and disciplined rules
for everybody. As kids we heard it was just the
opposite attitude that made Americans effective
in peace and war, but the politics government
and big business embrace those gimmicks, for the
masses, not the executives.
I
despised that entire tour, from a professional
point of view, but it was great for family
life. Left with no other choice, we started by
buying a house in Lompoc and were lucky to find
one we could afford. No base housing openings,
with an extended waiting list, and no civilian
rentals available. That backward little town
was becoming a thriving beehive of activity with
so many civilian missile employees vying for
housing, on supplemented salaries by their
companies, and a general feeling of distain from
the populace, who didn’t like the growth. We
were responsible, in their eyes. After a year,
we got into base housing and it was wonderful,
without the long drive to base and with the kids
moved into base school. One thing outstanding
about that SAC base, was the demand that every
officer and non-com pull a minimum of one season
in some capacity, from facility maintenance to
coaching, on the children’s sports programs, and
they had facilities and teams for most every
sport. It was great for the adults and family
rapport. Martha, Lane and Bobby, and I truly
enjoyed that aspect of our lives.
Other
than the pleasure of it with Chuck once in a
while, my flying was limited in quantity and
quality. For example, I went for over two hours
in a T-33 jet trainer with a SAC pilot with very
little experience, obviously. He was in back
and wanted to practice instrument flying under
the hood, so I acquiesced and sat bored for most
of the flight watching for traffic. He was
lousy, in fact he stunk it up with his
ineptitude at flying instruments and the
airplane. I spent the entire flight trying to
show him how to do it, based on the excellent
training I had gotten in the A. F. all-weather
school some seven years before. He didn’t even
know which instruments were best for which
purposes and I wondered how such guys could stay
on flying status. When we had only a little
fuel remaining I took over and told him to get
out from under the hood, I would do some
acrobatics. I wondered when he had last been on
his back in an airplane. I did some routine
maneuvers, some not so routine, like a point
roll, with inverted flight, then dived to the
deck and did a double Immelman: Two half loops,
non-stop, with a roll out at the top, gaining
about 10,000 feet, I suppose. Then I put it
into a spin to lose the altitude and returned to
the base for landing. Shortly after I arrived
at the office, I got a call from the Base
Operations Officer that my GIG (get in back),
whom I thought might have appreciated my help,
had reported me for illegal acrobatics and I was
“Up for a No Notice Check Ride from the SAC
Standard Evaluation Pilot.” My reply was,
“Good, I need some extra flying hours!” Luckily
I wasn’t in SAC and I never heard about it
again, or got any extra flying time, either. My
days of interesting flying appeared to have come
to a premature and permanent end, because of the
priority that missile assignments enjoyed in
AFSC at the time. My growing missile test
experience exceeded two years, making me a
veteran and expert, pinned with a missile badge,
which I quickly retired to oblivion. But then
Lady Luck doubled up for me, this time.
 |
Jimmie and I talk during filming |
NBC began
a TV Special Series called “The World Of …..”
filming it’s premier episode with Bob Hope.
Next came, the “World of Jimmie Doolittle”,
which included the live filming at Vandenberg.
I suppose it was made there in order to include
a missile launch, and its proximity to home and
business. Jimmie Doolittle was the Chairman of
the Board for Aerospace Corporation, Los
Angeles, the leading space and technology
consulting company for the Air Force. Whatever
the reasons it was fortuitous for me, when I was
assigned as General Doolittle’s escort, because
of my flying background. I was excited and
delighted to spend a full day with him.
No man in
history held a candle to him in the broadest
sense of aeronautics: Leading; combat; racing;
inventing and testing. He held unique records
and will remain at the top in the history of
manned flight. Not the least of his feats was
planning, training and personally leading the
first attack on the Japanese mainland with
take-off of Army Air Corps B-25’s from the
Navy’s Aircraft Carrier, Hornet, an amazing feat
in itself! His decision to proceed with a
premature take-off, when the carrier was spotted
by a Japanese fishing boat assure success, at
the risk of life to him and his crews, since it
denied them enough fuel to reach safety after
the attack. He knew what it meant to the
morale of the adversaries, not the impact of the
bombs on the enemy but the impact on the psyche
of America and Japan that was so important. That
single mission gave a lift to all Americans and
dramatically degraded the Japanese conduct of
the war, thereafter, for which he received the
Congressional Medal of Honor and accepted on
behalf of his men, some of whom lost their lives
to ritual executions in Japan.
And let’s
not overlook his technical expertise. That great
gentleman had a Doctorate in Engineering from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He
developed blind flying instruments and flew the
first successful blind flight, in actual weather
with them. He repeatedly set world records for
many years and he held major Air Commands of
bombers in Europe during WW II, leading missions
for his men. As for flying skill, he whipped
the world’s best professional closed course race
pilots in an airplane so unstable that few
others dared fly it, the ‘Gee Bee’. Four other
notable racing pilots crashed and died in the
Gee Bee in those years of his victory over
Roscoe Turner, the leading racer of that period.
It was little more than a flying engine,
appearing to not have enough rudder area to be
flyable in level flight, much less tight turns
around pylons, yet he won the closed-course race
with it, setting a world speed record. I’d lay
odds that Jimmie set more records in aerial
flight than any individual before or after him.
How lucky
I was to spend an entire day with the world’s
greatest aviation pioneer and one of the kindest
and most thoughtful gentlemen I’ve ever met!
Among my most treasured memorabilia is a
collection of personal letters from him, which I
began receiving regularly soon after our day
together. I felt it presumptuous to even
respond at first until I received another letter
from him. Jimmie Doolittle transcends even
Billy Mitchell as greatest of Air Force
pilot-leaders, in my mind.
Aerospace
management was an excellent career field, was
interesting and required skills and talent, but
was not what I had dedicated myself to and not
what I enjoyed. I attempted occasionally to get
transferred to Tactical Air Command but was
denied at Systems Command each time with
statements that the future of the Air Force and
for me were in missiles. Then sweet Lady Luck
found me once again!
 |
Doolittle & Chairman of Kodak |
I heard
about a course of training for future Air Force
astronauts that had been formed at the Air Force
Flight Test Center, where I had gone to test
pilot school and checked it out. The first class
was in process for the “Aerospace Research
Pilots School” and I made application for the
second. I called on Jimmie Doolittle and he sent
them a commendation for me. But to put it
bluntly, I had little faith that I could break
away from this new life, which I seemed to be
destined to live with, even though ARPS was
under Systems Command, and I had Jimmie
Doolittle’s endorsement.
A
wonderful directive arrived in our headquarters,
that I was one of eight accepted for that
training. It changed my life and we had the
shortest move of our lives, from Vandenberg AFB
cross state a bit to Edwards AFB. I would have
hand-carried our household, if necessary. |