Up at high altitude on the way to California, I grew a little concerned: I hadn’t heard from him for about an hour, “Hey,” I asked on the radio, “are you okay back there?” No response. I looked in the mirror on the canopy rail above the windshield. His head was bowed. Wonderful—it looked like my copilot fell asleep. I concentrated on my flying once more.
Then I felt a sharp jolt on my control stick, and the jet shuddered. What the hell? Had we hit something? No, we were flying fine. After working through any possible problems with the aircraft, I could only conclude that my sleeping copilot had bumped his control stick.
We flew on to a smooth landing in Los Angeles and climbed out of the jet. I was ready to ask him about the stick, but as soon as I saw his face I didn’t need to. One of his eyes was bright red, no white visible. He’d fallen asleep so soundly that his head had forcefully slumped right onto his control stick. I was surprised he hadn’t dislodged his eye. The guy walked around for weeks afterward with a gruesome red eye, while his bosses pretended not to notice.
Fortunately, dumb behavior like this was pretty rare. I flew to Los Angeles for my work at Downey so often, the fifteen-hundred-mile journey became like a bus ride for me. I’d leave Houston, stop in El Paso to refuel, and head on to California. At El Paso, I’d open the canopy and the Mexican flight line chief would hand me an enchilada to munch on while I waited.
I soon had a new work routine: I would leave Ellington Field at dusk on Sunday and land at Los Angeles airport. I’d park the airplane at the North American Aviation ramp on the south side of the field; a rental car would be waiting for me. Some astronauts, not content just to race airplanes, also raced their rental cars from the airport over to Downey. I would throw my gear in the back, drive east down the highway to Downey, and arrive at a hotel around nine o’clock, local time. That left me enough time to get some sleep and go to work early the next morning.
On Friday night, I’d head back to the airport and fly home. If I were very careful how I flew, and if the winds were right, I could sometimes make it all the way back from LA to Houston without refueling. When attempting that nonstop flight, I couldn’t perform a normal takeoff using my afterburner. I had to begin my journey without it and use a lot more runway, then get high enough to catch the wind.
A couple of times, I got pretty low on fuel. It was a surreal feeling: my world contracted to that tiny fuel gauge needle, as I calculated and recalculated how much time I had left, and if it was enough to get me to Ellington. The worst thing I could have done would be to eject from an airplane because I hadn’t figured my fuel right. I would lose an expensive government airplane for no good reason, possibly ruin my career—and feel like a dumb shit for the rest of my life.
The hairiest moments were when the weather was bad at Ellington, but I would have no choice when I was low on fuel—it was the closest airfield. It didn’t matter how strong the wind was blowing, it was my only hope. Locking on to Ellington’s radio guidance beacon, I flew through thick clouds, unable to see a thing. Right next to the runway, somewhere in the murk, was a huge water tower, and if my approach were off by a fraction I could plow right into it. If my instruments weren’t calibrated correctly, I might make a direct hit. Each T-38, in theory identical, had its own little quirks, and we flew so many that we never had time to get a feel for them all. Today might be the day I found this one had a defect.
Scared as shit, I would hope like hell my engines didn’t flame out, focus on my instruments, and finally break out of the bottom of the cloud only seventy-five feet above the ground. I would be level with the water tower and only three seconds from landing when I’d finally catch my first, blessed glimpse of the welcoming lights of the runway. I’d be ready to veer over if necessary, but luckily the lights would be right below me. My instruments were fine. I would taxi down the runway, open the canopy, and take my first deep breath in a long time. I am alive, I would exult, and life is great!
The next thing to do after such a landing is to bury your feelings deeply. As I walked into the hangar, if anyone had asked me about a landing with low fuel in bad weather, the last thing I would have done is admit I’d flown myself into a dangerous corner. “The flight was fine, nothing to worry about,” I would reply, even if I was still mentally chastising myself for flying such a dumb-shit stunt.
Most of the astronauts flying out to Downey would stay at the Tahitian Village, a cute local hotel dressed up in mock–Polynesian Tiki style, with fire dancer shows most nights and a lively bar. We became good friends with the manager, and I don’t think we ever stayed at another hotel in that city. I remember arriving there one evening after some grueling desert survival training in Spokane, Washington. I had to be in Downey for some testing early the next morning, so I flew the long trip from the top to the bottom of the country without bothering to clean myself up. By the time I reached the hotel, I was exhausted and ready for a long night’s sleep. I passed the other astronauts in the bar with only a quick hello, grabbed my hotel key, unlocked the door, and the room was completely empty—no bed, chair, television, or dresser—nothing. The only thing left in the room was an unsigned note, which made some joking reference to survival training.
I was the victim of a prank, or “Gotcha,” as we called them, but I wasn’t going to let the guys in the bar win. I knew they were now waiting for me to return and accept their taunts. Instead, I found a telephone and called Ruby, the switchboard operator at the Downey facility. The quintessential “little old lady,” Ruby knew everyone at the North American plant and could solve any problem. Her house was just down the street. I borrowed a sleeping bag, some pots and pans and other camping equipment. I bagged up some ashes from her fireplace, and also collected some rocks and tree branches. Then I snuck back to the hotel and made up the room with a sleeping bag in the corner, rocks and ashes in the middle of the room arranged like a campfire, and a cooking tripod made out of branches assembled over it. I hung a can of beans from the tripod as the final touch. Next, I went to the Tiki-style tropical ponds that dotted the hotel complex and caught a dozen frogs. After placing the frogs in the room and closing the door, I cleaned myself up and nonchalantly strolled down to the bar.
Of course, all of the guys in the bar were waiting for my reaction and were puzzled that I acted so normal. After a couple of minutes, the questions began. “How do you like your room? Is it comfortable for you?” I replied that yes, it was perfectly fine. Not satisfied, they asked, “Can we go with you to see your room?” So we all trooped up there, I opened the door and let them in. You should have seen their faces as they took in the campsite in the room, while frogs hopped out the door and back toward the ponds. I left them to it while I calmly strolled away, requested a key for an alternate room and had a well-deserved rest in a comfortable bed. Gotcha!
The Downey facility was fascinating. I would spend most of my time in the enormous “clean room,” where even the air was scrubbed to surgical operating room standards to ensure that the spacecraft built inside were immaculate. To enter that area I put on a protective white overgarment with a hood, walked across sticky pads to remove anything stuck on my shoes, and passed through an area where large fans blew away any remaining dust particles. Only then was I granted admittance. It felt like entering a science-fiction movie, especially when I saw the line of gleaming Apollo command modules, all in different states of construction. In this room, North American built spacecraft to go to places only previously imagined in movies and novels. Now, we were going to do it for real.