The wedding that afternoon in the beautiful Patterson Chapel was everything a wedding should be. One of my best friends, Dick Jones, with whom I had roomed in China, was my best man. Rode and Duke were the ushers. Ann Webb was matron of honor. Spider gave the bride away, since Glyn's father could not attend, although her mother and sister, Helon, were there.
Colonel Moon had given me Monday off for a brief honeymoon in that little-known honeymoon paradise, Columbus, Ohio. Because the temperature was only a few degrees above freezing, my convertible was not the ideal conveyance. My hands were almost frostbitten when I had to remove the graffiti on my windows with acetone. I had tried to outwit my friends by leaving my car at a garage in nearby Fairfield and arranging for Dick Jones to drive us there after the wedding, but there was a leak, and with the full cooperation of the garage manager, the windows were covered with graffiti applied with soap.
Wes Posvar, whose genius extends to all fields, had filled my hubcaps with bottle caps, which made a lot of noise at low speeds but were silent at higher speeds. It took me quite a while to locate the source of the rattle. The trip to Columbus was less than romantic as we huddled in the noisy, frigid convertible; the car had seemed so perfect in Florida. I missed my Alaskan flying clothes. The Neil House, however, was warm and comfortable, and we quickly forgot the miserable trip.
After the honeymoon we settled into our small furnished apartment above McCloskey's dairy barn. We switched from honeymooning to honeymooing. Less than two weeks later, Wes visited Wright Field to attend a conference and became our first dinner guest. Glyn served a delicious dinner that night and has continued to do so for more than forty-six years.
Finally, in early March, I completed the flight performance course. Flight test headquarters at Wright-Patterson requested that I be allowed to remain for the stability and control course and then be assigned to its fighter test squadron, but Air Proving Ground Command turned down the request and directed me to return to Eglin. We packed our belongings and headed back to Florida.
14
The Joy of Flying Low
When we arrived back at Eglin, as an old married couple of almost two months, we did not have to search for a place to live, because Mary Etta Koehler had arranged for us to sublet a house in one of the areas of officer's housing. Her next-door neighbor was on temporary duty for three months, and his wife and children had returned to their hometown to visit relatives. Len and Mary Etta Koehler and Don and Fran Dessert were our neighbors on either side. Len and Don were both in the fighter squadron and were good friends of mine. Glyn knew and liked both the wives; they became close friends and remain so to this day. The Koehlers had a lovely year-old daughter, Kathy, for whom we happily became assistant parents. The Desserts had two boys, Don Junior and Terry, both of whom later attended the Air Force Academy and pursued flying careers in the Air Force.
The first weekend after arriving we drove to Panama City, only sixty miles away, for a visit with Glyn's family and friends. I was curious whether in-laws would be different from prospective in-laws. It was a trip we were to make many times, and we always enjoyed it because of the beauty of the pure white sand dunes, the beach, and the blue-green water of the Gulf. Sadly, that pristine stretch of beach is now almost wall-to-wall high-rise condos and restaurants.
Upon returning from Panama City, I reported to the squadron and renewed acquaintances with the pilots and the ground crews. Although I was eager to get back to work, there were no new projects available, so I helped out on the tests that were in progress. Most were weapons tests with the P-80 (the P designation for fighters was not changed to F until June 1948), which was by then the first-line USAF fighter. I spent the next few weeks happily shooting, bombing, napalming, and rocketing assorted targets, and soon I felt I had regained my weaponry skills.
Shortly thereafter, Colonel Slocumb informed me that I had been assigned to test high-speed, minimum-altitude navigation techniques in the P-80. The goal was to determine if a pilot could maintain an accurate heading and identify checkpoints while flying almost 500 mph at an altitude just high enough to clear obstacles on the ground. If successful, this technique could be used to evade enemy radar by staying under its beams. The testing would be both challenging and exciting, because most flying at such low altitudes was prohibited. I was scheduled to meet with the project officer, a navigator in the aircraft branch of the proof division, the next morning to plan the flights that would be required, but I requested and received permission from Colonel Slocumb to make a couple of practice flights to prepare for the meeting. I quickly discovered that I could make only the briefest glances at the map and the compass, since my full attention had to be devoted to not running into the ground or other hard objects. This was especially important now that I was a married man.
At the meeting I told the project officer, Capt. Hunter Harrell, that holding the heading would not be a problem but identifying checkpoints would be very difficult. Navigational checkpoints look considerably different at ground level than from several thousand feet, and the time to identify them is minimal at best. After some discussion we decided that Harrell would prepare narrow strip maps for each simulated target with the course line from Eglin to the target in the center of the strip. The compass heading and the estimated time of crossing roads, rivers, railroads, and other prominent features were marked next to the feature in large numbers. None of the targets was more than thirty minutes from Eglin. Because of the relatively short duration of missions and the high speed at which they would be flown (475 mph), crosswinds would not present a problem. The first missions would be flown using a single heading, but depending on our results, we hoped to try some doglegs (en route course changes) on later missions. On each mission I was to fly to a given point just short of the selected target and then pop up to about one thousand feet and make a simulated attack. All the flights were plotted to avoid flying over towns, which was not much of a problem in that part of Florida.
I arrived at most of the targets right on the nose, but even when I was slightly off, I was close enough to carry out the attack after the pop-up climb. The project officer was pleased with the success of the missions right from the start. He was pleased, but I was elated. It was pure joy to fly so low at such high speed. I would fly ten to fifteen feet above the ground or trees, climbing just enough to clear obstacles, which were often trucks driving along highways. I don't think I scared any of the drivers too badly — by the time they realized I was there, I wasn't. Still, it must have startled some of them to see a jet cross the highway just ahead of them, only slightly above eye level. At least, I hope it did.
One reason I enjoyed the low flying even more than my usual flying was the feeling of freedom it gave me. During the past five months of precision flying at test pilot school, I had spent more time looking into than out of the cockpit. To hold altitude and airspeed with the precision required at the school meant keeping my eyes glued to the instruments most of the time. At minimum altitude, anything more than a quick glance at anything other than the approaching terrain would have been fatal spectacular, but fatal nonetheless. The heads-up displays in modern fighters, which project pertinent flight data on the windscreen, would have been most welcome. The much higher airspeeds that today's fighters can maintain have made such devices vital. I also got a thrill from the much greater sensation of speed I felt when flying on the deck. The same airspeed at 30,000 feet would produce almost no sensation of speed, because the distance from visual reference points was so much greater. The only way to appreciate high speed at that altitude was to notice how quickly I would arrive at my destination.