Falling to Earth Read online

  At Tyndall I was assigned to the F-86D Sabre jet, manufactured by North American Aviation. Even in the mid-fifties that aircraft was pretty old, and after about a year and a half they gave us newer airplanes. Still, I could learn a lot from the F-86. Since it was a single-seat aircraft, my first flight had to be performed solo. That was quite a thrill, especially when I lit the afterburner. I heard some guys say they could make the F-86D go supersonic if they flew it in a steep dive at full power. It was a wonderful airplane, perhaps the greatest in the world at the time. With the increased speed and complexity of the aircraft, however, I had to be even more focused in my flying. It wasn’t that I needed a quicker reaction time; I just needed to think further ahead. I had to anticipate all of the things that could go wrong and stay ahead of the airplane in my thinking.

  I practiced low-level approaches and landings in bad weather in that aircraft. In fact, I earned a special license that allowed me to land when the weather was so bad that I could see nothing outside the cockpit at all. Such a license was extremely unusual because there was little support other than voice commands to assist a pilot from the ground in such weather. I also learned how to operate the radar system and how to go after a target. I learned the best air combat techniques in a very scripted way: we would climb up to the right altitude with a team on the ground supporting us on the radio, while other airplanes towed targets. The ground control told us which heading to take until we were almost on a collision course. At a precisely defined point, I would fire the Sabre’s rocket armaments. If we’d calculated everything correctly, I hit the target.

  The air-to-air combat maneuvers were nothing like dogfighting. Instead, I had to place the target on my radar screen, using a hand controller to move a little cursor until it covered the target, and lock on to it by pushing a switch on the control stick. The system would then begin to calculate the correct approach path and how far out to fire the rockets. Next, I would switch to a different mode where I’d keep the target in the center of the screen. If my target started to move away from the middle I’d maneuver the airplane to keep it centered. Sometimes, the target moved so quickly that I had to fly upside down in a crazy barrel roll just to keep up with it. I was comfortable with this control system, and my skills as a pilot greatly improved during this phase of training. I really enjoyed working as a combined unit: human and machine in precise harmony.

  You might be imagining a squadron of close buddies, flying wingtip to wingtip. Not us. We launched solo and headed off in our own directions, spreading out so we could look for targets over a wide area. I practiced endlessly, like a student in medical school, honing my skills and experience. But it was mostly solitary learning, which was fine; I was confident and had always relied on my own abilities, not others’.

  Training for different kinds of weather was far more challenging in Florida. With all the humidity, we had a lot of turbulent weather. We even had a hurricane come through, and rather than risk damage, the experienced pilots tried to fly the airplanes to other bases, while we students evacuated to the relative safety of the officers’ club. I remember standing in the front door of that club as the power failed, watching streetlights and electrical transformers dramatically arcing and sparking, thinking I was lucky to be alive. While the other pilots evacuated the airplanes, some collided in midair due to the terrible weather, and four guys died. Four jets, four pilots, all gone in one terrible accident.

  Even though we were not in a combat zone, it was a dangerous life. I knew it could have been me who died that day. I understood that risks were part of my job, but incidents like that terrified Pam.

  That made sense: she was on the outside looking in. As much as I wanted to share the excitement of my career, she couldn’t experience it with me. And when it came to dangerous incidents, like many young, dumb guys I thought it would make her feel better to discuss them, to explain them. Of course, I was wrong. My clumsy attempts to reassure her only increased her fears. I had changed since West Point—risk was part of my everyday routine and no big deal to me. For her, it was the thing that could kill her husband at any hour of the day. How she endured it, I don’t know, but she stuck with me as I dragged her from one military base to another.

  The Space Age began in 1957, with the launch by the Soviet Union of the first satellite, Sputnik. I paid little attention, however. Pam and I were moving again, this time to my first post-training assignment, just southeast of Washington, D.C., with the 95th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Andrews Air Force Base. Less than two years earlier I had piloted my first airplane, and now I was a jet pilot defending my country’s most vital assets.

  My mission wasn’t called Homeland Security in those days, but essentially that’s what it was. They called our squadron “Defenders of the Nation’s Capital.” However, that grandiose title was a big joke, because for a long, long time we could hardly get an airplane off the ground. We just didn’t have the ability or the resources to keep them maintained. The Korean War had been over for many years, and the nation was scaling back on military spending. The air force was in a slump at that time. We did not have a good supply system for parts to keep our airplanes flying, and it didn’t help that we still flew those old F-86Ds.

  Still, in theory, our squadron was part of the air defense command system, designed to guard the nation from airborne attack. Specifically, we were ready to defend the capital from long-range assault. Control centers all over the country, using long-range radars, calculated our intercept courses and told us where to go if they considered any incoming aircraft suspicious. Rather than engaging in combat overseas, we were prepared to oppose anyone who tried to attack the United States. In the middle of the Cold War, it felt like that attack could happen anytime.

  President Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev were engaged in a propaganda war in a fast-changing world. Both countries had nuclear weapons, and Eisenhower used their existence to keep the Soviets at bay. If events became too heated, both nations could destroy each other. In a time before large and reliable rockets, nuclear bombs would be dropped by waves of aircraft. It was our job to stop the Soviet planes.

  Our targets would have been the big bombers. We had air force squadrons stationed everywhere, up along the border with Canada, in Greenland, and in Alaska, as a perimeter defense of the nation. We were trained to intercept those incoming Soviets as far out as our airplanes could fly, and to knock them out of the sky before they could get close to American shores. I’m glad that we never had to do what we were trained for.

  All of my previous flying was in a training environment, but now I was in an operational environment. We stayed on alert just like firefighters, sleeping in bunks and ready to fly into defensive action. It felt very different from training. And once again, as the new, green pilot, I started at the bottom of the heap and had to work my way up.

  Pam and I could finally afford to buy a home, in the District Heights area close to the base. It cost us more than thirteen thousand dollars, a fortune in those days, but it was a beautiful brick house on a pleasant street and we loved it. I wasn’t paid much, but we got by. In fact, I think we had more disposable income than I have ever had since, because we had so few expenses. After the frenetic years of moving, I felt I could finally give Pam a moment to breathe, and a little stability.

  It also seemed like the right moment for us to start a family, and in 1958 we had our first child, Merrill Ellen. We gave her my father’s first name, which is also my middle name. I wasn’t totally sure it could be used as a girl’s name, too, but there were a lot of women called Meryl around, so we figured we could get away with it. I was extremely excited to become a father, and it was a very special moment when we visited my family back in Michigan with our new baby.

  Nevertheless, my career still consumed me. In my second year at Andrews, the air force finally gave us new fighters, high-altitude supersonic interceptors called Convair F-102 Delta Daggers. These airplanes were specifically designed to defend the United
States, and yet we still didn’t fly much. With the new focus on nuclear warfare, the air force was given little money for spare parts. We had a hard time keeping our airplanes flying. We’d cannibalize one F-102 to repair another, and plenty of aircraft just sat in the hangar and looked pretty, because they couldn’t fly. A lot of the pilots sat around, too, killing time, drinking coffee, and playing Ping-Pong.

  I was disenchanted by the lack of focus and flying time. But there was more to it than those factors: there was added tension within the squadron because of two very different generations of aviators. My flight commander and the other senior officers in the squadron had advanced through the ranks during World War II, a decade earlier. They’d been let go at the end of the war, but pulled back in to fly in Korea. Many hadn’t flown for years, and when they did it had been propeller planes. They learned to fly jets relatively late in their careers and were cautious and uneasy about jet aircraft quirks. Little things in the air made them jittery, and I kept a wary eye on them when flying close by.

  Despite my caution, I respected their years of experience. I didn’t get it in return. Most had never been to college, and they resented those who had. They particularly disliked West Point graduates, believing that we received preferential treatment over war veterans. As there were only two of us in my squadron, we were easy to single out. I gritted my teeth and said nothing—for a while.

  My superiors also wrote efficiency reports about me, which went in my military record. These reports were always good overall, but I was still convinced that my flight commander knocked me down a little simply because I had gone to West Point. A report that was merely okay would slow my chances of promotion. I vented my frustration in a private letter to Jim Allen, the tactical officer at West Point who had convinced me to become a pilot. He wrote back and told me that if I decided to resign I would be giving in to those people, who would then be in total command of the air force. He advised me to stick around, both for me and for the service. Jim was a clever guy, who ended up heading the Air Force Academy. It was some of the best career advice I have ever received.

  I didn’t waste any more time sitting around drinking coffee and talking to those guys. I began to wander around the hangar more and more. Just as I had been curious about taking car engines apart and putting them back together as a teenager, I was eager to see what went on with airplane maintenance. I hung around the maintenance crews, talked with them, and grew even more fascinated. There were storage areas for munitions, guided missiles, folding fin rockets, and other amazing things. I wanted to know it all inside out. The guys who worked there, however, told me that they were having problems. They could never get the attention of the officer in charge, as he was always in the lounge with the pilots, relaxing with coffee and cigarettes. They were left to flounder on their own, and as a result the squadron received poor readiness ratings. It was not a good time to be so disorganized, because the air force was adding a special weapons storage facility, which meant we’d be able to have nuclear weapons on-site.

  The squadron commander was aware of the problem and noticed my interest. He finally came to me and said he wanted to make some changes, and they involved me. He told me to take over and run the armaments and electronics shop. I had no idea of the scale of the problem when I began, but once I did my weekends were gone. I put in 120-hour weeks sorting out the mess, in addition to being on constant alert as a pilot for three-day shifts. With the help of my senior master sergeant, I put in all my time reorganizing.

  The working conditions were deplorable. All the sensitive electronic repairs took place in a lean-to shed that wound around the back of the hangar wall. It was filthy, and despite the sweltering summer heat it had no air-conditioning. So we approached the Convair company, which built our F-102 airplanes, and Hughes, which built many of the weapons systems, and asked a question they had never heard before. We told them that if they would buy the materials, we would rebuild the armament shop. They saw that we were serious and agreed. It took a while, but we put in sound-absorbent ceilings, fluorescent lights, air-conditioning, brand-new workbenches, and a gleaming tiled floor. The place looked like a medical operating theater when we finished. The tools and all the test equipment were where they were supposed to be, and there was no longer any confusion about who did what. The whole operation turned around, and our air force readiness rating jumped from very low to very high.

  It turned out that we fixed up that shop just in time. In 1960 we upgraded to the F-106 Delta Dart, dubbed the “ultimate interceptor” airplane. This sleek jet was an advanced version of the F-102 design, with a more powerful engine. It also had an almost completely integrated electronic flight system, with navigation, radio, munitions, and the flight-control systems in big racks. The F-106 was complex and needed the efficient maintenance facility we now had. Because we were so organized, when the air force demonstrated the airplane to senators, congressmen, and others from Washington, they frequently used our facility.

  Our second child, Alison Pamela, was born that year. Many fathers would try to be at home and spend more time with two young children. I focused more on my job. I rationalized the decision by saying it was good for my career—and it was. But, to my regret, I missed a lot of my daughters’ precious early years: time that once lost is gone forever.

  Luckily, Pam was a wonderful mother, who could fill in for my absence. I don’t remember her ever complaining about me being gone all the time. Perhaps it was my own guilt that I did not spend more time with my family and was not more of a father when my kids were small, but I suspect that a sense of unease crept into our marriage at that moment.

  Up until then, despite any hardships, we had made it through on the understanding that we lived the roving military life. I don’t think Pam expected that things would change when we had kids, but I believe she became increasingly wary about what I was doing. When we married, she was a little upset that I chose to join the air force. She didn’t really want me flying, because there is an obvious element of danger to it. I am sure she must have struggled with the fears that all aviators’ wives have, and the pressure to not outwardly show them.

  Then I got into the all-weather fighter business, which was not like flying cargo airplanes—it was far more dangerous. Adding to that stress, I was away from home and flying city alerts in the middle of the night. No wonder it was a tense time for her. I was getting more and more into my work, and she had the frustration of covering for me at home because I wasn’t there.

  I understand now that Pam needed me to slow down. To reconsider what was most important to me. To invest in my new family. Yet I have to admit that I was oblivious to her worries at the time; I was so caught up in my career. The Air Defense Command came and inspected our maintenance work, and enthusiasm grew about the great job we had done. They particularly appreciated that the contractors, rather than the air force, had paid for most of the rebuilding. Soon I received a phone call summoning me to headquarters. They wanted me to visit all of the other air bases, talk with them about what we had done, and work with them to do the same.

  I was grateful for this validation of my work, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do. If I had to sit at a desk somewhere, I didn’t want to do it at Air Defense Command Headquarters. I wanted to make a choice that would benefit both me and the air force. So that day I jumped in my car, drove to the Pentagon, and requested that they send me back to college to obtain an advanced degree. At first, the officers I talked to wanted to send me to North Carolina to study nuclear engineering. No, I countered, please send me to the University of Michigan. In fact, I begged and pleaded to be sent to Michigan, to study aerospace engineering. It worked: they enrolled me.

  Before we moved back to Michigan, I had my first brush with the space program. The pilots in my squadron all gathered in our coffee room in May of 1961 where we planned to watch the live television reports as NASA attempted to put Alan Shepard in space on America’s first manned flight. Just before his launch, we heard that
there was an emergency back at our airfield. Our maintenance officer was trying to land an F-102 fighter, but he couldn’t get the gear down. He would have to land the airplane on its belly. We needed to decide whether to watch the historic spaceflight live, or to take our hot dogs out to the runway and watch the crash. We decided that we could always watch the launch later on, in repeats, but the crash would be unique. So we forgot about the space program for the next few hours, far more pleased to see our maintenance officer return safely to earth than any astronaut. Sorry, Al, it was nothing personal.

  We also played a trick on one of the flight commanders in our squadron, an old, crusty pilot who had never been to college. We had someone from the Pentagon make a prank call to inform him that he had been selected for the astronaut program. We kept the joke going for two weeks, and the guy was just walking on air while we congratulated him over and over. When we finally told him the truth, however, I think he was a little relieved, because he knew that he didn’t have the experience needed to be an astronaut. It goes to show that when the manned space program really got going, it meant little to me other than a way to play practical jokes.

  I hadn’t distinguished myself academically my first time at the University of Michigan, and in truth I was amazed that they accepted me into graduate school. I quickly discovered how much I needed to catch up; that first summer was unbelievably tough. I took a math course with around a hundred students, and more than eighty of them were high school graduates who knew more math than I’d ever learned. In the years since I had left West Point, the instruction in high school had advanced so much that these kids were way ahead. I broke my back studying to catch up. It took me a year to feel comfortable.