The position of the rockets relative to the engine air intakes, which were on either side of the fuselage about five feet behind the rocket tubes, was responsible for the flameouts. When the rockets were fired, the oxygen-depleted smoke went into the air intakes and deprived the engine of enough oxygen to support combustion. After a great deal of agonizing, a team of Lockheed and Allison engineers came up with a solution. The engine control was modified to reduce momentarily, when the rockets were fired, the fuel flow to a level that could maintain combustion with the reduced supply of oxygen.
There was a great deal of testing of the lead-collision sight with 2.75-inch FFARs over the next year or so, much of it after I had left Eglin. It was the primary interceptor weapons system for many years and was installed in both the F-86D Sabre Dog and the Northrop F-89 Scorpion. Neither aircraft had the air intakes behind the rockets. Although the system functioned well, it had to be tested by firing at actual targets. Since towed targets were not suitable for rocket firing, drone aircraft had to be used. Accordingly, several firing tests with live rockets were flown against B-17 drones. The system proved to be quite accurate, with tragic results on one occasion.
On a hazy Florida afternoon, an F-86D followed by an F-86A chase plane took off for a firing test against a B-17 drone. Once the drone was in position over the Gulf with the B-17 mother ship about a mile behind it, the F-86D turned for a firing pass. The pilot was flying on instruments, guided by the lead-collision system, but he had unknowingly locked his radar on the mother ship instead of the drone. Because of the haze, the chase pilot did not realize what was happening and did not alert the F-86D pilot to the error. In the pilot's defense, it was difficult to tell what the target was because of the long range at which the rockets were fired and because the aiming point was not the B-17 itself but a point well in front of it. The F-86D pilot continued tracking the mother ship, and at the proper time the rockets fired automatically, blowing the B-17 out of the sky, with the loss of most of the crew and observers aboard. It was a costly way to prove a system.
In March 1950, Colonel Davis and I, both avid baseball fans, decided that we ought to try to see a spring-training game before the major league teams left Florida to start the season. My mother lived in Tampa, just across the bay from St. Petersburg, where the New York Yankees trained. Since the Yankees are my favorite team, I suggested that we fly to Tampa, borrow my mother's car, and drive to St. Pete to see the Yankees play the Cardinals. Cyclone agreed that it was a good idea, so on the morning of the game I flew a Sabre to MacDill Air Force Base and met my mother, who worked in the communications office on the base. About an hour later Cyclone arrived in a B-26 with a couple of our squadron mechanics who were baseball fans. I picked them up at operations, and we drove to the ballpark in St. Petersburg for the game.
I hadn't seen any big-league baseball since 1940, and my one and only minor league game had been a Birmingham Barons game two years earlier. It was a thrill to see the great players at close range rather than as minuscule figures in a giant stadium. I saw Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Gerry Coleman, Phil Rizzuto, Bobby Brown, Allie Reynolds, Whitey Ford, Vic Raschi, Ed Lopat, Johnnie Mize, and many others. We enjoyed the game as well as the atmosphere, but it ran a bit longer than anticipated, and we got back to MacDill rather late. Cyclone said he had a commitment at Eglin that evening that he could not make if he flew the B-26 back, but he could make it in the Sabre. Guess who flew the B-26 back. Since he hadn't worn a helmet and oxygen mask in the B-26, he had to use mine. I told him it would be dangerous wearing a helmet that did not have "The Mormon Meteor" painted on it, but he said he would take the risk.
In October I was able to complete the baseball cycle that started in spring training by attending the second game of the World Series in Philadelphia, between the New York Yankees and the Phillies. The Yankees had won the first game, 1 to 0, but the Phillies had surprised the Yankees by starting their stellar relief pitcher, Jim Konstanty. In the second game Robin Roberts opposed the Yankee's Allie Reynolds. With the score tied at 1 apiece, Joe DiMaggio ended it with a home run in the tenth inning. He also made a couple of great fielding plays and, as always, lived up to his reputation.
As a lifetime baseball fan I was flabbergasted, while a graduate student at Cal Tech, that Don Larson's perfect game in the 1956 World Series seemed to go unnoticed among the other students. Obviously they found Fourier series more exciting than the World Series.
In May, along with several others from Eglin, I began a four-month assignment to attend the Air Tactical School at nearby Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Florida, Glyn's home town. We sublet our house in Cinco Bayou, and Glyn moved in with her parents while I shared a BOQ room with Joe Cotton from the heavy bomber squadron. He and his wife, who was expecting a baby, had rented a house near Tyndall, but he and I spent most evenings in the BOQ studying along with another friend from Eglin, Jim Colburn. Joe and I knew that the only planes available for students to fly at Tyndall were T-6s and C-45s, so we arranged to continue to do our flying at Eglin.
Tac School, as it was called, was a professional school for junior officers, up to the rank of captain. A few years later, after it was moved to the Air University at Maxwell Field, Alabama, its name was changed to Squadron Officers School. The primary subjects of the curriculum were leadership, personnel management, logistics, public speaking, and writing. We attended classes about six hours a day and used the remaining hours for research, study, and softball. The school was divided into four sections, each represented by a team in the school softball league. Joe pitched for our section, and I played first base. We had a good season but lost the final playoff game and had to settle for second place.
Joe had finished flying school in June 1943, and all the graduates of his school, regardless of their choices, had been assigned to B-17s as copilots. That was bad enough, but on his first combat mission, with the Fifteenth Air Force operating out of Italy, his B-17 was shot down by the first burst of flak he had ever seen, and he was forced to bail out over the German-occupied Greek island of Corfu, where he contacted the underground and evaded capture until the end of the war. Back in the States he was stationed in Laredo, Texas, testing Bell P-63 Pinballs, which were to be used as targets for bomber gunners in training. He came to Eglin in 1946 when the P-63 program was terminated.
Joe loved to fly as much as or more than anyone I ever knew. He was devastated that he had amassed so few hours since flying school, and he was determined to pile up flying hours as fast as possible. He put up signs in base operations and at each squadron stating that he was available to fly anywhere anytime he was not flying with his own squadron. He often took T-6s up at night, flying at the lowest power setting that would sustain flight, and landing almost out of fuel. It all paid off for him. He graduated from England's Empire Test Pilot School, commanded the bomber test squadron at Wright Field for many years, and was a principal test pilot on the Convair B-58 Hustler and the XB-70 Valkyrie. After retiring from the Air Force he became chief test pilot for United Airlines. When he finally stopped flying he had amassed a total of 14,000 hours.