Solo (5 page)

If you have a trim wheel, then you can position it to hold the yoke where it is while you climb, and the hands-off position of the yoke will keep the airplane nose up and the airplane climbing without your having to hold the yoke back. That’s what trim is all about. It’s an aid. Once you want to level off, you’ll change the trim back to where it was. Most pilots trim often so that little if any pressure on the yoke or stick is needed for long.

Now, before beginning your takeoff roll, you set the trim so that only a slight pull back on the yoke is necessary to get you off the ground at the correct airspeed. As you gain speed after takeoff, you may have to change the trim a bit, but basically with takeoff trim established you don’t have to worry about exerting strong back pressure on the yoke as you lift off the runway.

On this day, on my first solo cross-country trip, I forgot to set my trim to the takeoff position (a potentially dangerous mistake). And it had last been set in a very nose-high position for landing.

I wanted this to be the smoothest takeoff I’d ever made. Mine was the only plane taxiing out, and I knew
Mr. Radio Man was watching me. I looked through my before-takeoff checklist, missing the trim item, and announced on the radio that I was taking off. At airports with no tower, you always look to be sure no one is landing or is on the runway, announce that you’re taking off, and go.

I started my takeoff roll. Liftoff is normally at about fifty-five miles an hour. At thirty-five miles an hour, the nose wanted to lift off the ground, but I held it down. I was puzzled. At liftoff I released forward pressure on the yoke, and the nose pitched up at a dangerously high angle. I firmly pushed the nose back to almost level flight.

Mr. Radio Man would have seen my airplane charging down the runway for takeoff, but instead of smoothly flying off the runway, the plane lurched up into the air with the nose far too high, and then the nose suddenly pitched down to a level flight attitude. Awkward at best. Deathly at worst. Funny in between.

Further humiliated, I realized my mistake and trimmed the aircraft. Never since have I forgotten to set takeoff trim. Those cheap mistakes have a way of burning themselves into your brain—seat belt, miles and minutes, takeoff trim.

I landed safely at home, completed my after-landing check, and walked into the flight building. It was late afternoon and I wasn’t sure Mr. Vaughn would still be there. He was. Sitting at our table, waiting. No smile, no frown, no nothing.

I told him that I’d missed the airport in Fayetteville the first time around.

No smile, no frown, no nothing.

“Did you learn anything?” he asked.

“Yessir. I did.”

“What?”

“I learned not to confuse my miles and minutes.”

“Good.”

“And to set my takeoff trim.”

“Oh. Good.”

And that some runways are turf, I thought. And that different airports are at different altitudes.

He filled out my grade sheet. I was expecting a Fair or a Fail. I got a Good.

Having flown with about twenty instructor pilots since Mr. Vaughn, I now realize I was lucky to get him first. He was patient and very safety conscious. And he knew not to overpraise, because overconfidence can kill you. At this stage I was anything but overconfident.

A
FTER THIRTY-SEVEN HOURS
of flying over a five-month period, I was awarded a private pilot’s license. It was March 1966, and in a couple of months I’d get my college degree as well. With my private pilot’s license I was free to take a passenger into the sky.

“Why, sure,” said my mother. At age sixty-two, she had never been in an airplane.

So six days after getting my license, we were off to the airport. A friend of mine, Ronnie Wiggins, was along. The Cherokee 140 was a two-seater. Ronnie would be my second passenger.

Claire, the woman who ran the desk in the flight building, gave me the key to the airplane I’d reserved. Ronnie waited while my mother and I walked to the airplane.

“Clyde, now are you sure about this?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I insisted that she follow me around the airplane as I explained preflight checklist items. She didn’t say much.
She seemed a bit preoccupied. After the preflight check, I helped her up onto the wing and into the cockpit. She’d never worn a seat belt, so I helped her get hers fastened.

We took off. I was all talk about what I was doing and why: how the instruments worked, what they told me. I was just getting warmed up when she said, “Son, please don’t talk.” She grabbed my knee. “And don’t make any more of those
turns
unless you absolutely have to.”

We flew about thirty minutes. I landed and took my friend Ronnie up for another thirty while my mother waited on the ground. I wonder what she was thinking. This was the summer of 1966. A new war in Southeast Asia had just gotten under way, and within a few months I’d enter Air Force pilot training.

Driving home that day, I asked my mother if she remembered the day she first brought me to the airport, eighteen years earlier—the day my dream started. “Of course,” she said. “I wanted to get you out and about. I wanted you to know what was out there. But I do wish you’d kept taking your piano lessons.”

A
IR
F
ORCE
P
ILOT
T
RAINING

M
Y FIRST COMMERCIAL JET
trip ever was to Laredo, Texas, in October 1966 to begin my year of Air Force pilot training. Vietnam was still a small war and I hoped it would be over before I had my wings.

I checked in on base at Laredo, then walked through a building and out to a waiting phalanx of fifteen or twenty T-38s. I started taking photographs with my nine-dollar Instamatic camera. Photo after photo—from the front, from the rear, from the side, from a forty-five-degree angle off the side. I could imagine no machine more perfect, more beautiful. Its shape shouted all my dreams of flight.

That first night I wrote home to my parents:

Dear Mom and Dad,

Well, I’m settled. Have had no problems what-so-ever.

I flew the “Whisper jet” into Atlanta and then flew
on another Whisper jet into San Antonio. Boy, they are some airplanes.

This morning when I was to leave San Antonio for Laredo, I arrived at the airport 1 hr. + 30 minutes before takeoff, instead of 30 minutes before takeoff. I had forgot to reset my watch.

At San Antonio I met another boy also coming to Laredo and we have been buddying around together—getting clothing, uniforms, equipment, etc.

The land is flat and there are few tall trees. The weather has been very comfortable today, however.

I haven’t had a chance to go into town (about 5 miles away).

I hope y’all are making it o.k. without me. I hope you don’t worry about me because I’m doing just fine. I have met several seemingly nice boys—all are friendly. I also met one of the instructors and he was very nice.

At supper I talked to a boy who has 6 weeks to go before he’s through with his 55 weeks and he said he thinks I’ll be able to come home for Christmas. He said he has enjoyed his training, but stressed the importance of studying and not “goofing off.”

I don’t mean to be bigheaded (and I might be speaking too soon), but after meeting some of the other guys, I think I’ll do okay.

I also learned today that if I find I don’t like flying I can voluntarily stop on my own accord, but I think I will like it. The planes that I will fly in about 6 months (the T-38s) are simply beautiful.

My first 2 weeks (starting next Tuesday, I think) will
be rather rough as far as physical training is concerned, but things will ease off a bit after that (so I’ve been told).

Food is good: $ .40 breakfast, $ .85 lunch, $ .65 supper and all I can eat each meal.

Tomorrow we are talked-to about the following: training, physical training, personnel and finance, fire prevention, medical subjects, security and law enforcement, legalities, transportation, etc.

The chaplain talks to us Friday.

Right now I’m rooming with another guy (he’s nice—a little fat guy. I’ve seen him only briefly) but in about a week I’ll have my own room to myself. In the room will be, among other things, refrigerator and air conditioner. One bathroom, consisting of sink, commode, and shower, is shared by every 2 rooms. Also on each floor there is a lounge with TV.

Well, I’m very tired and will try to get some sleep now for I must get up at about 6 or 6:30 tomorrow—have meeting at 7.

Write soon.

                                                        Love,

                                                        Clyde

(Over)

        11:25 a.m. Wednesday (Thurs.?)—next day

Have been in meetings and filling out forms since 7 this morning.

Things so far have been informal, relaxed and friendly.

I have found out good news about my pay. My gross pay is $451.78 a month. After taxes, etc. are subtracted I will get total of $382.12.

I am getting a $10,000 life insurance policy for $2 (two) dollars per month.

I wonder if my parents ever mentioned the insurance policy to each other. I wonder if they already had feelings, beliefs, and fears about what I considered “a small war.”

T
HE
T-41
WAS THE
Air Force designation for a small, slightly modified Cessna 172 airplane much like the Piper Cherokee I’d flown back in North Carolina.

My T-41 instructor was Mr. Washburn, one of the civilians hired to train us at the outset, to weed out the nonfliers. He was only a few years older than I.

Our flight training was from the local airport in Laredo, off base. Every day we’d load up in a bus and head that way. Our training-class designation was 68-C. There were about fifty of us, divided into two squadrons, each with its own set of commanders, pilot instructors, and academic instructors. One group attended academic classes in the mornings while the other group flew. In the afternoons we switched.

We were getting some military training during our flying sessions as well. Besides calling our instructors “mister,” we stood at attention when the instructors walked into the room together at the start of each flying day. Our
shoes were shined. We weren’t allowed to wear boots with our flight suits (drab gray, one-piece suits with zippered pockets here and there on the chest and legs and a small pocket for cigarettes and pencils on the upper left arm) until we flew in the T-37, the little jet trainer we’d fly after finishing the T-41. And after we soloed the supersonic T-38, we’d get to wear a scarf—red polka dots on white for my squadron, sky blue for the other squadron. Wearing the scarf was the last and best uniform change before getting our wings, the silver emblem that we’d wear pinned over the left coat pocket of our dress blues and that would be sewn onto our flight suits in the same place.

We fledglings stood waiting for the bus every day, scarfless, wearing, of all things, plain black shoes, watching other student pilots walk by—guys wearing boots, or boots
and
scarves. We were at the bottom of the totem pole. We weren’t even training on base. We had to ride the bus out to the damn
Laredo Airport
every day.

We were graded (Fail, Fair, Good, Excellent) on each flight, and we took academic tests every week or so. Academic subjects included navigation, weather, aircraft systems (the word
airplane
was a no-no), radar navigation, and use of radios.

My training with Mr. Washburn was similar to that which I’d had with Mr. Vaughn, but more formal and structured. And Mr. Washburn, unlike Mr. Vaughn, was athletic, cocky, and a tad sarcastic. He liked to show off.

During an early flight, he set a Zippo lighter on the instrument panel of the T-41. It sat there while he flew straight and level, no problem. Then he started a climbing
turn to initiate a lazy eight. If the maneuver is performed correctly, with just the right rudder and yoke movements, then no left or right pressures (slipping and sliding) are felt in the cockpit, and the Zippo stands upright on the instrument panel—even while the aircraft is in              a              ninety-degree banked, descending turn, that is, with one wing pointed straight down toward the ground as the aircraft falls and turns. Eventually, after several weeks, I could do the same trick. About half the time.

We had a spot-landing contest (to see who can land nearest a painted spot on the runway), and Doug Blockner won it. Doug was clearly the nerdiest of all of us. He was an excellent pilot who’d had lots of flying experience before entering the Air Force. But for some reason he got sick every time he flew in Laredo. I recall walking up behind him out at his airplane one day after we’d each finished a flight. He turned around to say something to me, and all down the front of his flight suit was vomit. Doug was our first “washout,” someone who flunked out or left for other reasons—in his case, because of constant air sickness. After him came other washouts, sprinkled throughout our one year of training. I don’t remember the exact number of washouts in our class, though we were told that the overall Air Force washout rate in those days was about 25 percent. Some student pilots were unable to do aerobatic maneuvers in the T-37 (loops, aileron rolls, barrel rolls, cloverleafs) and would thus get a string of Fail grades. Others left during spin-recovery training or formation flying. A washed-out pilot usually went to navigator
training.