Since we had to check the weather almost hourly, most of the daylight hours for the next six days were spent on the flight line waiting for it to break. The day after we arrived, ten P-51Hs landed and were parked on the ramp close to our P-80s. They were flown by ferry command pilots who were taking them to a fighter squadron in Anchorage, Alaska. They, too, had to wait for the weather to clear.
While we were having lunch in the operations snack bar on Friday, an RCAF wing commander approached us and said that there was to be an open house and small airshow on Sunday. He asked if we could fly the P-80s in the show. We explained that these were test aircraft and thus couldn't be flown in the airshow, but they could be used as part of the static display and we would be glad to answer visitors' questions. He accepted our offer with thanks and then asked the leader of the ferry pilots if any of the Mustangs could participate. The leader willingly accepted the invitation, saying that eight of them would fly in the show provided they could practice on Saturday. That, too, was acceptable to the wing commander, who no doubt envisioned a special treat for the locals. "Special treat" was hardly the proper term for what ensued.
The next morning, we went to the flight line with the ferry pilots to watch them practice. All ten of them were going to fly, and I suppose the leader was going to select the eight best or, as it turned out, eliminate the two worst. The selection was made easier when they started their engines. One of the engines ran up to full power as it started, causing the Mustang to nose over and destroy its propeller on the concrete. This was a problem with the P-51H if the pilot pushed the throttle full forward when he shut off the engine. The throttle controlled the carburetor by means of hydraulics, and when the engine was restarted with the throttle back in idle position, the carburetor was still in the full-power setting until the hydraulic pressure built up. There were many warnings about this danger in the pilot's operating instructions as well as on a small placard in the cockpit. Since the ferry pilots flew several types of aircraft, the warning must have slipped this pilot's mind.
After that commotion died down, the rest of the Mustangs took off and another commotion began. Keep in mind that ferry pilots were not trained as fighter pilots but were trained to fly fighters, and other aircraft, from point to point. I had some misgivings when, instead of starting their practice at a safe altitude, they came over the field at about five hundred feet in loose trail (follow-the-leader) formation and tried slow rolls. Each of them made the same mistake in varying degrees: they didn't apply enough forward stick while inverted and dished out in the second half of the roll, losing several hundred feet in the process. Barney and I thought that a couple of them were going to hit the ground, but they managed to recover at about fifty feet. Somewhat chastened or frightened, they did the next set of rolls higher. These rolls were as bad, but at least there was more room to recover.
The loops were no better, being egg-shaped at best, because they pulled too few g's going up and too many coming down. Several never made it around the loop, falling off to the side as they stalled. Their formation, if it could be dignified by that name, was laughable, loose and ragged, and becoming even worse in the turns.
Despite the lousy performance, they seemed to be well satisfied with the results of the practice. Barney and I, concerned that USAAF would lose so much face in front of the Canadians with such inept flying, spoke to the ferry leader in private, telling him that we both had many hours in the Mustang as well as a great deal of aerobatic experience and if he would lend us two of the Mustangs we could put on a first-class airshow. But he wasn't about to give up what might be his only chance to fly in an airshow, and he wasn't about to take any advice from two jet jockies. He obviously thought he was a fighter pilot. This attitude is common among pilots when they get in a fighter cockpit and is the cause of many fatalities.
The next day they flew as scheduled, but I'm sure somebody up there liked them, because none of them crashed. The flying was no better than it had been in practice, and it was embarrassing to us to be in the same air force.
Finally, on November 5, our old Florida friend the sun appeared, and we were able to fly the next two legs of our journey. We landed first at Fort Nelson in the northeast corner of British Columbia, a small RCAF base on the Alcan Highway, where we refueled and had a lunch of beans and bacon. We then took off for Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.
The weather was not as good as forecast, and there was a solid cloud deck at our cruising altitude. Since our trip had dragged on so long and the sky was reported clear over Whitehorse, we bent the ferrying rules and flew on instruments for about an hour, breaking into the clear as we started our letdown to Whitehorse. As usual the tower asked us to make a low pass before landing, and as usual we were glad to comply. I knew from my previous visit that there was a U.S. contingent on the west (left) side of the field and an RCAF facility on the east. Barney said that he would go down the right strip, I could take the left, and we would show them what these Shooting Stars could do. We dived down to the deck and crossed the field at about 550 mph. My taxiway had an unexpected 45-degree jog to the left before it joined the ramp in front of the hangars. I turned to the left, then saw that the hangars were about to join me in the cockpit, so I rolled into a vertical bank to the right until I was past the hangars and then zoomed up away from the field and joined formation with Barney for landing.
After parking we were surrounded by a group of ashen-faced Americans from the cold-weather test detachment at Ladd Field. They were in Whitehorse while their B-17 was being repaired and had been on the second floor of the hangar watching the low pass. They said that I had gone by the front of the hangar in a vertical bank and had cleared the wall by about ten feet, causing them to dive away from the windows. I had no idea that I had been so close but indicated that it had been intentional, thus enhancing my reputation as a hot jet pilot.
At base operations we got the bad news that the jet fuel for our planes had not yet arrived. Most bases at that time did not have jet fuel available, and it had to be delivered in drums. Poor road conditions had delayed the shipment, and it did not arrive until two days later. We required about 700 gallons each, which meant twenty-eight fuel drums. They were brought to the planes on sleds pulled by tractors, and the fuel was transferred to our tanks by hand pumps, a slow process. By the time we were finished refueling, the weather nailed us again, and it was three more days before we could take off for the last leg of our trip.
In Whitehorse we stayed in the same hotel as on my previous visit on the B-25 flight, not because it was so good but because it was the only one. While we were sitting in the combination restaurant and bar one evening, a grizzled old prospector walked in, sat at the bar, and started a conversation with the bartender. He pulled out a small pouch and dumped a couple of gold-streaked rocks on the bar. Curious, we got up to take a better look and asked him if that was really gold. He put the rocks back in the pouch and snapped, ''What the hell do you think it is: horseshit?" as he stamped out of the bar. That and a recent incident in which a large brown bear decapitated a man whose sons had wounded it with a .22 rifle are what passed for excitement in Whitehorse. Five days in Whitehorse were pretty grim unless you were hooked on huskies. I shared the sentiments of W. C. Fields: I would rather be in Philadelphia.