Capt. Lawson ''Lippy" Lipscomb was flying a P-80 on Project Highball and had a flameout at 35,000 feet some seventy miles from the base. He made several attempts to airstart the engine without success as he glided toward Eglin. A P-80 can glide about seventy miles from 35,000 feet, so Lippy tried to make a wheels-down landing but stalled and spun into the ground about half a mile from the runway. Lippy was short, stocky, and blond and was one of the squadron's jokers. He had been in Alaska with me and was a good friend. Too many pilots are lost in trying to save an airplane instead of bailing out. Their effort is commendable in that it illustrates their high sense of duty, but it is much worse to lose both the pilot and the airplane. Airplanes are replaceable; pilots are not.
Capt. George Parker was a night-fighter pilot who had joined the squadron that summer, and because he was rather quiet I didn't know him too well. He had been flying one of two P-80s covering a buzz-bomb launch and had followed it for some fifty miles out over the Gulf. They were flying below 1,000 feet when Parker's engine flamed out. He had a lot of speed, so he zoomed up several thousand feet and tried a number of airstarts without success. When he realized the engine could not be restarted, he was too low to bail out. The early P-80s did not have ejection seats, and he was forced to ditch in the Gulf. Ditching in a P-80 is not recommended; the intake ducts fill with water upon impact, causing rapid deceleration and sinking. The other pilot said George made a good touchdown after jettisoning the canopy, but the plane went under almost immediately, and he was not able to get out of the cockpit.
I don't want to leave the impression that these crashes and near crashes occurred in close sequence. They stretched over a period of some eight months. If they had all taken place within a few weeks, all fighter flying would have been suspended while the accidents were investigated and the causes determined.
In April the fighter squadron was asked to provide two P-80s for a weekend airshow in Jacksonville. Barney and I volunteered to fly them. Late in the afternoon of the Friday before the show we took off in formation, bound for Jacksonville with me in the lead. As is standard for the leader in formation takeoffs, I used only 98-percent power so that Barney would have a little margin to use to stay in position. The flight was uneventful, and after landing we checked in with the officer in charge of the airshow. He requested that we, having the only jets, make an early flight the next morning over Jacksonville to draw attention to the show.
The following morning we taxied out for takeoff, with Barney in the lead, and were cleared into position on the runway. We ran up the engines to full power, 98 percent for Barney and 100 percent for me, and on Barney's head signal released the brakes and started down the runway. Even with my 2-percent power margin I was unable to keep up with Barney. All the instruments were reading properly, except that the tail-pipe temperature was on the low end of its normal range. Barney lifted off the runway and pulled ahead even farther, and I began to wonder if my plane would get off at all. Since I was too far down the runway to stop, I continued the takeoff. Just before the end of the runway the plane staggered into the air, flying just above stalling speed. I retracted the wheels and began to slowly milk the flaps up a few degrees at a time. Although I was only twenty-five feet off the ground, the airspeed was approaching a more respectable reading, and I was beginning to breathe easier when the silver-dollar-size fire warning light came on with an almost palpable impact. The correct response is to reduce power, look back for any signs of fire, and if there are any, bail out. At my altitude and airspeed, all I could accomplish was the second step, which I did immediately, and to my great relief there was no sign of a fire. Still, I had a problem. I began a slow climb gently turning back toward the field and called the tower to report that I had an emergency and would land on any runway possible.
Barney chimed in on the radio, "What's the matter, Lope? No guts?"
I replied, "I've got plenty. I just don't want them scattered all over Jacksonville."
With the added altitude I was able to reduce power, and the light went out. I lowered the gear, lined up with the runway, and landed, shutting down the engine as soon as I was off the runway. I scrambled out of the cockpit as the fire truck screeched to a halt alongside. The firemen and I found that the paint on the left side of the fuselage, over the point where the tail pipe is attached to the engine, was discolored and blistered, which indicated an exhaust gas leak at that juncture. That explained the fire warning light but not the lack of power. With only one jet operational, Barney performed at the airshow alone.
On Monday a C-47 flew over from Eglin with a new tail pipe and two mechanics to repair the plane. When the old tail pipe was removed they found that it had slipped through the production line without the welded ring at the aft end, called the pucker string, that decreased the diameter of the nozzle exit and increased the thrust of the engine. With the new tail pipe the engine regained its normal power, and I flew back to Eglin with no trouble.
A minor but embarrassing incident occurred at an airshow in Atlanta about a month later. Si Johnson and I were flying P-80s, and on the second day of the show, when we started our engines, my oil pressure continued to register zero. I immediately shut down the engine, and after I climbed out of the cockpit and removed my Mae West (an inflatable life jacket), Si beckoned for me to come over and explain the problem. I ran over to his plane, which was at idle power, and stood by the cockpit. As I yelled and gestured about my oil pressure, the Mae West was sucked out of my hand and into his engine intake duct, leaving me feeling a bit foolish, to say the least. The protective screen kept it from entering the engine, but Si had to shut everything down so the mechanics could open the engine compartment and remove it. No damage was done, and Si was kind enough not to say anything to our fellow pilots.
In early July, the base commander at Tyndall Field requested that Eglin provide a P-80 and pilot for the Fourth of July airshow in Panama City, which is Glyn's home town. I immediately volunteered, because I knew she would be home for the holiday. I flew to Tyndall on the evening of the third and reported to base operations for the airshow briefing the next morning. The Tyndall pilots were flying P-51s and A-26s. After their detailed briefing, the meeting seemed about to break up, so I stood up, ostentatiously displaying my red jet helmet, and said that I was flying the P-80 from Eglin and asked for instructions. The operations officer said, "You can come in as soon as we have cleared the area and do whatever you want." There could be no sweeter words for a fighter pilot — especially for this fighter pilot with his girlfriend and her family to impress.
The crowd for the show was on a large pier that extended from the main street out into the bay as well as along the shoreline. I took off about fifteen minutes after the Tyndall planes, climbing to 10,000 feet and circling about five miles from the bay end of the pier. When the Tyndall flight leader called to report that his planes had left the area, I started diving toward the end of the pier, crossed it at more than 550 mph at about 50 feet over the crowd, and zoomed into a steep climbing turn over the main street (aerobatics are prohibited over populated areas). Then I lined up parallel to the shoreline and did a series of low-level Cuban eights and reverse Cuban eights (combinations of loops and half rolls) over the water, finishing with another high-speed pass over the pier. It was necessary to curtail the show, because there was no jet fuel at Tyndall, and I had to reserve enough fuel to get back to Eglin the next day.