Since I had not yet been assigned any tests, the group operations officer asked if I would fly with another pilot in a C-47 to Great Falls, Montana, to pick up some of the Eglin personnel returning from Ladd. I agreed to go, and thus began a trip that ended in one of the hairiest flights I have ever experienced, including combat. The other pilot turned out to be Capt. Joseph Arthur Lynch, a fighter pilot known at Eglin as Artie and later, when he left the Air Force and joined North American Aviation as one of its top test pilots, as Joe. By either name, he was one of the all-time characters and a first-class pilot. At this time he was assigned to the 611th Group headquarters.
I met him at base operations on the morning of March 10, where he was filling out the clearance for the first leg of the trip, from Eglin to Omaha. I was not impressed by his appearance because he looked like anything but a fighter pilot. He was somewhat overweight and jowly, with a generally unkempt look. I was wearing a flying suit, but he wore rumpled khakis. As long as I knew him he always wore rumpled khakis. The weather was not too bad, some clouds but no thunderstorms en route, but the airdrome officer told him to be careful as there might be icing along the way. Although the airdrome officer was a captain, Lynch drawled, "Wal, Lieutenant, don't worry, I flowed in ice before."
We climbed into the cockpit, with Artie flying as pilot for the first leg, started the engines, and taxied to the takeoff end of the runway. After checking the engines, we took off, and to my astonishment, as I was retracting the landing gear, Artie was engaging the autopilot. I was astonished because the autopilot is usually not engaged until cruising altitude is reached. I was certain we were not going to be cruising at less than one hundred feet. When I got to know Artie better, I would not have been at all surprised had he decided to cruise that low.
As we climbed through two thousand feet, he had to make an adjustment to the autopilot, which is located on the instrument panel in a C-47. As he leaned forward to make the adjustment, he complained that he did not have a long stick with a suction cup on the end so he would not have to reach for the control knob. He said that all Air Transport Command pilots had them.
The flight was slow and uneventful. When we arrived over Offutt Field near Omaha, Artie called the tower and asked that we be refueled as soon as possible, because we were on an important mission. I wondered if he knew something I didn't. While I was filling out the clearance for the next leg, to Great Falls, Artie got some sodas and sandwiches, which we ate after takeoff.
After landing at Great Falls in the late afternoon, he asked me to get the passengers and their baggage loaded right away while he filled out the clearance. They were eager to get back to Florida and were all aboard, ready to go, when Artie arrived with the clearance. He said the weather had closed in behind us and that we would return via Denver and San Antonio to get around most of it. Just as we were getting ready to climb into the plane, a worried-looking captain came running up and identified himself as the Air Transport Command weight and balance officer. "Where is your weight and balance form? This plane looks overloaded," he yelled.
Since we were not flying an ATC aircraft, we were not bound by its regulations. Lynch replied, "Wal, Lieutenant, you guess our weight within a thousand pounds, and I'll give you a box of candy." With that, he climbed into the cabin and shut the door.
I think the weight and balance officer knew whereof he spoke, because our takeoff run was a thousand feet or more longer than we had figured, but we staggered into the air and, as before, immediately went on autopilot. There were two pilots among the passengers — one was Brad Brown and the other Thad Blanton, who had been on the famous Doolittle Tokyo Raid in 1942 — and we had invited them to ride in the cockpit. They were as astonished as I was by the autopilot bit but said nothing. Artie was first pilot and seemed to have everything under control.
The two Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engines labored as the overloaded Gooney Bird struggled for altitude. At about 12,000 feet it seemed to have reached its ceiling, and it refused to go any higher. This posed a bit of a problem. The minimum altitude on the airways between Great Falls and Denver is 14,000 feet due to the proximity of the Rocky Mountains, and our estimated time of arrival was well after dark. Artie said that we could get enough power from the engines to continue the climb if we could supercharge the engines by switching to high blower. The blower controls, however, were safety-wired in the low-blower position. The flight engineer told him that all C-47 engines were restricted to operation in low blower by a recent AAF technical order. Artie told the engineer to get him a pair of dikes (wire-cutting pliers). With them he nonchalantly cut the wires and moved the controls for both engines to the high-blower position. I suggested that he try it on one engine until he saw what would happen, but he said, "In for a penny, in for a pound," and left them both in high. To everyone's relief both engines responded with enough additional power for us to climb to 14,000 feet. We kept them in high blower until we let down to land at Denver, with no apparent damage to the engines.
Again Artie asked to be refueled as soon as possible while he filled out the clearance. The meteorologist told him that the weather was extremely bad from Denver to San Antonio, with icing and thunderstorms all along the route, and strongly advised that he wait until morning to proceed. The operations officer gave the same advice and said he would not sign the clearance, but Artie had a green instrument card and was thus authorized to clear himself. The operations officer went so far as to call the base commander, even though it was after ten o'clock, and had him try to persuade Artie not to take off. Artie told the base commander that we had four pilots on board, all of whom were highly trained test pilots, and that one of them had been on the Tokyo Raid. I did not see what difference that could make, but the base commander was evidently impressed and withdrew his objection. I was grateful Artie did not offer him a box of candy.
As it turned out the weather was not bad: a few clouds but no thunderstorms and no icing. After a smooth flight, we landed at Kelly Field in San Antonio at about two in the morning. The weather for the leg from San Antonio to Eglin was forecast to be about the same as we had encountered en route from Denver. We took off for the final leg a little after three and settled on course, on autopilot, of course. Everyone relaxed, looking forward to an uneventful flight.
A bit later I began to have a difficult time staying awake. Besides my fatigue from having flown some eighteen of the last twenty-one hours, the darkness and the drone of the engines had a strong soporific effect, and also, I am very much a day person. I kept nodding off and then jerking awake. Finally Artie said, "Damn it, Lope, you're driving me crazy with that bobbing. Slide your seat back and go to sleep for an hour or so. Then I'll wake you, and I'll take a nap." That suited me fine, and I dropped off almost immediately.
After about an hour and a half I woke up and looked over at Artie. To my surprise, he was sleeping soundly. I looked back in the cockpit, and the engineer and the other two pilots were also asleep. In fact, the autopilot seemed to be the only thing awake on board the airplane. Looking out, I couldn't see any lights on the ground. The autopilot had held the altitude well, but the gyro had precessed (drifted off the selected heading). We were heading about 20 degrees south of our course, which should have been almost due east. I knew we were to have turned to the northeast at Houston to stay on the airway to Lake Charles, Louisiana. I realized, with a start, that the absence of lights on the ground was due to the absence of ground. We were about eighty miles out over the Gulf of Mexico.