In early 1946, Chuck Brown was leading a large group of P-80s in a flyby during an open house at March Field. He had been briefed to stay well clear of the bleachers, but instead, he approached the bleachers from the rear and led the airplanes directly over them at minimum altitude. In the ensuing panic the bleachers collapsed. There were several injuries, but fortunately none were too serious. To keep Chuck from being court-martialed, the group commander transferred him to a P-80 group being formed in Germany.
Chuck stayed out of trouble until late in the year, when a friend in his squadron was killed in a crash. The body was badly burned, and the remains were cremated. Chuck was assigned the solemn duty of taking the urn with the ashes back to the pilot's family in the States. En route, he passed through London, where he had many friends, and in the course of uncounted toasts to his departed comrade in various London pubs, he lost the urn. The next day, a frantic search of the pubs (at least of those he could remember) proved fruitless. In desperation he prevailed upon an Army mortician to provide another urn, complete with ashes, which Chuck solemnly delivered to the family.
The transfer to Germany may actually have saved Chuck's life. On July 4, 1946, Pappy Herbst, who had been married the day before, and Robin Olds were performing their P-80 show at March Field as part of a recruiting drive. In their finale, Pappy flew into the ground and was killed, while Robin Olds successfully completed the maneuver and landed.
The remaining students were Major Bray and Lieutenant Day (from the labs at Wright Field), Capt. Ray Popson (a helicopter and airplane test pilot), Lt. Claire Whitney (a West Pointer who had just been assigned to the bomber test squadron and who became a close friend), and Maj. Tom Weldon (an engineer with a master's degree in aeronautics from Cal Tech, who was always ready to help us less-educated students with the mathematics required in the course). At no time, in my wildest dreams, could I have ever imagined that someday I would attain an M.S. in aeronautics, especially from Cal Tech, but in 1957 I was awarded the same degree from the same great institution. As Fats Waller said, "One never knows, do one?"
About half of the curriculum for the flight performance phase of the school consisted of classroom lectures; the other half was dedicated to planning and flying the various tests, then reducing the data and writing the reports. One tenet of flight testing that was drummed into us was that no matter how well we planned and flew the tests, they were of little value if they were not reported accurately and fully. Nothing that was observed during a test was too trivial to report. Several trivial items, put together, might reveal a performance flaw that would otherwise be overlooked.
To make the flight tests of the various aircraft seem as authentic as possible, the student was given a memorandum from a fictitious office at Wright Field requesting that a specific type of aircraft be tested and assigning the student as the test pilot. The North American AT-6 Texan was the first aircraft assigned, since it was an advanced trainer and relatively easy to fly. Also, it had been tested so often that the school had good benchmark data against which to evaluate the students' results.
The student would prepare a test program and submit it to the instructor in the form of a memo, outlining the goals of each phase of the test, the equipment and facilities needed, and the approximate number of flying hours required for each phase. When it was approved, the flight testing got under way.
For several days preceding each flight phase, the instructor would go over all aspects of the information to be obtained and the method of obtaining it, as well as how to reduce and plot the data. The first phase of the test was to calibrate the airspeed indicator (ASI) and the altimeter in the test airplane. The altimeter was a standard USAF instrument, but the ASI was a special test instrument that could be read to the tenth of a mile per hour. For all tests the altimeter was set to the local barometric pressure.
To calibrate the ASI, the aircraft was flown in a series of minimum-altitude (100 feet) runs over a two-mile measured course at 10-mph increments, from 95 mph to 165 mph. The airspeed and altitude had to be held with great precision throughout each run. The glass on the altimeter face was tapped lightly before each reading to ensure that the needle was not sticking, and the elapsed time in seconds for each run, timed with a stopwatch, was entered on the pilot's knee board. Two runs would be made in opposite directions at each airspeed to eliminate the wind effect, and the average time for the two runs would be used to compute the speed over the ground, which at that low altitude was equal to the airspeed. The indicated airspeed was then plotted against the computed airspeed, and the correction required at each speed was determined.
The altimeter was calibrated in a manner similar to the ASI calibration, by flying a series of runs at a fixed indicated altitude of 100 feet above the runway at 10-mph airspeed increments. Each run was observed through a theodolite in the control tower by a fellow student, who measured and recorded the number of degrees above or below the 100-foot line. Again the run data were averaged, and the student, by knowing the distance from the theodolite to the runway and the number of degrees of deviation, could compute his actual altitude. By comparing the actual altitude with the indicated altitude, the student could determine the altimeter correction.
The next task was to determine the power required to overcome the drag of the airplane at various altitudes and airspeeds. To do this a series of speed runs were flown, first at 6,500 feet, the critical altitude for the AT-6F. (Critical altitude is the highest altitude at which the engine can provide full power. In our tests a setting of 30 inches of manifold pressure and 2,000 rpm was presumed to be full power.) The manifold pressure was varied in 2-inch decrements, from 30 inches to 22 inches. On each run the cylinder head, free air, and carburetor air temperatures were recorded as well as the airspeed. At the start of the run the pilot climbed to about 300 feet above the desired altitude, set the power for that run, and descended in a gentle dive to the altitude. The plane was then held straight and level at exactly 6,500 feet until the airspeed stabilized. The readings were then entered on the knee board. The airspeed was read to the tenth of a mile per hour. Entering the run from a dive significantly reduced the time required for the airspeed to stabilize, compared with starting the run at the desired altitude and accelerating to the stable airspeed. This procedure was repeated for the remainder of the power settings.
On the next test mission a series of two speed points were flown at altitudes of 1,500, 3,500, 5,500, 7,500, 10,000, and 13,000 feet. Below 6,500 feet, manifold pressure was set at 30 inches for the first run and 28 inches for the second. Above the critical altitude of 6,500 feet, the throttle was wide open. The manifold pressure was recorded to the tenth of an inch on the first run and then reduced by 2 inches on the second. The same data were recorded as on the power-required runs.