Read Ebook: Slipstream: the autobiography of an air craftsman by Wilson Eugene E

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Ebook has 1569 lines and 93745 words, and 32 pages

"I guess you can unpack the satchel," I said.

The Uphams were distinctly Old Navy, part of a small coterie of distinguished senior officers and their wives who had served the Navy through the lean years, on duty that had either taken them to distant foreign stations together or forced long separations. They were men and women who had stood for all that was best in loyalty to their country, their service, and to one another, and who supported the fine traditions of the earlier days. Poor in worldly goods, yet they were rich in experience, having traveled widely and lived close to the people of foreign lands. Money had meant little to them; they had found ample compensation in their knowledge of a public service faithfully performed. Evenings at the commandant's quarters were to prove important events in my training as a naval aviator; and old Aunt Lucy was to leave her mark, too.

For flying was still a hazardous business back in the middle twenties, and tragedy cast its shadow all too often over the little station at Pensacola. Perhaps it was this that focused people's thoughts on things far removed from "pounds per horsepower." After dinner that evening, the commandant and his lady sat with me around the fire that provided the only warmth against the evening chill, and discussed books they had just finished reading.

The commandant's lady fingered a book she had just finished but seemed to hesitate about opening a discussion of it.

As Mrs. Upham talked, the commandant stirred the fire until it burned brightly, shining on his wife's serene features.

She went on to point out that its author, whose name I have forgotten along with the title of the book, had been a successful minister--at least one might judge him so by usual standards. He had managed a large New York congregation, kept the church in repair, and collected substantial sums of money for worthy causes. But after his retirement he had reached the conclusion that his ministry had been a complete failure. Lacking faith in religion, because he had not been able to reconcile the Christian Gospel with his reasoned analysis of it, he had failed in his spiritual leadership.

Deep concern over this had caused him to restudy the Gospels and especially the history of their composition; and he had concluded that in the interim between the death of the Apostles and the compilation of the Gospels, numerous additions might have been made and certain beliefs carried over from earlier faiths might have been interlarded into the basic concept of the Christian idea. He had therefore set about to delete from the Gospels, as recorded, all the inconsistencies with the Gospel as he thought it must have been preached, and had emerged with a kernel so dazzling and completely credible to the rational mind that he had become convinced that it must have been divinely inspired.

For no one man nor group of men could possibly have conceived a faith so wholly consistent and so inspiring as had Jesus Christ himself. The very idea of individual dignity had brought men conviction that they were not meant to be slaves but responsible children of God. With that conviction, human liberty was born. And human liberty was not just a pleasant material situation but the world's most vital, dynamic, and constructive spiritual force. To cast off the rule of tyrants men must only be governed by God.

As the commandant's lady finished her review, she handed her book over to me.

"Since we've been on duty down here," she said simply, "we've come to sense the semireligious fervor with which the lads approach their flying. The hazards seem but to lift up their spirits, for while physically the airplane is mechanical, yet the art of flying has the flavor of high destiny." She paused and glanced quickly at her husband as if for support.

"We haven't succeeded in crystallizing the idea," said the admiral, "but even as professional military people we keep groping for the philosophical import of this new device. The thing is potentially so destructive that unless we find some way, through the spirit, to adapt it to constructive uses, it will surely destroy us."

For a while we three sat silent before the fire. Brooks Upham had expressed the unease that lies heavy on the hearts of military men; they dislike the business of destruction.

When, next morning, I arrived at Squadron Six Beach, my instructor was waiting for me with orders to disregard the routine and feed the subject to me just as fast as I could take it. I had, however, been assigned to Class Twenty-six--youngsters, for the most part, two to three years out of Annapolis. Included in the class, however, were a handful of seniors like "Baldy" Pownall, "Woody" Thomas, Harry Bogusch, and Freddie Kauffman. For Admiral Moffett, having felt the need of a little seasoning in the aeronautic organization, had accepted applications from a selected group of more experienced line officers. Among them were former submarine officers who, thinking that duty a little too hazardous to health, had transferred to the comparative safety of flying.

And thus began a most delightful experience. For the first time in many moons, my responsibilities were reduced to the lowest possible terms. All I now had to do was to maneuver a nice little airplane, one that seemed to sense my intentions and even anticipate them, and to execute turns, glides, and landings smoothly and competently and--to my surprise--without dunking me in the drink. The pullings and haulings of BUAERO, the plot and counterplot of politics, now faded into the limbo. And in their places came the thrill of facing hazards--and overcoming them. Raised as I had been in an era when men had not asked extra compensation for extra hazard in the line of duty, I held a secret hunch that a man should be glad to pay something extra for the privilege of enjoying such a happy and uncomplicated routine. Naturally I did not voice this mutiny to my instructors.

With my solo safely behind me, I moved ahead with renewed confidence and from that day forward averaged nearly five hours solo almost every working day, passing one check after the other and moving steadily along on schedule. Meanwhile an unexpected influence had entered into my training, insinuating itself in a delicate sort of way; it was old Aunt Lucy.

It had started one sunny morning when, standing in front of the mirror to tie my black four-in-hand tie, I had, in sheer exuberance, burst out singing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Aunt Lucy, who seemed to be forever dusting the furniture when I was in the room, and who was always fingering my dress sword, as if fascinated by it, now interrupted my music.

"Oh, no sah!" she protested. "Not dataway! Not dataway!"

And then with one foot tapping and her gay turbaned old head bobbing to the rhythm, Aunt Lucy proceeded to swing that old chariot so low it got dizzy. The song ended, she cackled and waddled off down the corridor, but in response to my vociferous applause she was soon back again, dustcloth in hand, flicking specks off the battered furniture of the bare room.

"I'se goin' to try on my long white robe, Down by the riverside; down by the riverside; down by the riverside. I'se goin' to try on my long white robe, Down by de riverside-- I ain't a goin' t' study wah no moh!"

Of an original class of some thirty students, only about twenty survived the rigorous course. The others either lacked the natural coordination essential to instinctive flying or failed on that other important requirement "correct reaction in emergency." The first could be acquired by early athletic instruction, but the second seemed to be innate in some, wholly lacking in others. It was the unpleasant duty of the check instructor to detect the lack of that attribute before it could produce fatal results. But to men who had natural aptitude in the basic requirements, flying had an extraordinary appeal. There was all the intense satisfaction to be experienced through skill in any art, such as the smooth stroking of a tennis ball, the rhythmic swing of a golf club, or the exquisitely precise casting of a feathered salmon fly--all these were experienced by the student pilot, but with the added thrill that a mistake invited disaster.

During the month of November I graduated from the seaplane beach and moved over into landplanes. My classmates, following the more leisurely normal course, remained behind. In landplanes, we used the new Consolidate NY's and, while they had few of the pleasant flying qualities of the little N-9's, they didn't kill students in crack-ups.

Finally came November 30, 1926, and with it my final check. "Dixie" Ketcham, my check instructor, put me through the paces and then waved me back toward Old Corry Field. I was sitting there calmly enjoying the scenery below, but with one eye, as always, roving about in search of a place to land in case of engine failure, when the engine stopped. Below me lay a tiny cow pasture, the spot in which, no doubt, I was supposed to land. But it was so tiny I felt certain that Dixie would open the throttle again after I had demonstrated the required approach technique. And so I settled down to the "normal approach": a left turn to get downwind, a glide over the tops of the jack pine, a slip to lose altitude, a sunfish to kill extra speed, stick-back to break the glide--but the throttle didn't open and we went on in a nice landing.

As we reached the end of the run, just short of the edge of the field--we had no brakes then, nor did we use flaps--Dixie waved a hand as the signal to go home.

"If you can get into a pasture like that," he said, "you can get in anywhere!"

Back at my quarters in BOQ I walked on air. Aunt Lucy with her everlasting dustcloth fiddled around the gilt sword knot of the class of 1871 prize sword. And as she dusted it, she hummed the final verse of the spiritual she had sung so often for me.

"I'se goin' to lay down my burden-- Down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside. I'se goin' to lay down my burden, Down by the riverside. I ain't a goin' to study wah no moh!"

Tossing my helmet and goggles onto the bed and reaching for my suitcase, I began packing my duffel for the return trip to Washington. Aunt Lucy was folding my best blue blouse with its shiny three stripes and, best of all, my new gold wings pinned on its breast. Under her breath she kept humming.

"I ain't a goin' to study wah no mo!" I stopped to look at her.

"Aunt Lucy," I demanded, "is it by accident or design that you keep singing that song at me?" Aunt Lucy chuckled.

"Well, sah," she replied in her deep contralto, "ah thought maybe now you done learned to fly like de angels, you might like to think a little about peace."

"Why," I retorted, "that's just what a navy is for--to keep peace."

"Yassah, yassah," Aunt Lucy persisted, fingering the gold pin on my best blouse, "but it jes' seem to Aunt Lucy dat, now de Lord done gib yo' wings, maybe yo' might find better use for dem dan jes fightin'."

The telephone jingled. Western Union had a wire for me. My wife was thrilled by the news of my gold wings; she had left for Washington to reopen the apartment.

The Take-off

Back in Washington, the admiral welcomed me with a grin and promptly assigned me a new job as Chief of the Airplane Design Section. This was a naval constructor's stronghold, and even though we line officers had pretty well dominated design down in the Engine Section, I could have been made to feel like a blacksmith in a glassworks, had it not been for my new wings and my postgraduate engineering course under Dr. Lucke. But by now the vision he had foreseen had begun to come to pass: the "professors" and the "practical men" had got together in the person of the engineer, and the world was already on fire with new developments.

Among other things the great engineering societies, like the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Society of Civil Engineers, and others, had joined hands to build a new Engineering Societies' Building on 39th Street in New York City, where they had their several offices and conducted their technical sessions. One of these societies extended an invitation to Admiral Moffett to address a joint session on naval aviation and the admiral passed the job of writing the screed on to me. But when I handed the finished product over to him, he glanced at the title "Power Plants for Aircraft," and grinned.

"You read it," he directed.

I read it at a session at Pennsylvania State College and afterward, to my surprise, learned that it had won some kind of award. To receive this prize, I attended a session in the New York auditorium of the society's building and in the course of a little talk, told the story of how George Mead and I, after the "invention" of the air-cooled engine, had discovered its prototype in the Smithsonian Institution in the power plant of the early Langley airplane, the Manly engine. There was a disturbance in the back of the auditorium and a member stood up to remark that Mr. Charles M. Manly was right there in the audience. Amid the shouts that followed, Mr. Manly was belatedly revealed as a great pioneer.

There was some discussion as to the wisdom of releasing the latest in research or development in this country in exchange for similar data from abroad, but the admiral settled it characteristically. If you couldn't keep ahead of the other fellow by resort to your own initiative and enterprise in a free market, he felt, then you certainly couldn't beat him on a closed circuit. An alert mind could often find something in the other fellow's research which the other fellow might have missed; and if the other fellow beat you to the punch in your own field, you deserved to lose out. The admiral's highly competitive spirit kept the whole Bureau on its toes and a word of commendation from him fired his supporters to play better ball than they really knew how.

This general type of leadership seemed to permeate the Washington atmosphere of the middle 'twenties. The team of Harding and Coolidge had been elected to office on the slogan of a "Return to Normalcy." The American people had tasted the European way in World War I and had found it bitter indeed. Then, after President Harding had died, Mr. Coolidge had taken office and given us an administration founded on New England character and integrity. This had been particularly apparent in the monetary field. We in BUAERO had to supply Admiral Moffett with sound bases for our requests for appropriations, but when we did, the Old Man would come through; he had a rare knack for getting money, especially after he had established the principle of the five-year plan. But we were expected to make our appropriations pay dividends; they weren't handouts for "social" purposes.

We didn't pretend to know anything about the obscure theories of economics, but anyone could understand the soundness of Mr. Andrew Mellon's tax policies. The war had left us with the heaviest debt in the history of the country, and with income taxes at high rates. Mr. Mellon seemed determined to reduce the debt, and to this end he resorted to reduced taxation. Meanwhile Mr. Coolidge sat on the lid in so far as expenses were concerned. In BUAERO we got no sudden slashing, but a quiet mandate that when a vacancy occurred, it would not be filled; the work would either be divided among others or, if unnecessary, be allowed to lapse. And between the two processes, prosperity returned. Reduced taxes made funds available for new enterprises; new enterprises paid new taxes which further reduced the debt. Mr. Mellon now began anticipating this result by further tax reductions, which accelerated the creation of new enterprises and new jobs. And so a boom was born and men talked of the "new economic era."

With the Morrow Board policy and the Moffett five-year building program as its foundation, and the favorable climate of the new economic era as its medium, American aviation seemed to turn around almost overnight. The surviving domestic companies, impelled by the incentive of constructive competition, began forging ahead with their integrated programs of research, development, and production. Foreign designers who had languished in the bad atmosphere of war-torn Europe now began peddling their know-how in the promised land. Mr. Anthony Fokker, the rough-and-ready Dutch designer of the famous German Fokkers of World War I, appeared with a new transport designed around the Liberty engine. It had a welded-steel tubular fuselage and a thick monoplane wing made of plywood. With the Liberty it could be nothing but a "kluck" but with three Wright Whirlwind air-cooled radials, it was a hot number. When Dick Byrd planned to fly over the North Pole I wangled one of them for him which he used with conspicuous success. The smaller Fokker Universal made history in the Canadian bush.

Igor Sikorsky, who, as a pioneer Russian pilot and constructor, had built the first four-engined bomber but had left revolution-torn Russia for free America, now designed a remarkably efficient big bomber or transport and began developing his twin-engined amphibian. Giuseppe Ballanca, after setting up shop in Wilmington, Delaware, produced a single-engined cargo carrier, designed around a single Wright Whirlwind engine with which Lt. C. C. Champion of BUAERO's Engine Section, now headed by Henry Mullinix, won all the prizes for speed and efficiency at the Philadelphia national air races.

And a new crop of American designers sprang up almost overnight. Tom Hamilton, of Milwaukee, built a single-motored, high-wing metal monoplane around the Pratt and Whitney Hornet engine and put it into service on many freight routes. Mr. Henry Ford, inspired by zeal to do something concrete for aviation, supported his chief engineer, William Mayo, in the development of the Ford Trimotor--a high-wing, metal monoplane built around three Wright Whirlwinds--and its sale to budding air transport lines at a price which would permit profitable operations. In this Mr. Ford was not prompted by the modern incentive of "tax loss"--that idea had not been born in an era of American initiative and enterprise.

Numerous other enterprisers like Stearman, of Wichita, Kansas, and Stinson, of Detroit, Michigan, began creating private aircraft to exploit the coming boom in personal flying. Many, drawing the analogy with the automobile, were convinced that this boom had already arrived, and began building airports and flying services all over the country. Much of this building was based on shoestring finance, but some of it was sound. And all of it might have made steady progress except for one thing: speculation permeated the sound core of aviation just as it ate at the vitals of all other industry.

Even naval officers, who up until then had seemed to pride themselves on a certain aloofness to the marts of trade, now began dabbling in "the market." Profits here were sure and swift--provided always you were on the inside. One of our friends had an inside tip on a new graveyard to be constructed within the city limits of Los Angeles, with the advice and consent of the City Council, where profits were quick and sure. The harvest for this enterprise was guaranteed to be as sure as--say, death and taxes. This friend looked down his nose at another man whose mouselike wife had been inveigled by a door-to-door salesman into buying a lot in Long Beach, California. The extra burden of paying for this "investment" was about to break the couple down when someone poked a hole in a nearby piece of ground and the oil field on Signal Hill was born. Now the young wife followed the young husband's battleship around in her private yacht. But none of this seemed to discourage creative enterprise, like the rising aircraft manufacturing and air-transport industries.

Among the newcomers in the manufacturing field, Donald Douglas and "Dutch" Kindleberger began to stand out. Prior to their advent, most of the newcomers had been alumni of the great Curtiss Aeroplane Company, of Garden City, Long Island. But Glenn L. Martin, an early bird who had pioneered American twin-engined bombers with his famous Martin bomber, had collected a stable of promising colts; Don Douglas, Dutch Kindleberger, and Larry Bell had worked for him until some temperamental disagreement sent all three on independent projects. After that, each concentrated his efforts to outdoing the others, and especially the old master, Glenn Martin. We in BUAERO, sitting as we did at the crossroads, could always get the dirt and low-down from the visiting firemen and, after sifting it and appraising it, use our own judgment in how to make it pay dividends in new development. Intercompany competition mixed up with interservice competition and whirled about in the old slipstream might look disorderly and inefficient, but it was motivated by highly creative impulses.

Admiral Moffett kept his own Bureau on its toes by involving us in all sorts of racing or other projects. Back in Bruce Leighton's time, BUAERO had given Don Douglas the job of building an experimental single-engined Liberty torpedo-bomber plane--one with extra large tanks for long-range flying. But after Don had produced a masterpiece, the Army Air Service seized upon the type while the Navy dawdled, and the Army had completed the first 'round-the-world flight. This job, a masterpiece of planning and operations, proved such a pronounced success that it gave great impetus to other projects. It also gave the Navy such pain that Admiral Moffett never got over it.

Then one of these tests of mine came near to washing me out of aviation's slipstream forever and leaving me as a part of the permanent "slip."

There had been some discussion in BUAERO of a suggestion to equip Pensacola with some advanced combat trainers by taking the Pratt and Whitney Wasp out of the Curtiss Hawk and substituting in it the lower-power Wright Whirlwind. I had argued against this and suggested obtaining the same result by flying the standard Hawks with partly open throttles. And in order to prove the efficacy of this, I went over to the Naval Air Station, Anacostia, where we did our flight testing, to put on a demonstration. When I waddled out in my flying suit and parachute, I found the plane turning up on the line, but the mechanic was dissatisfied with the way the engine was running. It was one hundred revs short of the full-throttle crank speed. Since this might be due to a weak spark plug or some other minor fault and since I intended to fly at half throttle anyway, I got in, taxied out onto the field, and took off.

The Anacostia Naval Air Station occupied about half of a flat strip of land and had its hangars and shops along the river front. The Army Bolling Field occupied the other part of the reservation with its old wartime buildings lying under the hill on which stands St. Elizabeth's Hospital. If the presence of an institution for the insane, overlooking the rival Army and Navy fields on the same plot, had any significance, I was not concerned with it that day. What I had to look out for, however, was the extensive regrading going on, which limited the operating area to a narrow tract.

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