The weather continued to be lousy, but there was another high point to the airshow, in addition to Chicago and Southern's contribution. Lt. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle delivered the dedication address. I don't recall what he said, but I do vividly remember shaking his hand when he came down to the flight line to greet the pilots. He always had been, and still is, one of my heroes, even before he led the Tokyo Raid, because of his exploits as a race pilot. He was the only man to win all three of the principal air races: the Thompson, the Bendix, and the Schneider. Even more impressive, he had a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering from MIT and was the only pilot to survive the deadly Gee Bee Super Speedster, winning the Thompson in it in 1931. I never dreamed that much later, as deputy director of the National Air and Space Museum, I would not only get to know him well but would also interview him in a Smithsonian film.
In late 1973, as assistant director for aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum, I visited General Doolittle at his home in Santa Monica to decide what items of his memorabilia the museum wanted for its collection. He greeted me when I arrived at seven-thirty in the morning, introduced me to his wife, Joe, took me to his den, and left for his office. Upon completing my list of items at about eleven-thirty, I thanked Mrs. Doolittle and told her I was leaving. She said that General Doolittle had called and asked that I stop by his office in downtown Santa Monica to look at a few more items.
When I arrived at the office, he said it was time for lunch and gave me the choice of eating out or allowing him to fix something. I chose the latter; he disappeared into a tiny kitchen and soon emerged with a tray bearing our lunches. We each had a six-ounce cup of soup made from Cup-a-Soup mix, the same size cup of Dr. Pepper, and a large Pepperidge Farm chocolate layer cookie filled with white cream, sort of a designer Oreo. When we had finished, which didn't take long, he went back into the kitchen and shouted to me, "Do you like Ding-Dongs?" I told him I didn't know what Ding-Dongs were. He brought out two Twinkie-size chocolate cakes rolled around a white cream mixture, which I knew, in the east, as Ho-Hos. We polished them off in short order and went back to our work. It was as unbalanced a meal as I had ever eaten, but I can't knock it, because General Doolittle lived well into his nineties.
The evening after the dedication we were told that since the airshow was over, there would be no security at the airport; it would return to construction mode. We couldn't leave the planes unguarded at night, and the weather was too bad to fly back to Florida. Commander Funk decided we could fly the planes to NAS New Orleans and remain there until the weather cleared. He called the station commander to get permission for the move and then called all the pilots together. I was a bit irritated when he said that he had received permission for everyone to land except me. It appeared the station commander didn't think an AAF pilot could land a big airplane like the F7F on that short (less than 3,000 feet) runway. Recently, a Marine pilot had landed there in an F7F and had run off the end of the runway into the lake.
I was insulted that anyone would think that an AAF pilot, especially this one, couldn't make a short field landing. I told Commander Funk that in China I had often landed a P-40 carrying almost a full load of fuel and two 500-pound bombs on a 2,500-foot strip with ten-foot-high raised embankments on both ends and thought nothing of it. I said that I could land the F7F and stop easily within 3,000 feet and that I would take full responsibility. Of course we both knew that as the pilot I had full reponsibility anyway, especially to Colonel Muldoon.
Commander Funk called back and obtained permission for me to land with the rest. I said I would land last, so when we got in our planes and taxied out, I brought up the rear. It was a short flight to the Navy field, and I circled while the others landed. I made a long, low approach and dragged it in to the end of the runway holding my airspeed between the power-off and the power-on stalling speed. Airplanes stall at a higher speed with the power off than with the power on because of the additional airflow over the wings generated by the propeller. I came over the end of the runway about three feet high and chopped the power. The F7F stalled instantly and dropped straight down, hitting the runway extremely hard on the main gear. I quickly put the nosewheel on the runway and got on the brakes. I believe I could have turned off at the intersection, but rather than risk overheating the brakes, I decided to leave well enough alone. I did make it obvious, though, that I had to add power to taxi to the end of the runway. When I parked and climbed out of the plane, my Navy companions said that my landing would have been a great carrier landing, boosting my ego to an even higher than normal level.
We spent that evening at the club, and the next morning the weather had cleared. We said our good-byes and took off for Eglin, where we rejoined the Air Force.
6
Unstuck in a Shooting Star
Early in February 1946 I saw one of the most thrilling sights of my life. Colonel Muldoon had gone to Muroc, California (later the site of Edwards Air Force Base), to ferry a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star back to Eglin to begin operational suitability testing. The squadron was notified that he would be arriving at Eglin early on Sunday morning. Barney Turner, Dick Jones, and I arose at dawn and checked with base operations for Colonel Muldoon's estimated time of arrival (ETA). We were told he would arrive in about an hour. Since our quarters were close to the runway, we decided to walk out onto the airfield and wait alongside the landing end of the runway for the arrival.
About half an hour later we heard the then unfamiliar sound of the jet's roar in the distance. Scarcely a minute later a beautiful, sleek gray airplane with a most unusual shape flashed by about fifty feet above the run way at a speed of almost 600 mph and zoomed up to three or four thousand feet in an instant. It was like nothing I'd ever seen. The wings were set far back on the fuselage, well behind the cockpit, which was covered by a tiny bubble canopy, and the external fuel tanks were faired onto the wing tips. At first glance it looked to me like something out of Buck Rogers in the Twenty-fifth Century (a prewar comic strip and radio series).
The P-80 came by again in another high-speed pass; then, on a third slower pass, it peeled up into a landing pattern and touched down right in front of us. We hustled to the ramp and arrived just as Colonel Muldoon was climbing out of the cockpit and sliding to the ground. Sliding is the right word, since we didn't yet have the special ladder that hooked over the side of the cockpit, and the wing was too far aft to step on. Showing rare excitement, he said it was a great flying airplane and that Jones and I would be checking out in it as soon as the acceptance inspection was completed. Barney had checked out in the airplane some months previously at Muroc.
During the next week, Dick and I memorized the dash-one section (pilot's operating instructions) of the P-80 tech order and were briefed by Barney and Colonel Muldoon on the flying characteristics. As soon as the P-80 was back in the hangar, we spent several impatient hours in the cockpit familiarizing ourselves with the instruments and controls. Although Dick and I had both flown the P-59, the P-80 was to be the first U.S. operational jet, and it had far better performance than the Airacomet.