Test Pilot Part 11

The owner of the ship, sitting on my right, was helping me with my map, holding it for me. His wife, sitting behind me, was squirming anxiously in her seat and peering tensely out of the windows through the low mists.

Soon she tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Aren't we flying awfully low?"

I half turned my head and shouted, "Yes, the ceiling is awfully low." I wanted to add, "You fool," but didn't dare.

"Isn't it dangerous?" she whined.

"We're all right," I shouted. "I've flown stuff like this before. I can handle it."

Pretty soon she tapped me on the shoulder again. "Where are we?" she inquired.

"I can't tell you the exact spot," I shouted, "but we are still on the right railroad and will be coming into the airport in a few minutes."

We pa.s.sed over a town section just then, and the railroad branched three ways under us. I made a quick jump at my map to check which of the three I should follow. The wife saw me jump and must have seen that I looked worried. She tapped me on the shoulder again.

"Oh, are you sure we are going the right way?" she whimpered.

I started to turn around to explain to her what I was doing and why, realized my flying required all my attention right then, cast an appealing glance at her husband, clamped my jaws tight, and started studying landmarks. We were in close to the airport, and I didn't want to miss it.

I heard the husband shout one of the funniest mixtures of supplication and command I have ever heard.

"Now listen, honey," he shouted at her. "You keep your d.a.m.n mouth shut, sweetheart."

GESTURE AT REUNIONS

It is the year before Lindbergh becomes famous. I have graduated in the same cla.s.s with him from the army flying school the year before and have seen him only twice since. I am on an army cross-country trip, bound for St. Louis, when I land at Chicago and run into him. He is just taking off with the mail, bound for St. Louis too, and we decide to fly down together in formation.

It is getting dark when we sight the river at St. Louis in the distance.

Lindbergh shakes his wings. He is calling my attention. I pull my ship in close to his. I see him pointing from his c.o.c.kpit. I look ahead and see a speck. It grows rapidly larger. I make it out as another DH approaching us head on from the deepening dusk. It comes up, swings around into formation with us, and sticks its wing right up into mine.

Its pilot peers at me, and I peer at him. We recognize each other. It is Red Love. Red, Lindbergh, and myself were three of the four cadets in our pursuit cla.s.s at flying school. Looks like a cla.s.s reunion in the air.

But no. Lindbergh is shaking his wings. He is banking. He is pointing down. He spirals down, circles a field, flies low over it several times, dragging it, looking it over carefully, and lands. Red and I follow.

Lindbergh and I crawl out of our ships with parachutes strapped to us.

Red crawls out of his without one. Lindbergh takes his off as the three of us converge for greetings.

"You will need this getting the mail on into Chicago the rest of the way in the dark tonight," he says to Red, holding the chute out to him.

"It's the only one in the company," he says, turning, explaining to me, "and I won't need it for the few miles on into St. Louis from here."

We say hasty greetings and good-byes, crawl back into our still idling ships, and take off. Lindbergh, chuteless now, heads off south for St.

Louis, and I follow. Red swings off in the opposite direction for Chicago.

I look back. I see Red disappearing into the darkening north. I know he feels better now, sitting on that chute.

AS I SAW IT

I had to go to Cleveland to bring back a ship that a student of mine had left there in bad weather. I got on an airliner, with a parachute. The chute was for use on the way back.

The airline porter wanted to put my chute in the baggage compartment. My argument was: "What good would it do me there?" The porter looked offended, but I kept my att.i.tude and took my chute to my seat with me.

We took off from Newark after dark. The weather was bad, and we went blind three minutes after we took off.

I tried to console myself with the thought that the pilots were specially trained in blind flying, that they had instruments, had two motors, had radio, that everything was just ducky. But I couldn't even see the wing tips.

I tried to read my magazine. I found myself peering out of the windows through the darkness to see if we had come out on top yet.

I tried to nap. I found myself hearing the motors getting slightly louder, knowing we were nosing down; feeling myself getting slightly heavier in my seat, knowing the pilot was correcting; hearing the motors begin to labor slightly, knowing we were nosing up; feeling myself getting ever so slightly lighter in my seat, knowing the pilot was correcting again; telling myself repeatedly that he knew his stuff and that there wasn't anything I could do about it anyway, but sitting there going through every motion with him just the same.

Two hours later we were still blind, and my nose was pressing up against the windowpane almost constantly. The other pa.s.sengers probably thought I had never been in a ship before.

Half an hour later we were still blind and only half an hour out of Cleveland. We broke out of the stuff finally just outside of Cleveland.

We were flying low, and the lights were still going dim under us as we skimmed along not very far above them. There wasn't much ceiling when we landed, and it closed in shortly after that.

Most of the pa.s.sengers roused themselves from sleep when we landed. I was plenty wide awake. I knew that ship hadn't had much gas range. If we had got stuck, we would have had to come down someway before very long.

If those pa.s.sengers could have read my mind, or I think even the pilot's, there probably would have been a battle in the cabin over my chute.

WAS MY FACE RED!

I took off at Buffalo one time to do a test job. I had been called up there as an expert and was supposed to be pretty hot stuff.

I took the ship off and started rocking it violently from side to side.

I kept this up through a variety of speed ranges, watching the ailerons closely all the time. I wanted to find out first of all if the ailerons had any tendency to flutter under a high angle of attack condition. Then I began horsing on the stick to see if anything unusual happened to the ailerons when I introduced the high angle of attack condition that way.

I interrupted my observations of the ship's behavior after a while to look around for the airport. I couldn't find it! I had forgotten that I was in a high-speed ship and could get far away from the field in a very short time. Furthermore, the country was unfamiliar to me, and I had no map. Gee, if I had only thought to stick a map in the ship before I took off.

I knew the airport was somewhere on the west side of town. I thought it was somewhat north. But how far north I didn't know. I couldn't remember even if it was close in to town or far out. I had a vague idea it was far out, but how far out I didn't know. If I had only thought to bring a map! Or if I had only kept the airport in sight. Good old hindsight!

I was panic-stricken. There I was, a supposedly high-powered test pilot, lost over the airport. What a dumb position for me to be in!

Before I found the airport by just cruising around looking haphazardly for it, I might be forced down by the weather, which was none too good and getting worse, or I might run out of gas. What if I was finally forced to pick a strange field, a pasture or something, and cracked up getting into it? How would I explain that?

I decided to cruise north and south, up and down, in ten- or fifteen-mile laps, starting far enough out of town to be sure to fly over the airport on one of the laps as I moved closer in on each one.

That would be at least an orderly procedure.

I found the field on my fourth lap. But was I in a sweat! And did I keep my eye on that field after that!