I was born in Spokane, Washington, but often lived, until 1947, on this farm near Homedale, Idaho, with my mother’s parents. Barely visible above the buildings, in the center on a pole, is a six-foot wingspan WWI model biplane that I saw every day. This was my playground, with that airplane constantly overhead. I was already driving big equipment like a Caterpillar tractor by the age of nine and to become a pilot was almost inevitable.

After doing extremely well on the Air Force ROTC pilot’s examination test, I entered advanced ROTC on track to become a pilot. While a junior at Washington State College, I was taken on my first flight by a Battle of Britain combat pilot in a Beach Bonanza. I sat in the right seat and got to fly the plane for a couple of minutes.

Later we potential Air Force pilots were given forty hours of flying time in an Aeronca Champ, and several of my seemingly normal friends washed out. For me, flying that plane was as easy as breathing.

 

Even with this simple airplane, I had some adventures. For example, on a cross-country flight the engine quit, and I had to glide into Lewiston, Idaho, and sit on the runway until someone came out and had spun the prop to start the engine. After getting my private pilot’s license, I visited my aunt Marie, who lived only a block from the hangers at Felts field in Spokane. I offered to take her for a ride and she accepted. Having flown into that field once before, they knew me well enough to let me solo one of their Piper Cubs with Marie, after only three take-offs and landings.

This airplane is a forerunner to the Aeronca with similar flying characteristics, so it was no problem. And, Marie, who had known my mom, even before I was born, was now trusting her life to a nineteen-year-old boy who just got his private pilot’s license.

A few months later, I flew the U.S. AIR FORCE T-34‘s out of Malden, Missouri airfield. It was a beautiful airplane and easy to fly. Just sit there and breathe in the freedom. I was the first of my squadron to solo and got thoroughly drenched with a couple buckets of water. A lot of my new friends didn’t make it and flunked out. After thirty hours of flying those sweet little planes, we were switched to a similar-looking plane, but much more substantial. The T-28.

My biggest adventure in this airplane was encountering Captain Chard. He had just failed eight out of eight student pilots when I was given him as my check pilot. That was a few minutes worth reading about. 

A few weeks later the T-28 I was given had a problem with the gas cap on the right wing, and I took that cap off and put it on several times before wrongly thinking it was on tight. As I was airborne the fuel began siphoning out of the wing tank in a huge column of vaporized gas. It was only a few feet from the incandescently hot engine exhaust plume. I called in an emergency landing, and the guys on the ground started screaming hysterically at me, about what I should do. I said, “Be quiet! I’ll take care of this.” They did. As I circled back toward the landing strip, I saw the fire truck heading out toward the potential disaster. Even though I was still in a climb, I pulled the power back to normal flying speed setting, to shrink the exhaust plume, and more slowly than usual climbed to a normal landing altitude, and proceeded to land normally. My next plane was the USAF T-33.

The T-33 is a smoother airplane to fly compared to the piston-engined ones I flew before and a lot faster. It won’t give you four minutes of weightlessness like Bezos just spent a couple of billion dollars achieving. It will deliver, with a dive followed with an upward arc and smoothly rolling the nose down, a good long spell of weightlessness. This plane is such a pleasure to fly because it just works! It’s as easy to fly as walking through a park on a spring day. Next is the USAF B-47.

This was to be my next airplane to fly, but then they asked me to be prepared to drop several H-bombs on innocent civilians and kill a million with each of them, and I said NO!