TERROR OVER TEXAS!

 

or
“How a Young & Foolish Student Pilot Became a Little Older & Wiser”


            One of the most dangerous periods of a student pilot’s life is when he becomes comfortable in the aircraft and believes he pretty much has the situation under control. This is the period between solo and graduation when things seem to be going well and he begins to believe that he’ll actually complete the program. Most of us are jolted back to reality by a scary or embarrassing incident which, if we’re lucky, we survive and from which we are able to learn. One such incident occurred to this writer one spring day over the Texas plains.

            My instructor, Lt. Jerry Daley, sent me out solo on this occasion. Solo flights were a necessary evil. The student didn’t learn much from these flights, but they were necessary to instill in him the confidence that he could actually operate the airplane without adult supervision. Aerobatics during these flights were absolutely prohibited, and of course this prohibition was universally ignored.

            So it happened one day that I found myself solo in a T-33 over the metropolis of Muleshoe, Texas. Whenever I went solo I enjoyed doing some aerobatics for the citizens of Muleshoe, as I decided that a city with a name like that deserved my attentions.
            I had recently been instructed in the “Immelman Turn” maneuver, named for the WWI German aviator Max  Immelman, who is reputed to have been the first to use this tactic in aerial combat. For those of you unfamiliar with that

maneuver, it starts with a loop and culminates at the top when the pilot rolls the aircraft from an inverted position back to upright and proceeds in the opposite direction from which he started. I still don’t know exactly what I did wrong (probably didn’t pull enough “G’s”), but when I reached a point just past the vertical position the aircraft ran out of airspeed. The EGT (exhaust gas temperature) hit the peg, so I reduced the power to idle. As the aircraft started falling forward (upside down) it appeared to be going into an inverted spin, which was a very serious situation indeed. At the same time, because of the negative “G” forces, much dust, debris, safety wire, nuts & bolts, etc. dropped by careless mechanics for who-knows-how many years began bombarding me from beneath the seat. Thankfully there weren’t any wrenches or pliers in evidence. As the nose swung down through the horizon I managed to regain some semblance of control, stopping the spin and rolling back to the upright position (don’t ask me how). I breathed a sigh of relief, congratulated myself on regaining control of the machine and set about regaining my airspeed. When I applied power to do so the aircraft was strangely unresponsive, and I noticed for the first time that it was very quiet in the cockpit. The reason became apparent when I looked at my gauges and saw that they were all at the lower left position. Sometime during this episode I had flamed out, probably when I pulled the power back earlier, and didn’t even know it! I was getting perilously close to the ground by that time, and that’s when I first gave serious consideration to exiting the aircraft (Let’s see—ejection procedure—Left, Right, Squeeze). However, it occurred to me that if I survived the ejection (problematic in those early days of ejection seats) my career as a pilot would probably be over. So I decided to attempt an engine restart, reserving the option of ejecting as a last resort. Fortunately for my career (and possibly saving my life) I managed to restart the engine and finally get the aircraft flying again under its own power. For the rest of that period, you can bet that I was one of the most subdued pilots in my class, flying that jet trainer much like I flew the large four-engine KC-97 tankers later in my career.

            Needless to say, I neglected to report this incident to the proper authorities. However, I believe the statute of limitations has expired and I can safely make this story public forty-one years later without suffering any consequences.

            Right, Lt. Daley?