Test Pilot Part 13

My instructor turned around to me: "d.a.m.n it, Collins," he said, "don't run into the ground wheels first like that. Level off about six feet in the air and wait until the s.h.i.+p begins to settle. Then ease the stick back. When you feel the s.h.i.+p begin to fall out from under you, pull the stick all the way back into your guts and the s.h.i.+p will set itself down.

Go around and try it again."

"Yes, sir."

I came in the next time, hit the ground wheels first, and bounced. My instructor righted the s.h.i.+p.

"No, Collins. No," he fumed. "Six feet. Look, I'll show you what six feet looks like."

He took the s.h.i.+p off and flew over the open fields, then came around and landed.

"Now do you know what six feet looks like?" he shouted back to me.

"Yes, sir," I lied. I was afraid to tell him that I could not see the ground right. He might send me to the hospital to have my eyes examined.

They might find some slight defect in my eyes that they had overlooked in the original examination and wash me out of the school.

"Well, then, go around and make a decent landing for me," my instructor said.

"Yes, sir."

I leveled off too high the next time. My instructor grabbed his controls and prevented us from cracking up.

"d.a.m.n it, Collins," he shouted when the s.h.i.+p had stopped rolling, "don't run into the ground wheels first. And don't level off as high as the telegraph wires. Level off at about six feet. Then set her down. Now go round and try it again."

"Yes, sir."

"d.a.m.n it, Collins, don't sit back there and say 'Yes, sir' and then do the same d.a.m.ned thing again."

"No, sir."

MOONLIGHT AND SILVER

Pat paints. She also flies.

Pat and I landed at Jacksonville, Fla., late one night in Pat's Stearman biplane. Pat was taking cross-country instruction from me. We ga.s.sed hurriedly and took off again. We left the glare of the floodlights behind us as we headed our s.h.i.+p along the line of flas.h.i.+ng beacons stretching southward toward Miami. The stars were brilliant in the cloudless sky, but the night was very dark. There was no moon.

Soon we were flying down the coast. White breakers rolled in under us from the Atlantic Ocean on our left and dimly marked the coast line.

Swamps stretched away to the inland on our right but were invisible in the black night. Beacons flashed brilliantly out of the darkness in a long line far behind us and far ahead. Blotches of lights slipped slowly past under us when we flew over towns.

We saw clouds ahead. We nosed down under them. We had to fly uncomfortably low to stay under the clouds. We nosed up to get above them.

We flew into them. The lights beneath us dimmed and disappeared. We climbed in opaque blackness, flying by instruments.

We emerged into an open s.p.a.ce where the clouds were broken. The lights reappeared. The stars became visible.

The clouds spread out under us to the horizon in all directions. They were lit a dim silver by the stars. They softly undulated like a mystic, limitless sea beneath us.

Now and then we saw a break in the clouds and caught the flash of a beacon through it or saw the lights of a town. We caught glimpses of dim breakers rolling in on the beach far down under the clouds.

Something I couldn't explain was happening. The sky in the east was getting lighter. It was only about midnight. I looked at the western sky and then looked back at the eastern sky. Yes, the sky was definitely getting lighter in the east. Half an hour later the eastern sky was much lighter than the western sky.

I watched toward the east.

I saw a thin, blood-red tip of something rise up from the eastern horizon. The top of the object was rounded. The bottom of it was irregular in shape. The object got larger rapidly.

"The moon!" I shouted out loud to myself.

It rose rapidly. Invisible clouds far out at sea, silhouetted against the moon, gave the bottom of it its irregular shape.

The moon got up above the clouds in an incredibly short time. It was a full moon, golden and glorious. It made the clouds between me and it seem darker. It made the sea beneath the clouds silver. Through the large breaks in the clouds I saw a beam of moonlight like a golden path from the moon across the sea to the beach beneath us. The beam traveled with us. It raced across the sea under the clouds at the same speed that we flew through the air above the clouds.

I eased the throttle back and slowed the s.h.i.+p down.

"Paint that some day," I shouted to Pat.

Pat was gazing out across the ocean toward the moon. She didn't say anything. I knew she had heard me.

FIVE MILES UP

I was stationed at Selfridge Field after I graduated from the Advanced Flying School at Kelly. The Army Air Corps' First Pursuit Group was at Selfridge. The officers used to gather every morning at eight-fifteen in the post operator's office. We would be a.s.signed to our various functions in the formation. Then we would fly formation for an hour or so, practicing different tactical maneuvers. After flying we would gather at the operations office again for a general critique, which was supposed to conclude the official day's flying. We would separate from there and go about our various ground duties. I discovered I could quickly finish my ground duties and have a lot of time left over for extra flying. I used to bother the operations officer to death asking him for s.h.i.+ps. He usually gave me one, and I would go up alone and practice all sorts of things just for fun. It was no part of my work. It was pure exuberance.

One day I was flying around idly in a Hawk. I decided I would take the Hawk as high as I could, just for the h.e.l.l of it.

I opened the throttle and nosed up. I gained the first few thousand feet rapidly. The higher I went the slower I climbed. At 20,000 feet climbing was difficult. The air was much thinner. The power of my engine was greatly diminished. I began to notice the effect of alt.i.tude. Breathing was an effort. I didn't get enough air when I did breathe. I sighed often. My heart beat faster. I wasn't sleepy. I was dopey. I was very cold, although it was summer.

I looked up into the sky. It was intensely blue, deep blue; bluer than I had ever seen a sky. I was above all haze. I looked down at the earth.

Selfridge Field was very small under me. The little town of Mount Clemens seemed to be very close to the field. Lake St. Clair was just a little pond. Detroit seemed to be almost under me, although I knew it was about twenty miles from Selfridge Field. I could see a lot of little Michigan towns clothing the earth to the north and northwest of Selfridge. Everything beneath me seemed to have shoved together. The earth seemed to be without movement. I felt suspended in enormous s.p.a.ce.

I was 23,000 feet high by my altimeter.

I was dopey. My perception and reaction were ga-ga. I was cold, too. To h.e.l.l with it. It said 24,500 feet. I eased the throttle full and nosed down.

I lost alt.i.tude very rapidly and with very little effort at first. After that it got more and more normal. I didn't come down too fast. It was too loud on my ears. I came down fairly slowly, so as to accommodate myself to the change in air pressure as I descended.

It was warm and stuffy on the ground.

I saw the Flight Surgeon at dinner that evening.

"I worked a Hawk up to 24,500 feet today," I told him proudly. "Gee, it sure felt funny up there without oxygen."

"Without oxygen?" he asked.

I nodded my head.