• "We've had a little problem..."

The quavering voice on the telephone answering machine said, "We've had a little problem, and I'm at Willow Grove. I'm okay, I'll call you later."

Naval Air Station Willow Grove? In a Cessna 152?



But the story starts months earlier. After working together for almost a year, Kate pranced into my office, settled pertly in a chair by my desk and announced with a coy smile that it was a great day to go flying. A recent convert to aviation, thanks to a ride in my open cockpit biplane, I thought she was asking to go again. But she knew as well as I did--no, better than I did--that there was work to be done.


So when I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes in question, she said,

"What I'm trying to tell you is I'm just back from my fourth flight lesson, and it's a beautiful day for flying."

As an after-work flight instructor I was eager to hear about her flying experiences. Meanwhile, I pondered what stroke of fate had brought me together with this gorgeous woman who was smarted than I was, had better business instincts than I did, and liked to fly.

But that was days ago, and the phone message I'd just listened to had me perplexed and worried.

The 'we' suggested that an instructor had gone with her for some dual, instead of the scheduled solo session. That was easy to deduce because the spring weather was bizarre--snow so hard you couldn't see across the street with thunder followed by crackling clear blue sky and calm air followed by thunderstorm wind gusts followed by white-out snow, rinse and repeat. No competent instructor would send a student out alone in such conditions.

The 'problem' part, though, was hard to judge. "I'm okay" suggested she might not have been, and that was worrisome. And the fact that she was calling from a Naval Air Station suggested whatever the problem had been was significant enough that they'd had to land at an otherwise not open to the public facility. Strange.

Weather had to be the problem, I decided; and waited for the call that never came.

Instead, late in the day, she walked into my office, gingerly closed the door, and sat down as if something might break if she moved quickly. She blinked back tears, her lips quivered.

"Well, I've had an interesting afternoon," she said.

As the story unfolded I understood--although I'm not sure she did--that she'd very nearly died.

When she'd arrived at the rural Pennsylvania airport she was told her instructor wasn't there. The idea, far from a plan, had been a few minutes of dual--as is customary with a low time student--followed by solo practice takeoff and landings. Instead, the guy behind the desk threw her the keys to an aircraft and said,

"Why don't you go buzz your boyfriends house. The tanks are about half full, but that should be enough."

No discussion about weather, no admonition about low flying (quite the contrary), no words about doing a careful preflight, no reminder of the old adage that sky above you, runway behind you, and fuel in the gas truck are all worthless.

During the year we'd worked together we'd had occasion to travel on business in a lovely old G35 Beechcraft Bonanza. She showed an interest that went beyond simple pleasure in a sky-high perspective, so enroute I explained the instruments and controls to her and shared some of the things I'd learned in 25 years of flying up to that time. Fortunately, she remember a lot of what we'd talked about.


She prudently filled the Cessna with gas and took off, ready to enjoy a few minutes of freedom in three-dimensions over rolling Pennsylvania Dutch country before returning to practice some landings. At least that was her plan. With no training or advice, she had no reason to fear the deteriorating weather.

"About thirty to forty minutes into my flight," she wrote later to the FAA,"I began to encounter some clouds and snow at 3500 feet. I immediately headed back to Limerick. As the snow got worse I dropped down to 2500 feet to try to get below the snow. It was clear for a while, but the snow got worse again as I approached the airport. I was able to see the runway, though, so I entered the pattern on crosswind and announced my landing. About three quarters of the way down the downwind leg the snow got so bad that I was not able to see the runway. I immediately turned toward the runway hoping to see it, but I couldn't. I aborted the approach and attempted to get back in the pattern. I announced my intentions again on crosswind as visibility was a little better and I was able to see the runway. This time I was in and out of heavy snow on downwind. I was having trouble seeing the ground when I was to turn to base. At a momentary clearing I saw that I had drifted off course so I immediately turned to final at which time I completely lost all visibility."

This is the point where such stories often end.

But Kate, above all else, is a woman of determination. Well aware that the 500 foot high cooling towers at the Limerick nuclear power plant nearby, and remembering my admonition that the higher you are the safer you are, she decided to climb.


"It felt like the plane was neither climbing or moving," she wrote, "and I feared that the wind was holding me back. On later reflection I suspect that it was the lack of visual cues that caused the disorientation. I looked at my instruments and realized that I was, in fact, climbing so I tried to regain my composure. I announced to Limerick that I had aborted the landing and I did not know where I was."

While private pilots are given a modest amount of training on how to fly using only instruments, that's part of later stages of the curriculum. What she knew, she confided, was entirely what she'd learned in our few flights together. Her instructor had, so far, only taught her how to drive an airplane, not how to fly one. Worse, she hadn't been given even rudimentary training on the few instruments the aircraft had, or even how to change radio frequencies.

By happy chance, on one of those recent flights together, I'd explained how an artificial horizon and turn coordinator worked. Essentially I told her, 'Keep that little thing that looks like an airplane level and in the middle and the airplane will fly straight'. I don't remember exactly what I said about the turn coordinator, but it didn't matter. The one in her aircraft, required equipment, didn't work.

Vertigo, you probably have heard, is what gets you. Staying balanced is accomplished with help from your inner ear, your eyes, and how you body feels. The problem is, when you can't see, your inner ear lies to you and your body gets confused--vertigo takes over.

In everyday life, gravity pulls toward your feet, it pushes your butt into the seat if you're sitting down. But in an airplane you can create your own G(ravity) forces, and they ain't always down. In a loop, for example, it's perfectly easy to have your butt pushed into the seat just as hard when you're upside down as it is when you flying right-side up. So if you take away visual references you don't know which way's up—literally.

To complicate matters, there are other G-forces in an aircraft you don't experience in everyday, ground-bound life; and they can really confuse you. Well known to Navy flyers, for example, a catapult shot off a carrier at night can really confuse your senses. Transverse Gs, the forces you feel during horizontal acceleration, perversely, make you feel like you're climbing. So, surrounded by black ocean, it's easy to develop an uncomfortable sensation that you're climbing too steeply. But if you push a little on the stick when you're flying at 100 feet and accelerating through 200 knots, it only takes a split second before you hit the water.

By the same process, when Kate started to climb the aircraft decelerated, and she felt like she must be descending, so she tried to make the aircraft climb...and it only decelerated more. And this is where the unsuspecting, untrained, pilot often loses control.

The airplane slows to the point where the airflow over the wing is no longer able to generate enough lift. It stalls (aerodynamic stall--nothing to do with the engine, which is working fine and pulling as hard is it can). The aircraft noses over, usually falling off to one side a bit, and the pilot pulls harder sensing the sudden descent. Noting an increase in airspeed, because of the sound of the engine speeding and wind rushing, the ill-fated pilot pulls harder yet, tightening the turn and increasing the rate of descent.

Observers on the ground, under such circumstances, report seeing the aircraft come out of the clouds at a steep angle. They say they heard the engine was screaming (overspeed) or making "weird popping sounds," which is exactly the sound an aircraft engine makes when suddenly pulled to idle--a last dash effort when the pilot realizes, too late, what is happening.

So how do you avoid all this? You get proper training on how to fly using instruments, and how to resist the temptation to believe your lyin' eyes ears. Kate had been taught neither, but those few words about "keep the little airplane centered," and her determination to solve the problem, saved her.

Eventually she flew out of the snow squall. With the airport nowhere in sight, she knew she was lost. Then Murphy stepped in. If things weren't already bad enough, while Kate was trying without success to communicate her plight to the flight school, the push-to-talk button on the microphone broke off and flew across the cockpit.

Meanwhile, another aircraft, hearing her terse calls saying she was lost, came on the frequency and suggested she contact Philadelphia approach for radar vectors, direction to another airport. By using a fingernail, she was able to make the microphone work, and told the helpful pilot that sounded like a great idea, but no one had taught her how to tune the radio. He patiently explained which knobs to use, and what numbers to put in the radio, and mirabile dictu, she was able to switch frequencies, and hear aircraft talking to Philly Approach.

Announcing that she was a lost student pilot with less than two hours of solo experience, the approach controller calmly and reassuringly gave her directions to another airport to the east, Wings Field. That sounded like a good plan; her early flights had been at Wings Field before the school's recent move to Pottstown-Limerick Airport. But as she approached the area she could see snow squalls similar to the ones that she had just narrowly escaped.

She said, no, that didn't look like a good direction to fly and explained why. The controller, realizing that the weather was continuing to get worse, and that the pilot he was talking to was flying an aircraft with less and less fuel, redirected her to Willow Grove Naval Air Station, just a few miles away.


Approaching at right angles to the runway, at first she had problem seeing it in the distance. Then, almost overhead, she had trouble recognizing it as an airport because, as she said, "It had a really big-ass runway."

Directed by Approach to switch to Willow Grove tower, she was cleared to land but, "Watch out for the wires at 500 feet," the controller cautioned.

Oh gees, I'm at 600 feet, she thought. "What wires at 500 feet, I don't see any wires," she asked, leveling out.

"Land long, land long," another voice said.

With 8,000 feet of runway ahead of her--the longest and widest she'd ever seen--that would not be a problem, even with a little whoopdeedo in the middle of her approach. As she flared, the 2 inch steel emergency arresting gear cable flashed beneath her wheels. Held 10 inches off the runway by steel springs to ensure arresting hook engagement, it was just the right height to rip the landing gear off a little Cessna. But she missed the cable, made a "pretty good landing, under the circumstance," and taxied to the ramp.


Parked between huge Navy P-3 'Orion' sub-hunters, she was intimidated enough. When a Jeep screeched to halt, and Marines with rifles jumped out she almost lost it. When she heard a voice on a walki-talki ask if they needed help bringing her in, she cracked up.

"Do I really look like a security risk to you?"

Even the Marine couldn't stifle a grin, and she started to relax a little.

Walking to the Operations building nursing an overdose of adrenalin and blasted by the cold blustery wind, she started to shiver.

"Can we run?" she asked.

"No m'am, if you run I'll have to shoot you." Another grin.

They walked the rest of the way across the windy ramp. Quickly.

Inside the Operations building everyone came out to see who the lost lady was...and gave her a round of applause.

"You sounded very professional on the radio," the controller said.

"How did you know what to say when I told you I couldn't see the wires at 500 feet?" Kate asked.

"They blindfold us and put us behind the wheel of a Jeep out on the ramp. You learn very quickly how important clear, calm directions are.

"We were worried about you, though, 'cause the weather really sucks." the Navy Chief on duty said. "Oh sorry, m'am, that's Navy talk. But it is pretty shitty."

After writing a short, surprisingly coherent, statement on Navy stationary for the Ops Officer, and certifying in writing that she would hold the U.S. Government, The Department of the Navy, and Willow Grove Air Station "harmless from any damages sustained by me or the aircraft as a result of having landed," she called back to the flight school. After explaining what happened to an apparently unconcerned voice she was told just to fly on home, dear.

She explained that given her recent ordeal and poor weather she didn't really want to do that. She was told it was probably a good idea to get back on your horsie, honey. Besides, the weather had cleared up some.

As she protested, the Operations Officer took charge of the situation, asked for the phone and told whoever he was talking to that the aircraft was not leaving the ground unless it was flown by a licensed pilot. "Navy Regulations say so, and I say so. Any questions?"

Hugely inconvenienced by the whole thing, two instructors drove the hour on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Willow Grove and Kate flew back with one of them.

"Good thing, too" she said. "It was very bumpy, and even the instructor had trouble landing in the crosswind when we got back. He had to use full control deflection."

Is there a moral to this story? Well, a couple.

The first is if you're a pilot, especially a flight instructor, act on your instincts. If I had, Kate would never have been in such jeopardy. She told me once, for example, that she'd asked her instructor why they were doing a certain maneuver and his response was, "Because I told you so." I laughed that off as one of those you-had-to-be-there jokes. But when she later told me that they never used a check list, and he made her feel kinda foolish if she had to resort to one, I should have acted. Later, I found out they never used the shoulder harness (required), they never did a post flight debrief (required), they hadn't signed her off for solo before she went (required), etc. What other shortcuts did they take, say with required maintenance?

The second moral to this story is if you're a student pilot you unfortunately don't know what you don't know. So don't buy flight training because it's cheap or just because it's conveniently nearby, as Kate did with no other criteria to judge by. Make sure your instructor gives you a thorough preflight and postflight debrief, on the ground not in the airplane. Sure you'll pay for the time, but ground instruction (should be) cheaper than flight instruction. If you don't like your instructor, ask to fly with someone else. A good pilot isn't necessarily a good instructor (but never vice versa). In the military you have to 'hack it' regardless of who's in the cockpit with you. Not so when you're paying good money for training that your and other's lives will depend on.

I will always be grateful to whatever fate brought me together with this wonderful woman--indeed my days with her have defined my life. I'm even more grateful that she had the determination and luck to find a solution when she 'had a little problem'.

• Last Flight

He was an old man, suffering from serious depression and an incurable illness. His future, such as it was, looked grim. Just a few weeks earlier he had been diagnosed as having Hodgkin’s disease.

In an effort to cheer their father up, his sons had driven him from Massachusetts to the great air show taking place in Genessee.

Their dad had been a Navy combat pilot in WWII. He’d often told them stories about his days as a younger man, a man they’d never met and perhaps never really believed existed. But they knew how his eyes would light up when he talked about his wartime experiences. Dad became young again, if only for a moment, as he remembered being strong and healthy, fighting against fascism so many years ago. The boys hoped that being around the old warbirds would lift his spirits for at least a day.

His sons, loving and attentive, helped him out of the car somewhere on one of the fields reserved for parking. He’d been glancing up more frequently as they got closer to the airfield. With a veteran’s practiced eye, he identified the aircraft as they wheeled and banked over the field or taxied to the parking positions. He’d already told his boys that “his” plane wouldn’t be there. They weren’t saved after the war like the more glorified Flying Fortresses or Liberators. Still, young men by the thousands had flown and fought in “his” type of aircraft, and not all of them had made it home. He knew that the model he flew was only a memory shared by a dwindling band of old men like himself. His own sons had never even seen one of the planes that carried him to war. For the most part, no one knew they ever existed. The old planes, like the old man himself, were fading away.

Once they had been young, the hope and pride of a nation. But now…no one cared anymore.

They walked slowly along the crowded flight line. Over the rumble of the engines, Dad gestured for his boys. “That one’s a B-17,” he’d explain, “we had those in the Pacific, too. There’s a P-38 Lightning. You can always tell by the twin tail booms. They were good escorts. They went in with us sometimes. We were glad to have them around.”

Further down the line they passed a Japanese Zero. The old man glared at it silently for a moment, some strange emotion passing briefly across his face. His sons didn’t know if it was grief, fear, anger, or a combination of all. He turned and without a backward glance continued his slow walk.

The memories were becoming stronger for him. The breeze carried the scent of rubber, aviation gas, and hot oil, just like his base used to smell. Planes jockeying into position along the line revved their engines, sending gale-force prop wash blowing across the tarmac as people clutched at their hats and leaned into the wind. Overhead was the deep-throated roar of ancient propeller-driven fighter formations passing in review, a sound unlike any other. Air show announcers all over the country call it the same thing: The Sound of Freedom.

The father and his sons ambled along, pausing occasionally to look up at whatever was flying over. After one particularly low pass by a British Spitfire, the boys turned to remark to Dad and saw him standing as if he were frozen in place. He had walked around the aircraft they’d been looking at and was staring like a man possessed at the next plane in line. A look of incredulous wonder began to spread across his face…

“My God,” he whispered. “My God, there it is. It’s…someone…how…I never thought that I’d ever…”

“What is it, Dad? Are you okay?”

He seemed to stand taller and his shoulders squared. “Okay? Hell yes, I’m okay! THERE’S MY PLANE!”

It just so happened that “his” plane was also “our” plane. Lockheed PV-2 “Harpoons” were never immortalized by Hollywood like the Flying Fortresses of “12 O’Clock High,” the B-25 Mitchells of “Catch-22” or any of a score of other films. Why this is so remains a mystery, for the missions they flew were some of the most heroic—and harrowing—of the war. Flying out of New York, Norfolk, and Pensacola, PV-1s and 2s scoured the Atlantic for Nazi U-boats. The WWII cliché “sighted sub, sank same” is attributed to a PV-1 crew. In the Pacific theater, astonished Navy pilots soon realized that the PV-1 could actually outrun the dreaded Japanese Zeros, a feat unheard of for a medium bomber. The Lockheed’s phenomenal speed saved scores, perhaps hundreds, of American lives.

With the debut of the heavier and more stable PV-2, Marine Corps pilots and ground crews, as usual, made a few non-standard “field modifications.” This normally meant torching extra holes in the nose and welding in as many .50 machine guns as they could cram into the forward bay. The Marines also tore out the torpedo and depth charge racks in the somewhat pregnant-looking bomb bay and installed hooks for 500 pounders and napalm. As if this wasn’t enough, industrious gunneys even bolted rails under each wing and loaded them with air-to-ground rockets! Aeronautical engineers were appalled when they heard this, but soon reports came back from the combat zones of Harpoons taking on everything from subs and fighters to tanks and heavy cruisers, all with disastrous results to the enemy. The Harpoons could—and did—fight anything. And somewhere amidst the fire and fury, somewhere between the Philippines and the Aleutians, there was a young Navy pilot who would live to be taken to Gennessee, New York by his sons….

The old man stood at the front of the plane and, after a long moment, simply reached up and placed his hand on the underside of the nose. “I never knew they saved one,” he said softly. “I never thought I’d see one again.” To his sons, the man sounded as if he had suddenly found something priceless that he had lost many years ago.

One of his boys slipped around to the port side of the harpoon. He’d seen an open hatch and one of our crewmen standing near it. The younger man had decided to ask, plead—beg if he had to—for permission to let his father climb aboard a Harpoon just one more time. Please, please…

To his surprise and delight, he was informed that we welcome visitors aboard our plane. In fact, we encourage them to climb in and take a look around. It’s no fun having a bomber if you can’t show it off once in a while, right? Besides, we’re maintaining a living piece of American history, and we’re rather proud of that fact.

The fellow who climbed into the hatch did so with the grace and familiarity of a young naval aviator, not an old man suffering from Hodgkin’s disease. Our crewman offered to show the old gent around and point out objects of interest in the plane, a courtesy we perform for all visitors, but one of the man’s sons tugged at his sleeve. “Dad
knows his way around in here. Can we talk outside for a moment?”

Our crewman was somewhat bewildered, but he was beginning to realize that something out of the ordinary was going on. He’d seen that eerie look in the old fellow’s eyes and it was plain that these other two guys wanted to explain his behavior. He hopped out of the hatch and listened to them. They told our man about their dad’s crushing depression upon learning of his incurable disease, how they had hoped to just cheer him up a little, and how overjoyed he was to see that a bunch of characters from Indiana were actually flying around the country in a plane that he thought no longer existed.

Our man knew there was more to it than that. There was a lot of happiness and relief in these men, too. Their mission was accomplished: against all odds, they’d broken the black spell on their father.

While the old aviator was still merrily poking about in our plane, a couple more of our crew strolled up munching on hamburgers. “What’s up? Anything going on?”

“Yeah. Wait’ll you hear this…”

Within minutes, two of our crewmen set out to round up the rest of the gang. The old man was still climbing in and out of the plane, kicking the landing gear and inspecting the bomb bay, when they all arrived. Our whole “away team” shook his hand and took pictures of him and his boys. The old fellow’s joy was infectious, and our guys were glad to be a part of it. Then someone in the crew cam up with a brilliant idea. It was whispered from man to man and a hasty conference was held under the huge wing. Heads nodded all around. Yeah. It was agreed. They had to do this…

We were scheduled to make a flight the next day for “Aviation Classics” magazine. They wanted some pictures of our rare Harpoon doing its stuff. A photographer had been sent, a swift chase plane had been reserved, and takeoff was set for the following morning.

As is always the case, every seat available was already spoken for. Despite its size, and not counting the pilots and flight engineer, there are only five seats aboard our plane. She was designed as a combat aircraft, not a passenger plane. Even among the members of our organization, a flight is a rare treat. To be honest about the matter, at a fuel consumption rate of nearly two hundred gallons an hour we can’t afford much joyriding. At air shows, our fuel and other expenses are paid for by the promoters of the show so every time we lift off five lucky people get to take a “free” ride. These seats are always reserved well in advance, usually for our own people who’ve spend countless hours of hard work and a lot of their own money to “keep ‘em flying.” It’s a privilege we all look forward to every summer.

Our crew looked at the ancient Navy pilot standing beside the Harpoon. He constantly touched the aircraft as if to assure himself that it was really there and not just a dream. There was a haunted look about him, as if he were surrounded by the ghosts of his former comrades. He had survived the Zeros, but there would be no escape from the disease that now had a grip on him. The old veteran was fighting his last battle even as they watched…

“He can have my seat,” one of our guys said softly.

“Naw. You haven’t gone up for a while. Let him take mine.”

Soon there was a near fight among all five over who would give up their seat. It was a point of honor. Besides, people who fly and maintain old warbirds are slightly crazy anyway.

The argument was settled and, beaming delightedly, the whole crew marched over to the man and his sons. They told him about the photo run that was scheduled for the next day and that we just, ahh, happened to have a spare seat available. Would he like to ride along on the flight?

The question stunned him. “Are you serious?” He looked from man to man, and their faces answered for them. They were all grinning like idiots and nodding their heads in encouragement.

The aged Harpoon pilot blinked a few times and cleared his throat. Then, with his sons standing beside him, he lifted his chin and answered. “Yes,” he said. “I’d love to go. Thanks…thank you very much.”

His sons didn’t comment on our crew’s invitation. For some reason they were suddenly having trouble with their voices. But the way they looked at our people spoke volumes on the subject of heartfelt gratitude. The men from Massachusetts stood with the men from Indiana on an airfield in New York state, and the axiom of a brotherhood among airmen demonstrated its truth once more.

The old aviator arrived at dawn the next day. Only a couple of our people were up and at the aircraft at that time, groggily sipping coffee and still yawning. One of our guys commented that the veteran pilot looked surprisingly wide awake for that early hour. He replied that most of his combat missions had begun at dawn or even earlier. Besides, he admitted sheepishly, he had been unable to sleep the whole night. “I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning,” he grinned.

Someone reached into a tool box and produced a thermos of coffee. The old fellow accepted a cup and sat a package down on the work bench. “I thought some of you might be interested in this.” He carefully unwrapped a tattered and patched photo album.

“My boys talked me into bringing it from home when we came up here. I’m glad I have it with me now.” He opened the cover.

Our crewmen took one glance inside and snapped completely awake, nearly choking on their coffee. They stared at the book, then at each other.

The album was a gold mine. The then-young Navy pilot had taken dozens of black and white photos of his aircraft, both inside and out. Equally important, he’d taken many close-ups of the mechanics at work on his forward island bases. We had only been able to guess at where some of the equipment was mounted in the interior of our plane, and how some of the field-expedient repairs had been accomplished under combat conditions. This book could allow us to rebuild and refurbish our plane to her exact wartime appearance, the goal of all military aircraft restorers. We have a thick manual for the bird, but it’s no longer possible to do everything “by the book.”

Lockheed hasn’t made parts for this aircraft for over fifty years. We knew that Navy and Marine mechanics had accomplished wonders with baling wire, tin cans, and friction tape: the big question was how? Which backyard repairs could we get away with and which ones could cause a crash? What do you do when a control cable snaps at 12,000 feet or the port engine starts blowing oil or the landing gear jams halfway down?

Our crewmen suddenly realized that the fellow sipping coffee and looking calmly back at them was not merely an old man suffering from Hodgkin’s disease. He was also a retired United States Navy officer, a combat experienced aviator, and a government-trained expert on Lockheed PV-2 Harpoons. A few hours earlier, they felt as if he needed them. Now it dawned on our crew that they needed him—badly—and the knowledge he had carried for nearly half a century.

“Sir, when the rest of our people get here, would you consider giving us a, uhh, briefing?”

He sat his cup down and smiled. “Be glad to.”

Later that morning they were assembled around the elderly pilot, hanging on his every word. His constant touching and staring at the aircraft had not been the ghostly reminiscences of days gone by, but a careful and professional examination. Instinctively, he’d been giving our Harpoon a pre-flight inspection. He’d been quietly “grading” us on our reconditioning, maintenance, and craftsmanship. He’d noted where we had done well—and where there was need for improvement. Our crew jotted don page after page of memos on everything from how the navigator’s table folded up to which hydraulic lines to inspect frequently. To no one’s surprise, he said that some portions of the manual were nonsense, then went on to tell us how to do things the right way.

He gave our pilots detailed information on how to crash-land the plane in the event of total power failure. Harpoons are not noted for crash survivability, something we all keep in the back of our minds. His crew in the Pacific had been lucky to have him at the controls. He ran out of fuel once and had to belly in on a beach. The plane was a total loss, but the young Navy flyer saved his crew. Someday—God forbid—we may have to try it ourselves.

The veteran continued on for some time without any apparent fatigue or effects from his illness. Presently a civilian aircraft noisily taxied up to the Harpoon and braked to a halt. Two men clambered out of the plane, the photographer and his pilot. They exchanged information with our pilots on how the photo flight was to be handled, shook hands, and hopped back in their plane. The Cessna turned and began to taxi back out to the runway.

Flight line workers began to circle the Harpoon, warning spectators away from our bomber and clearing a path for it to roll out from the parking area. Our pilots and engineer climbed up into the cockpit and began their pre-flight checklist. Two of our people, one at each engine, stood guard outside with fire extinguishers while four more eagerly entered the plane.

For the first and only time in their lives, the old man’s sons watched him climb into a PV-2 Harpoon. Just inside the hatch, he turned and looked at his boys for a long moment. Something seemed to pass between them for an instant, then he gave them a “thumbs up” and shut the door.

He never thought that he’d see another of “his” planes and certainly never dreamed he’d fly in one again, if even only as a passenger, but fate had reserved him one more takeoff, just one more time.

The last flight was under way.

Our pilot shouted out his window. “Clear!” The ground crewmen stood by with the fire extinguishers, just in case. The number one starter motor engaged the flywheel, causing that eerie high-pitched whine that quickens the blood of anyone who ever heard it. Then the pistons fired, coughed, and fired again, blowing out rapid puffs of smoke as the Hamilton-Standard prop began to spin. The engine smoothed and revved to a high idle, pounding out a sound like nearby thunder. Number two engine whined, backfired, and blew out a great cloud of white smoke. Its prop remained motionless. Doubtless cursing under his breath, the pilot initiated a restart while the ground crew eyed the engine suspiciously, extinguishers at the ready.

The flywheel built up speed again, the switch was thrown, and this time the mighty Pratt & Whitney radial roared into life, fairly bellowing strength and defiance. The whole aircraft shook visibly as the great 2,000 horsepower engines warmed up. The brakes strained to hold the ship in place while the preflight was completed, then they were gradually released and the bomber started to roll.

As always, she gained speed rapidly. Halfway down the strip, the barn-door sized tail lifted and the plane seemed to balance on her main gear. Then, with the awesome sound of a warbird—the Sound of Freedom—the Harpoon thundered into the sky.

They circled the field once, gaining altitude. The chase plane fell into formation with them, the photographer taking advantage of a beautiful cloudless day. The Harpoon banked gracefully, easing back over the airfield. Together the two aircraft made repeated passes giving the cameraman every shot he could wish for. When the photo run was over, both planes slowed and dropped into a landing glide path, flaps and gear down. The smaller plane led the way, touching down well ahead of the big blue Navy patrol bomber.

It was the moment our crew had been waiting for. The airspace was now clear.

The Harpoon’s gear went back up and the engines throttled forward. She picked up speed, streaked over the runway at a breathtaking fifteen feet, and rocketed back up in a tight climbing turn.

One of our ground crew grinned at the old pilot’s sons. “I think your dad is in for a little treat.” The Harpoon was now going in excess of two hundred fifty knots. The bomber stood on one wing, whirled around in a high-stress turn, and dove like a falcon—straight towards the field. Her engines were audible for miles, and the vast crowd of spectators looked up as one. “What the hell are they up to?” Hot dogs and soft drinks were dropped by the score as people snatched for their cameras. The plane shrieked over the flight line, a blue streak above the Mustangs and the Liberators and that thrice-damned Zero. In the wink of an eye they blew past the throng of spectators as babies cried, women covered their ears, and children howled with delight. The slipstream sent hats, programs, and paper cups flying in every direction.

The plane rocked back on its tail and flew into the sun. The crowd squinted and tried to follow it. Eventually even the sound of the engines grew faint. The plane was gone—but to where? A few minutes passed, then someone shouted, “There! To the north!”

They’d gone for altitude, and were now diving back in again. But this time something was different. The plan was flying strangely. A teenager asked his father, “Are they in trouble?”

The Harpoon was dodging rapidly left and right and flinging itself up and down in the dive. Experienced combat pilots—and there are many at air shows—knew at first glance what the Navy bomber was doing. “Jinking” is how pilots are trained to avoid ground fire in combat. The plane was coming in under evasive action and gaining speed at an alarming rate. Two hundred sixty knots, two seventy, two ninety…Then the aircraft straightened and flew with determined precision, seeming to aim itself at a point just opposite from the crowd on the other side of the runway.

The bomb bay doors snapped open and half dozen dark oblong shapes spilled out.

Spectators gasped as the objects tumbled and fell, whistling loudly as they came. The missiles hit the field and exploded into a spectacular red and green spray. The crowd sent up a mighty cheer as they realized what they’d seen, and the sons of our passenger laughed and cheered loudest of all.

Gennessee, New York had just been bombed by a planeload of Indiana watermelons.

After pulling up from its surprise “bomb run,” the Harpoon slowed to cruise speed, circled, and came back for a final pass before landing. She swooped in low and slow, one wing tipped in salute to the crowd while cameras clicked and video recorders whirred. Then the great flaps lowered, the gear came down, and the tires screeched on contact with the tarmac. The bomber taxied to the parking apron, turned, and rolled slowly to her assigned area.

Flight line workers held back the crowds who surged in around her, waving, applauding, and holding children on the shoulders. The old aviator’s sons stood with our ground crew, shielding their eyes from a final wind blast as the port brake was locked, the starboard engine revved, and the plan ground-looped perfectly into exactly the same spot she had left. The engines were cut, number two giving its characteristic double backfire, and the props clattered to a halt. The elevator surfaces on the huge tail lowered and thumped softly down to their rest positions. The flight was over, the bomber now silent.

Our crew formed a semicircle around the hatch, the veteran’s sons standing expectantly in the front. For a long moment the hatch remained closed. Then the handle rotated, the door swung slowly open, and a figure appeared at the top of the access ladder. The sons looked up solemnly, as if seeing their father for the first time, He paused there, returning their gaze. Then the emotion became too great for even him to control, and his loving, joyous smile became framed by streams of tears that rolled down both cheeks. He hopped down the short ladder and into the arms of his boys. Our crew surrounded them as they gripped each other, laughing and weeping, in an impassioned, back slapping, three-way hug.

The scene was best described to this writer by one of our female crew members.

“Oh, you should have seen it! These macho guys of ours in the plane came out and they were all crying. They were embarrassed by it, but they had to keep wiping their eyes. The old man was the happiest person I’ve ever seen in my life. He kept on laughing and crying at the same time and asking his boys if they saw the bomb run. They were nodding and hugging him. The ground crew was sniffing and snorting and looking at everything except each other. I finally gave up myself and said ‘What the hell?’ So I started crying too.”

The aviator told everyone within earshot how happy he was to have been with us, even if only for a short while. Another of our ladies appeared at his side and asked if he would like to join our organization. Before she could even finish the question he exclaimed, “Yes!” She pulled an application out from behind her back and, grinning, handed the old fellow a pen. He quickly read the document and signed it on the offered back of our flight engineer. After handing the paper back, he reached inside jacket. “I have my checkbook with me. I can pay my first annual dues right now and…”

There was a cry of outrage and our “recruiting officer” steadfastly refused to take a cent. She looked around threateningly at the rest of the team and called for a forum. By immediate and unanimous voice vote, the veteran was made a life member of our crew on the spot, all dues waived forever.

Addresses and phone numbers were exchanged. The retired naval officer was told that he could expect our first organizational newsletter within a week and that we’d stay in touch by mail, keeping him abreast of developments with the plane. He replied that he had many photographs and notes pertaining to PV-2 Harpoons that he’d send us, as well as personal observations and letters answering any questions we might have in the future.

After some time, they had to leave for the long drive back to Massachusetts. Our men shook his firm hand for the last time, our wives and girlfriends each gave him a kiss, and it was time to leave. One of the sons kept repeating to our crew, “You don’t know. You don’t know what this has done for Dad. This has brought him back. He’s his old self again. You just don’t know…”

Well, maybe we don’t. But we have a pretty good idea. We know what he did for us.

Whatever else life may have in store for him the veteran will always know that one of his planes is still flying, crewed by a new generation. And we will know that we have a friend, our senior member, who we can turn to when the skies grow dark and we need advice.

Sometimes people ask me why I love air shows.

I never know what to tell them.

Ken Ballard

• Falling Through Space

"The needs of the Navy" dictate what assignment you're given after flight school, but grades (mostly) and personal preference (some) figure in. Most of the instructors at VT-10 were A-6 Intruder BNs (Bombardier/Navigators), and they all sang it's praises. The mission, they said, was a hoot. Imagine flying at 450 knots up the Grand Canyon. Some fun, that. At night, IFR not so much.


So instead of sitting in the back of an brutish F-4 fighter or cocooned in a stiletto-sexy photo-recon RA-5C, as a licenssed pilot I asked for A-6s where I'd ride shotgun and see what was going on. But I had a enough flying experience to know that while flying low-level could be thrilling, doing it IFR and/or at night would scare you silly, even if the aircraft could do it.


And it could. The DIANE system (Digital Integrated Attack and Navigation Equipment) used radar to paint a cartoon picture of the vertical terrain ahead on a large CRT in front of the pilot. The radar navigation system, my responsibility, painted a map view of the terrain on two CRTs, one for both of us. The black and green monochrome video displays in the cockpit were state of the art at the time.


Slew the cursor to one end of that bright white blob on the screen, the end of a bridge with a known latitude and longitude, hit update and the best guess of the inertial navigation, encouraged by doppler, would be reset to within a few feet. About the same as the dirt simple $99 handheld hiker's GPS today. Ours cost the Navy millions and a full-system capable A6 needed about 240 maintenance hours per flight hour.

You could couple the autopilot to the system, too, and fly low-level hands-off. Select the soft mode, and it would give you as smooth ride over changing terrain. Select the hard mode and the aircraft would try to go up one side of a barn and down the other. It was physically uncomfortable in mountains, but it would give you the best chance of staying under enemy AAA and SAM radar, and that was the point. Getting shot down, we all knew, would be a lot more uncomfortable. But the aircraft was seldom flown low level except by hand.

The system had all kinds of fancy modes and weird peculiarities so we flew a lot of training hops through the mountains and along the coast of Washington and Oregon from our base at NAS Whidbey Island, north of Seattle.

High-loft bombing was the most fun and the least useful. Designed to help you more-or-less accurately deliver an atomic bomb (close counts), the technique was used to help you get away quickly.

From the initial point (IP) you flew balls-to-the-wall* to a computer generated pull-up point, then start a half-cuban eight from right on the deck. As you passed vertical the bomb would be automatically released, you'd continue to pull through over the top until on the 45 degree down line where you'd roll upright again. You'd continue the dive until you reached a couple of hundred feet above the ground, then boogie out of there as fast as you could while you pulled a special flash curtain down over your head. All IFR and/or at night of course, and with the understanding that your flight plan wouldn't necessarily include a provision for getting home, waiting tankers or other niceties...just away from your target.

Part of the SIOP atomic retaliation plans, the technique was useless in Vietnam jungles, but fun to practice--at least under VFR conditions. So the whole idea of being upside down in a bomber was anything but novel. Even using more typical laydown bombing techniques, it wasn't unusual to pop up before reaching a target, roll inverted, pull hard to get the nose down on the subject of your attention, and then roll back upright before bomb release.

So why were we upside down falling out of a loop with zero indicated airspeed at FL230? And why did the pilot just say quietly, "Shit"?

After a low level hop over eastern Washington in the dark wee hours, we called Seattle center, and climbed into the flight levels to cross the Cascade mountains. Radios quiet at this time of night, bored chit-chat on the intercom turned to the failed altitude reporting mode on the transponder followed by my wisecrack about what our radar track would look like if we did a loop. Which was punctuated by a hard pull into the buffet, the initiation of just such a maneuver.

Nose up, passing vertical I wondered if Center would, in fact, notice and wondered what they would say. I also wondered why the airspeed was down to the bottom of the scale. As we floated over the top I pondered the adage that you can't stall if you don't have G on the aircraft.

As we reached the top of the loop, level but inverted, our airspeed was zero. We started falling through space. Not dive. Fall. Junk and grit from the bildge and the pencil on my kneeboard fell past my helmet onto the canopy below me. My feet came up off the floor and my shins whacked the bottom of the instrument panel although restrained with cords designed to pull your toes back out of the way during an ejection.

The nose remained on the dark horizon and the vertical rate began to increase. I looked at the pilot illuminated in the red instrument lights. His face, covered with an oxygen mask, didn't reveal any emotion. I could see he had the stick back in his lap, so why wasn't the nose pitching down?

We continued to fall. The nose oscillated up and down a few degrees, but showed no inclination toward a recovery attitude, as we yawed maybe 30 degrees to starboard. I watched the pilot push the stick hard to the left and kick hard rudder. I looked back outside. Nothing.

As we passed 20 grand the pilot said, "If I don't have this sombitch under control by the time we reach ten we're gonna punch out." My mind flashed through the memorized ejection sequence. I saw an image of myself floating down in a parachute on a cold night over snow-covered mountains. I wondered if the mountains were lower than the 9,000 foot automatic parachute deployment altitude. I even had time to wonder about the odds of being found before we froze in our summer weight Nomex flight suits.

After a few more oscillations the nose started down. "Wait...wait" he said, "...I think I've got. I've got it. I've got it." We gingerly pulled out of the dive and headed back up to our assigned altitude. "Well, that was fun," says he.

We flew in silence until Center called, "November Juliet Five Four Zero what's your indicated airspeed?"

"We're showing point seven eight, sir."

"Okay. Lost you there for a minute. Contact Seattle Approach two seven zero decimal eight. Have a good one."

The moral of this story is that a cockpit is no place for impetuous action. As I sit writing, it occurs to me that every time I made a snap decision and tried something I hadn't thought through, usually something I thought at the time would be fun, it resulted in something scary happening instead.

Blue skies and Tailwinds,

Tailspin

PS. Thinking things through is no guarantee the plan will necessarily work, of course. A neighbor and squadron mate punched out of an A-6 one dark night after a complete (all three systems) hydraulic failure. He ended up hanging unharmed from his parachute in a tree with no idea how far it was to the ground in the dark forest. He thought the situation through carefully, and hit on a solution. He dropped his helmet, which immediately went "clunk," so he figured he was down and popped the fittings to release from the parachute shroud lines. He fell 60 feet through the branches, breaking his ankle. The helmet was stuck on a limb.

* The phrase 'balls to the wall' is a hold-over from WWII when power levers (throttle, mixture, prop) all had round balls at the top, each color coded (black, red, blue). Push the power all the way up, and you'd have all the balls against the firewall—balls to the wall.

'All nine yards' is also a WWII phrase relating to the length of a belt of 50-cal. machine gun bullets. "Give em all nine yards," and you'd have expended all your ammo.

You'll also hear that a sports team 'waxed their ass" or 'waxed their tail,' both derived from an excited WWI fighter pilot's report that he was so close behind the Hun during a dogfight he could have waxed his tail.

Finally, I'm always tickled when I hear some cute young corporate thing proudly announce that's she's going to do a 'dog and pony show' for some bigwig. Little does she know (I assume) that the phrase refers to a XXX-rated attraction that originated in Tijuana, Mexico for nearby San Diego sailors.

• Vne, IAS, TAS and BVDs

Never Exceed Speed (Vne), Indicated Air Speed (IAS) and True Air Speed (TAS) are closely linked, and if you don't understand how and why, they could have an effect on your BVDs.

Studying the Pilot Operating Handbook of a Grob 103 I was surprised to see a chart that showed never-exceed speed decreased with altitude. The jet and prop powered aircraft I've flown for over 40 years all have a redline at Vne and none varied with altitude. Vne was Vne. Never exceed that speed or bad things will happen.

But now, the Grob manual told me, Vne was not a fixed speed on the airspeed indicator. Vne, it insisted, was related to true air speed (TAS) not indicated air speed (IAS). To keep from exceeding the 135 knot TAS Vne, the never exceed indicated airspeed had to go down as you climbed higher.

Now hold on, common sense said IAS should be the limiting factor not TAS. What was I missing? How could the aircraft be exceeding Vne if the needle was way down in the green arc, which the sailplane's POH and a placard demanded?

TAS is the true speed an aircraft moves through an air mass, and the lying air speed indicator doesn't show that, at altitude, because it's confused by the lower air density. To get the true story we have to pull out our prayer wheel and correct IAS for altitude and temperature--in other words correct IAS for air density--to get TAS. No new news there, every student pilot learns how and knows why.

So what's the problem, why does Vne go down as you go higher? The answer has do with something that almost sounds sweet and friendly but is actually very nasty: flutter. Ribbons and butterflies flutter in a pretty way, but airfoil flutter can ruin your whole day life.

Flutter is a so-called aeroelastic effect that results from the springiness (elasticity of the airfoil and the surrounding air), aerodynamic forces, and inertia.

A wing has mass and when it's tweaked--when a force is applied, say by turbulence or a control input--it overcomes the inertia of the mass, and the wing responds by flexing (even a metal wing). Usually, that acceleration is absorbed or damped by the wing, the structure it's attached to, and the surrounding air. But if that tweak is suddenly imposed or is energetic enough as the result of high speed, you can make the structure resonate like a tuning fork.

It doesn't have to be a plastic ship, either. Here's a NASA film of a Twin Comanche's empennage (note how the fuselage skin flexes just ahead of the horizontal stab).



And a Lockheed C-141 (note the tail is resonating too)



What happens if you go too fast, push the aircraft past the speed where it flutters? Here's one of Grumman Iron Work's A6 Intruders.




Why does Vne go down with increasing altitude? Because there's less air to act as a shock absorber. Because there's less resistance to the wing (or other structure) flexing, you have to reduce the forces on that structure. The only way to avoid flutter (without redesigning the wing) is to go slower.

Aircraft manufacturers determine Vne by using numerical methods to compute Vd, design diving speed. (FAR 23, by the way, requires that Vd be not less than 1.4 design cruise speed, so the days of aircraft that climb, cruise and glide at 80 are over.) Flight testing is used to establish Vdf, flight test dive speed, which must be lower than or equal to Vd. Then Vne is set at 90% of the Vd or Vdf, whichever is lower, to add a margin for error--theirs and yours.

What does all this mean to you as a glider (or power) pilot? The faster your True Air Speed the more likely you are to encounter flutter. Push your slick glass ship up to redline and you're flirting with danger.

Remember, your airspeed indicator lies. It won't tell you what your TAS or never exceed speed is. In fact, it may be a compulsive liar and even lie to you down low (click to enlarge) or visit https://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=25093&key=0

• A-1 Skyraider -- MiG Killers

Skyraider pilots were known for their practical jokes. Once, when an Admiral asked for a VIP flyover of the USS Enterprise, the Air Group was supposed to fly by the VIPs and then the F-4 Phantoms would light burner and accelerate ahead of the formation of Skyraiders. This was suppposed to demonstrate to the numerous VIPs the difference between old and modern aviation technology. At the appointed time, the F-4s entered afterburner, and the SkyRaider pilots, instead of maintaining their power setting, went to full military. Due to the spool up time on the jets, the stately old SkyRaiders kept up with the F-4s until they were well out of sight of the VIPs.

All of those involved said that the subsequent ass-chewing the SkyRaider pilots endured was well worth it.

But here's a more serious Skyraider story:

Frustration and fatigue were starting to simultaneously set in on me on 20 June 1965. We were 30 days into our third at-sea period, and the ops tempo was intense. Ten days prior we had our first loss, one of our nuggets, Carl Doughtie. The last four days we had not been especially successful. During those four days I had flown 21 hours on an Alfa strike, two road recces and a seven and one half hour RESCAP. The strike was marginally successful with 40 percent BDA, the RESCAP was not. We had to leave the downed pilot when it got dark. One road recce was nothing more than harassment. The other I scored one truck, but someone almost scored me while I was executing a life-saving pullout just short of bending the prop. I logged two nice round holes in the aft fuselage. The day began normally with the starboard catapult crashing into the water-brake outside my door acting as my alarm clock. It was supposed to be a stand-down day, but by noon we were suiting up for an emergency RESCAP. An Air Force photo-recon pilot had been shot down very deep into the northwest corner of North Vietnam. There were already RESCAP aircraft over the downed pilot, but they were running low on fuel. We were needed for backup coverage.

We manned up, started and were told to shut down. Someone else had covered the pilot, and they did not need us. We unmanned and returned to the ready room and waited. Two hours later we got the call again. We manned up, but did not get started again before we were again put on hold. By the time we got to the ready room we were told to man up again. By now we were fast becoming the leaders in the squadron sweat stain contest. The sweat stain contest was unique to Skyraider squadrons. The winner was the pilot who could merge the salty white left and right armpit stains in the center of his flight suit first. This contest was made possible by the USS MIDWAY (CVA-41) laundry and morale officer who would accept only one flight suit per week per pilot from us. At any rate we were hot, sweaty and beginning to worry that this man up was going to mean no dinner. This time, however, we started, were told that we were a go mission and began our taxi forward to the catapults. At the last minute my Plane Captain, AN Halcomb, gave me a slush filled thermos and a hopeful look (hopeful that he would not have to do a fourth preflight on old 577). I gave him thumbs up and taxied forward to the starboard catapult. It was almost 1800. I spread and locked the wings, got thumbs up from the final checker and agreed with the flight deck officer on a 21,300 pound launch weight. As I felt the Skyraider settle into the catapult holdback, I release the brakes, added full power and scanned the engine instruments. Everything looked good and with the canopy open everything sounded good -- well at least loud. I returned the cat officer's salute and waited. I saw my flight leader go off the port cat and turn right for our standard starboard side rendezvous. The humidity was so high that his flap tips left contrails and my prop was making corkscrew contrails as the carrier moved through the sultry gulf air.

The cat shot killed my radio. We rendezvoused 1,000 feet on the starboard side of MIDWAY and headed west. After reforming in a finger four formation I tried to get my radio working. As the second element leader I had a "Middleman" aircraft. My airplane had two radios with a relay control box that could be switched so that the low aircraft covering the downed pilot could transmit through my aircraft to the ship using my aircraft at a higher altitude as an antenna relay. I was able to get the number two radio working, but continued to fiddle with number one so that I could act as relay. I got it working and checked in on tactical frequency as we went feet dry. Then it failed again.

Feet dry at 12,000 feet heading northwest we were passing north of Thanh Hoa. LCDR Ed Greathouse was in the lead. On his port wing was LTJG Jim LYNNE. I was on his starboard wing with Charlie Hartmann on my starboard. We all had the standard RESCAP load: two 150 gallon drop-tanks on the stub racks, four LAU-3 pods with 19 2.75 inch rockets apiece and 800 rounds of 20mm for the four wing cannons. We were flying steadily toward the downed pilot while I navigated, searched for active low frequency ADF stations (Until September 1965 the North Vietnamese MiGs used the ADFs listed in our 1964 navigation supplements) and considered what the situation ahead might be.

Suddenly Ed Greathouse rolled inverted into a near vertical dive with Jim Lynne following. I rolled and followed him down. I was concerned that I had not heard anything and that we were only 70 miles inland, at least 80 miles from our RESCAP point. A quick radio check confirmed that my radio was dead. I had missed the buildup to the run-in with the USS STRAUSS (DE-408) alerting us to MiGs in the area. The MiG pilots were on an intercept for two Skyraiders south of us, but missed and were coming around for another intercept when they spotted us. STRAUSS was keeping Ed Greathouse updated, and when it was apparent that we were the target, Ed took us down. At 12,000 feet and 170 knots we looked like Tweetybird to Sylvester the Cat. Our only hope was to get down low and try to out turn the MiGs. Ed was doing just that. Our split-S got us some speed and reversed our course toward the ship. I figured that any time my nose was pointed at the ground my ordnance should be armed. I armed the guns and set up the rockets. About that time I saw a large unguided rocket go past downward. My first inclination was that it was a SAM, but SAMs generally go up. A second rocket hit the ground near Ed and Jim. There was no doubt we were under attack by MiGs. This was confirmed when a silver MiG-17 with red marking on wings and tail streaked by Charlie and me heading for Ed. Tracers from behind and a jet intake growing larger in my mirror were a signal to start pulling and turning. As I put g's on the Skyraider I could see the two distinct sizes of tracers falling away (The MiG-17 had two 23mm and one 37mm cannon in the nose.) He stayed with us throughout the turn firing all the way. Fortunately, he was unable to stay inside our turn and overshot. As he pulled up Charlie got a quick shot at him but caused no apparent damage. He climbed to a perch position and stayed there.

Our turning had separated us from Ed and Jim. Now that we were no longer under attack my main concern was to rejoin the flight. I caught a glimpse of the leader and his wingman and headed for them. As we had been flying at treetop level in and out of small valleys, we had to fly around a small hill to get to them. Coming around the hill we saw Ed Greathouse and Jim LYNNE low with the MiG lined up behind them. I fired a short burst and missed, but got his attention. He turned hard into us to make a head-on pass. Charlie and I fired simultaneously as he passed so close that Charlie thought that I had hit his vertical stabilizer with the tip of my tail hook and Charlie flew through his wake. Both of us fired all four guns. Charlie's rounds appeared to go down the intake and into the wing root and mine along the top of the fuselage and through the canopy. He never returned our fire, rolled inverted and hit a small hill exploding and burning in a farm field. Charlie and I circled the wreckage while I switched back to number two radio. We briefly considered trying to cut off the other MiG, but were dissuaded by the voice of Ed Greathouse asking what we thought we were doing staying in the area when STRAUSS was reporting numerous bogeys inbound to our position. We took the hint and headed out low level to the Tonkin Gulf were we rejoined with our flight leader.

By now the sun was setting guaranteeing a night arrested landing back at MIDWAY. Our radio report was misunderstood by MIDWAY CIC which believed that one of us had been shot down. It took some effort for Ed Greathouse to convince them that we were OK and the North Vietnamese were minus one. Rarely does a night carrier landing evoke as little response from a pilot as ours did. We were so pumped up that we hardly noticed it.

After debriefs all around the politics started. Charlie and I were informed that we would get no recognition or awards for our MiG kill. SECNAV had been aboard three days earlier when VF-21 F-4 pilots had bagged the first kills of the war. Their awards were being held until SECNAV could get to Washington, announce it to the President and present it to Congress with the plea for more funds for F-4 Phantoms to fight the air war.

Obviously, the success of primitive Skyraiders would undermine his plans. Unfortunately, someone had included our kill in the daily action report to MACV where it was read by COMSEVENFLT DET "C" who thought that it would be an excellent opportunity for Navy public relations. Indirectly Ngyuen Cao Ky, the new Premier of South Vietnam, and a Skyraider pilot, heard of it and recognized Ed Greathouse's name as one of the Skyraider instructors from the RAG. He then demanded our appearance for Vietnamese awards.

The next day we flew to Saigon for the Five O'clock Follies and were instant celebrities, since the news media did not yet know about the F-4 kills. They assumed that we were the first which made an even better story. We stayed at the Majestic Hotel in Saigon where we thoroughly enjoyed the lack of water hours and the availability of our favorite beverages. The next day we were guests of Premier Ky at the palace were we were awarded Air Gallantry Medals and honorary commissions in the South Vietnamese Air Force. After the awards ceremony we sat down to tea with Premier Ky and some of his young hot pilots and traded war stories. He told us that the Skyraider MiG kill had boosted morale tremendously in the VNAF Skyraider squadrons.

Upon arrival back at MIDWAY we were surprised to learn that there had been a change of heart and we would to be recognized at the same ceremony as the F-4 pilots. Since they had already been recommended for Silver Stars, Charlie and I got the same while Ed and Jim got Distinguished Flying Crosses. Due to slow processing of earlier awards Charlie and I wore the Silver Star and one foreign decoration for about a month as our only medals. Nothing like starting from the top.

A few days later the carrier went to Yokosuka where Japanese reporters were very interested. We even became the subject of an article in a boy's adventure comic book. There was a lot of hometown interest also with reporters looking up our wives and parents for comments. This caused me a problem because I had not told my mother that I was flying combat to avoid worrying her.

Needless to say, the VA-25 pilots were not about to let the slack-jawed beady-eyed jet pilots (Ed Greathouse's description) forget our success. The squawk box in the fighter ready rooms got plenty of incoming from our ready room. There was much frustration in the swept wing tail hook community as the next two kills went to the Air Force in July. Then the North Vietnamese pulled the MiGs for more pilot training. The only kill between July 1965 and April 1966 was a single Navy kill in October 1965. We maintained that we embarrassed them into pulling the MiGs.

A combat action happens fast and it is difficult to include all the influences that affect the outcome, but some sidelights are of interest. The day of the shoot down was the first that gun camera film was not loaded in our planes. Charlie fired 75 rounds and I fired 52. We both thought we had fired more. I had considered firing rockets to ensure a kill, but was afraid that the widespread pattern of the LAU-3s would also hit Ed or Jim. Three of our aircraft suffered engine failures in the near future. There were no fighters airborne at the time and they missed a great opportunity for the bogeys launched after the shoot down. Two years later I was invited to Miramar to brief the people setting up "TOP GUN." My briefer said, "Well, you were flying the F-4?" "No." "Oh, the F-8?" "No." "The A-4?" "No." "A-7?" "No." "Well, what the hell were you flying?" "The Skyraider." Then his jaw went slack and his eyes got beady. They're all the same. (See editorial comments below.)

Our squadron, VA-25, "The Fist of the Fleet," was the last operational Skyraider attack squadron in the Navy. We were flying a 20-year-old design that had been perfected about as far as the engineers could take it. Everyone thought that our time was over as front-line attack. What everyone forgot was that Ed Heinemann had mandated that the Skyraider not only had to be able to carry that 2,000 pound bomb a thousand miles to Tokyo and return to the ship, but that it also had to be able to defend itself against air attack. We never forgot. Unfortunately, even Ed Heinemann could not foresee SAMs. The Skyraider just did not have the top end speed to evade them. In April 1968 VA-25 retired the Skyraider in favor of the A-7 Corsair II. The aircraft and pilot, Ted Hill, that made the last combat carrier landing led four A-7s in a flyby, broke off to the east and disappeared out of our sight, but not our hearts. Ted flew it to Pensacola where it resides in the National Museum of Naval Aviation in our squadron colors. I flew six combat missions in that aircraft.

I flew as many hours in the A-4 Skyhawk as I did in the Skyraider and later flew the A-7. I truly enjoyed my A-4 time and it became my favorite. However, the Skyraider was something special. Even through my right leg has shrunken to the same size as my left leg, the carbon monoxide is cleared from my blood and the stack gas from my lungs, there is still that feeling that the Skyraider was where I was meant to be.

One final note. The first flight of the Skyraider was on 18 March 1945, my eighth birthday.

When news of the MiG shoot down arrived in VA-122, we fired off a message to our sister RAG squadrons at Miramar - offering "our assistance in improving their air-combat training." Another MiG shoot down by VA-176 on October 9, 1966 proved the ACM skill of SPAD pilots was not a fluke. Shortly, we heard that Miramar would be the home of the new TOP GUN School. What SPAD pilots had known all along really was important in combat. CAPT. Glinton B. Johnson USNR (Ret)