Johnny Wagner came up to me for his transport pilot's license test. I
was the inspector for the Department of Commerce. Johnny knew I was
"tough." As a matter of fact, he figured I was much tougher than I was.
I knew Johnny and liked him. He was crazy about flying and had worked
hard to get his flying training. He had pushed ships in and out of
hangars, washed them, acted as night watchman and office boy, done
anything and everything to pay for his flying time. But I didn't have
the slightest idea how he flew. And after all, you may be a swell guy
but not be able to fly worth a cent, and a transport test is supposed to
determine whether you are safe to carry passengers.
I found out three minutes after Johnny got in the ship how he flew.
Nevertheless, I made him go all through the test. When he came to steep
banks I made him pull them in tight. He was reluctant to do it, so I
took the ship to do it myself to show him. I could see right away why he
was reluctant. It was the way the ship was rigged. It had a tendency to
roll under in a tightly pulled in steep bank. But I wanted to see what
he would do with it, so I made him do it. He did, and rolled right under
into a power spin. He had gone into an inadvertent spin, the
unforgivable sin in a flight test.
I started to reach for the controls but let him go. When he had pulled
out of the spin I told him to land.
He got out of the ship with his face as long as a poker. He couldn't
even talk, the test had meant so much to him. I didn't say anything for
a moment, then with a stern face I said roughly, "Well," and waited a
moment. The poor kid was getting all set for the worst. I could tell by
his face.
"Well," I went on, "you passed," and I smiled broadly at him.
His mouth fell open. "But--but--" he stuttered--"but I spun out of that
steep bank!"
"Yeah, I know," I said. "But you also recovered. It was the way you
recovered. You stopped that spin like that and recovered from the
resultant dive neatly and smoothly, with a minimum loss of altitude and
still without squashin' the ship. It was a beautiful piece of work and
told me more about your flying than anything else you did, although I
could tell in the first three minutes that you could fly." I never saw a
kid beam so much.
Johnny is now flying a regular run over the Andes in South America for
Pan American Grace.
"A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME...."
I delivered a plane at a ranch in Mexico a few years ago for Joe and
Alicia Brooks. I was to take back the ship they had been using. The
ranch was about eighty miles over the border from Eagle Pass. The
Brookses planned to leave with me and fly formation to New York. Both
planes had approximately the same cruising speed. Alicia and I flew in
one ship. Sutter, the mechanic, flew with Joe in the other.
The day we started didn't look too good. Thick gray clouds were rolling
in from the northeast. There was no way we could check our weather till
we got to Eagle Pass. We had to take a chance on the eighty miles.
Joe led the way, and everything went fine at the start, but the nearer
we got to Eagle Pass the worse the weather got. We were flying on top of
a jerkwater railway, just missing the tops of the trees, when we bumped
into a solid wall of fog. Joe disappeared into it. I stuck my nose in
the stuff and pulled out: there was no percentage in two planes milling
around blind. Too much chance of collision. I picked out a spot in
between the cactus and landed. There was nothing to do but wait. If Joe
came out he would come out on the railway and we would see him. Ten
uncomfortable minutes passed. We heard a motor. Joe reappeared. He
circled and landed alongside of us.
By this time the planes were surrounded by a herd of angry shrieking
Mexicans. There must have been over a hundred of them. They didn't seem
to like us, but we couldn't find out why. None of us spoke Spanish.
Finally an official-looking fellow appeared with a lot of brass medals
on his coat. He made us understand through the sign language that he
wanted to see our passports. We couldn't find them. The atmosphere was
most unpleasant. We had visions of spending the next few days in a
flea-bitten Mexican jail.
Then it occurred to me that I did know one Spanish word. Might as well
use it, I thought, and see what happens. "Cerveza" I commanded. The
Mexicans looked startled. "Cerveza" I commanded again. The Mexicans
started to laugh.
The next thing we knew, we were sitting at a Mexican bar drinking beer
with a lot of newfound friends. Cerveza is the Spanish for beer.
"YES, SIR!"
Our jenny hit the ground wheels first and bounced dangerously. My
instructor in the cockpit in front of me grabbed his controls, gave the
ship a sharp burst of the gun, and set her down right. We were in a
little practice field near Brooks Field in Texas.
My instructor turned around to me: "Damn it, Collins," he said, "don't
run into the ground wheels first like that. Level off about six feet in
the air and wait until the ship begins to settle. Then ease the stick
back. When you feel the ship begin to fall out from under you, pull the
stick all the way back into your guts and the ship will set itself down.
Go around and try it again."
"Yes, sir."
I came in the next time, hit the ground wheels first, and bounced. My
instructor righted the ship.
"No, Collins. No," he fumed. "Six feet. Look, I'll show you what six
feet looks like."
He took the ship off and flew over the open fields, then came around and
landed.
"Now do you know what six feet looks like?" he shouted back to me.
"Yes, sir," I lied. I was afraid to tell him that I could not see the
ground right. He might send me to the hospital to have my eyes examined.
They might find some slight defect in my eyes that they had overlooked
in the original examination and wash me out of the school.
"Well, then, go around and make a decent landing for me," my instructor
said.
"Yes, sir."
I leveled off too high the next time. My instructor grabbed his controls
and prevented us from cracking up.
"Damn it, Collins," he shouted when the ship had stopped rolling, "don't
run into the ground wheels first. And don't level off as high as the
telegraph wires. Level off at about six feet. Then set her down. Now go
round and try it again."
"Yes, sir."
"Damn it, Collins, don't sit back there and say 'Yes, sir' and then do
the same damned thing again."
"No, sir."