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Pat Byrne,
I don’t think
people today realize the intensity of emotion and concern felt during WW II.
Young men (boys?) thought a lot about getting into the war, seeing it as a
glamorous adventure, not realizing the real seriousness of combat!
The romance of aviation through the 30’s made military flying the all
consuming goal of a lot of young men about to leave high school.
Not being any different, I was absolutely hell bent on into getting into
flying. In early 1944 I heard of an
Army Air Forces program to take those who could graduate before the age of 17½ into preflight training. As
subsequent events showed, I can’t imagine why the army had such a program, but
I scrambled to get credits from extension courses at the University of Oregon in
my home town of Eugene, Oregon and managed to finish my high school by the end
of the summer.
I was inducted
immediately, sent to Stanford University in a program called ASTRP (Army
Specialized Training Reserve Program) and spent till early spring 1945 studying
math, navigation, and lots of drill and PT (playing soccer in GI boots with
instructors from Stanford’s 1940 Rose Bowl team). During that time I sneaked
down to what is now
Fortunately, one of us heard that the Navy, in typical government
fashion, after shutting down pilot training for the last year, was about to
reopen their training. Probably someone realized almost all of their aviators
would want out as soon as the war ended and they would need a fresh batch soon.
You had to be 18 to qualify and I had just turned 18 a few weeks before, so
after some testing in
We were sent to
Gonzaga University in Spokane for preflight and after 10 weeks reported to
Livermore Naval Air Station, across the bay from Palo Alto where we had been.
Primary at
Navy primary in
those days consisted of about 4 months of concentrated flying, maybe 3 or 4
hours per day with ground school on aerodynamics, mechanics, Morse code, weather
and navigation. It was divided into
stages: Stage A Pre-solo, Stage B Precision flying like pylon eights, spot
landing, etc., Stage C Aerobatics and Stage D night flying, formation flying and
a final check ride.
We were taught
landings, from the first day, navy style: always in a race track pattern, use of
trim tabs to set angle of attack and descent rate controlled by throttle. After
A Stage about half our hours were solo, practicing what we learned.
By C Stage the fun began: aerobatics like rolls, loops, lazy eights,
immelmans, spins, etc. The crème
d’la crème of maneuvers was the inverted spin, with your head and shoulders
out of the cockpit and G loads trying to throw the rest of you out! I remember
tightening my shoulder straps till I could hardly move and having to consciously
will my feet to stay on the rudder peddles to be able to stop the spin before
slowing the descent by pushing forward on the
stick and then rolling out. It
was, to say the least, a bitch! One peculiarity of the Stearman was the seat was
attached through a post mounting with teeth and a latch so the seat could be
adjusted up and down. We were warned
about not releasing the latch and dropping the seat down without raising it back
up a fraction to be sure the latch caught. If you didn’t, in an upside down
maneuver the seat could come out with you attached. We were reminded to throw
the seat away before you used the seat pack parachute, otherwise you would ride
the seat to
Of course we had
check rides between progressive stages, check pilots were senior staff, not our
regular instructor. I still have a
copy of my primary manual with cheat notes and a list of things to do and watch
for during a check ride. For instance, the check pilot at any time could holler
into the gosport (funnel and hose leading to our ears from the front cockpit)
“engine failure” and pull back the throttle.
Our job was to pick a field, trim for best glide, turn into the wind and
prepare for a landing. Sometimes
they would slowly turn the gas off (a handle on the left side of the cockpit on
a shaft which ran through both cockpits). Woe be upon the kadoodle who missed
this sneaky maneuver and opened the throttle to nothing when the check pilot
said “OK power”, maybe just before the flare into tall grass in some farmers
back forty!
By late 1945 the
war was over. We had finished
primary. The cadet population had
been cut from maybe 100 to about 60. Our
next step should be
I returned to
During those
Stanford years I rented Stearmans out of
They had a Vultee
BT-13 for rent at Palo Alto airport and once in a while I would rent it—Must
have been more $$, maybe $20 or $25. Can
you believe it? That’s the way it was after the war, no messing with
insurance, simple and quick checkout and you’re on your way.
Of course gas was probably 15 cents a gallon and the airplane value was
probably $750. I remember taking
another fraternity brother for a ride in the BT: did a quick low altitude wing
over/break at the end of a low pass and I think I fell into a half turn spin
cause I was too slow. I recovered
immediately and, I guess, automatically, and my back seater didn’t even know
we had just brushed with doom! I never did that again.
Another time, close
to graduation, a guy wanted to take some movies of the campus.
We rented an Airnocker and he sat in the front seat and I really beat up
the campus. When we got back the FBO
guy was really upset. The university had called and I was to report to the
campus offices ASAP. The university
business manager, an ex Navy pilot, had a fit when he found out I was ex-Navy.
Said he was sick of all the flyboys buzzing the campus and the student
government held a trial and sentenced me to a record 200 hours of yard work on
the campus or no graduation. I had a
good job delivering furniture with an interior design firm so I hired a
fraternity brother to work it off for me at $1 an hour.
He’s a rich attorney in