On February 20, with great anticipation, I climbed up the ladder, which had finally arrived, and settled myself in the small cockpit for my first flight. It felt like a fighter should feel, with its tight cockpit and the gunsight jammed in front of the pilot's face. The stick had a nonstandard grip that was twisted slightly counterclockwise and a large, three-position thumb switch on the top that controlled the elevator trim. There was no trim-position indicator, but a green light on the panel was illuminated when the elevator trim was in the neutral position. The elevator had a spring balance that partially held the stick in the full forward or full aft position while the plane was not in motion; however, it was not noticeable in flight. The ailerons were hydraulically boosted, with a ratio of fifteen to one, to reduce the stick force needed to roll the airplane (much like power steering in an automobile). The aileron trim was a right-left switch on the left console. There was no rudder trim, since without the torque of a propeller, the rudder requirements were minimal. A second altimeter on the left console indicated the cabin altitude, which, since the cabin was pressurized, was normally 10,000 or so feet below the actual altitude if the plane was above 20,000 feet. These first P-80 cockpits were not equipped with ejection seats; to bail out, the pilot released the canopy and dived over the side or rolled the airplane upside down and pushed forward on the stick. His chances of success were slim if he had to get out at high speed.
The starting procedure in the early model P-80 was best described as sporty to the pilot and spectacular to the outside observers. The throttle was set in the full-open position, and the fuel tank switches were turned on. The wing tanks fed through the fuselage tank, so it remained full when the others ran dry. The external power unit was plugged in because the aircraft battery was barely able to rotate the engine fast enough for the start.
The starter switch was held in the on position until the engine tachometer read 9 percent, about 1,050 rpm (100 percent was 11,800 rpm). Then the emergency fuel pump switch (called the I-16) on the left cockpit wall was turned on, and the fuel stopcock was moved forward to the on position. As soon as the pilot heard the loud rumble of the burning fuel, almost an explosion, and the tail-pipe temperature started to rise, which occurred instantaneously, the I-16 was turned off and the throttle snatched back to the idle position to keep the tail-pipe temperature from exceeding 900 degrees centigrade, which was considered a hot start. If that happened, the engine had to be shut down immediately and inspected before another start could be attempted. To the observer, the starting rumble was accompanied by a visible streak of flame coming out of the tail pipe. If the start was not hot, the starter switch was held on until the engine rpm reached 16 percent and then released. The rpm would increase rapidly from that point until it reached idle rpm, 35 percent. As the rpm increased to idle, the tail-pipe temperature dropped back into its normal operating range, below 715 degrees.
We often took advantage of this spectacular start sequence to astound the observers, most of whom had little or no knowledge of jets. The Eglin pilots did not originate this practical jokesome unknown genius deserves the credit — but we used it whenever the circumstances were right. During many of the airshows, we spent a good bit of the day at static displays, that is, with the P-80 parked on the ramp with the pilot beside it to answer the public's questions, generally concerning the speed, the armament, and what made it move. The most common misconception was that jets are propelled by the force of exhaust gases pushing against the air. Actually thrust is produced by the airplane's reaction to the ejected gases as described by Newton's Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When it was time to fly, the crowd was moved back to a safe distance, and the pilot climbed into the cockpit and initiated the start sequence. When the engine rpm reached 9 percent, the pilot nodded to the crew chief, who would light a piece of newspaper and put it into the tail pipe. As soon as the pilot saw in the rear view mirror that the crew chief was clear of the tail pipe, he opened the stopcock, and the engine started with an explosive roar. No doubt there are still some people who believe that the jet had to be ignited with an open flame.
When the pilot was ready to taxi, he closed the dive brakes (sturdy flaps that extend at an angle of about 60 degrees from the bottom of the fuselage below the cockpit) using a switch on the left cockpit wall behind the throttle. (In later models this switch was on the throttle.) To start taxiing, he opened the throttle to about 80 percent rpm and then reduced it to about 50 percent once the plane was moving. All the ground steering was done by differential braking, but the P-80 handled well on the ground, and this presented no problem.
Jet aircraft require no warm-up or engine check before takeoff, and since fuel consumption is so high on the ground, they always had first priority for takeoff. This tended to irritate some of the bomber pilots as we taxied in front of them onto the runway, sometimes with rude gestures to increase the irritation. While taxiing into position, we closed and locked the canopy by means of a long handle on the right side and lowered the flaps to the takeoff position of 80 percent. Once the airplane was lined up with the runway, the engine was run up to 100 percent rpm, and if all the instruments were in the normal range, primarily the tail-pipe temperature and the oil pressure, the pilot released the brakes and began the takeoff roll. Acceleration was much less than in a propeller airplane but considerably more than in the P-59. Unless there was a crosswind, little brake or rudder was needed, as the speed increased, to stay on the runway centerline. The stick was pulled gently back at about 80 mph to rotate the airplane around the main landing gear and raise the nosewheel slightly. After a run of some 4,000 to 5,000 feet, at about 120 mph, the plane lifted off, or as the British so aptly put it, unstuck.
It continued to climb at about the same shallow angle until the airspeed reached 160 mph, then the flaps were milked up slowly in increments of about 15 percent to preclude the sudden loss of altitude that would occur if they were fully retracted immediately. As soon as the plane was high enough to clear all obstacles, it was held in level flight until it accelerated to 330 mph, the optimal climbing speed at sea level. The high climbing speed, about double that of propeller-driven fighters and in fact considerably higher than their cruising speed, was a novel but much-enjoyed feature to jet novices because they could legally buzz along at about 100 feet until that speed was attained.
Another major difference between jet and propeller flight was the need to fly at what were then very high altitudes much of the time. Jet-engine fuel consumption is at its highest at sea level and decreases markedly with increased altitude. In the P-80 it was about three times higher at sea level than at 30,000 feet. Consequently, much of our flying, especially crosscountry flying, was done at or above 30,000 feet. With the jet's internal fuel of 432 gallons, low-altitude flying time was limited to less than one hour. A Mustang, with about 250 gallons internal, could fly for at least four hours.
The crash helmet, or brain bucket, that had replaced the soft helmet worn up to then, was a necessity in the P-80. The pilot's head was so close to the small canopy that at high speed in turbulent air it was constantly rapped against the Plexiglas. Later, as more P-80s entered the inventory, a beat-up, chipped helmet was the mark of an experienced pilot. When we first started flying jets at Eglin the crash helmets were still under development so we had the squadron personal-equipment technicians affix tank-driver helmets to our standard soft helmets. They did the job well until regular helmets were issued.