Testing the test pilot on-the-job-training

Flight Journal, Aug 1999 by Meyer, Corky

Many people picture test pilots as possessing doctorates from MIT, the ability to speak "computerese," more than 2,000 hours of accident-free flight time, all kinds of combat experience and, of course, dashing good looks.

This was not so in November 1942. There were few qualified pilots, and those who were flying seldom were privileged enough to have had even two years of college. Computers were five years away. No wartime pilots were available, and there were no test pilot schools (TPS). If you had a few FAA certificates, a few "real" hours and could get a foot in the door, you could become a test pilot. Getting a foot in the door, however, was the toughest part, especially if you didn't know the difference between the words "military" and "government"as they applied to training-and weren't particularly handsome. But if you did land a job, on-the-job-training (OJT) offered the only way to graduate from TPS.

It was November 10, 1942, and I was steaming. I had walked over two miles to the pay phone outside the Republic Aircraft factory and back to the Long Island, New York, railroad station at Farmingdale. During my curt discussion with Joe Parker (the chief test pilot at Republic), it had taken him only one question to shoot down my whole trip to the phone booth. He asked if I'd had any military experience, and when I said no, he hung up with dispatch.

But the real heat was internal. I had essentially thumbed my nose at Capt. Mike LaPort at Pan American Airways when he had offered me a job as Fourth Officer, despite my MIT engineering education. Mike had suggested sarcastically that maybe I should look for a test-pilot position in the industry. Now I would have to eat a large portion of crow because Republic had just exhausted my list of places where I thought I might get a job as a test pilot. At eight other places I had visited, I had been given the same answer as Joe Parker had given me a few minutes before: they all wanted only military-trained pilots. I had struck out, and I hadn't even been up to bat.

As I sweltered in my seat and the train started to fill with passengers returning to New York City, an older fellow sat down next to me. As I started talking to him, the train moved with a great lurch. I hadn't said much before he interrupted me and asked which side of the train I had sat in coming out from New York. I thought that was a strange question, but as he continued, he said that by sitting on the left side when I came out to Farmingdale, I had missed seeing a very large airplane factory. It was only three miles from Farmingdale to the next station and, almost immediately, we passed a factory and an airport that had hundreds of light blue fighters lined up on the runways, taking off and landing. I got out at that station and found the nearest phone to call the chief test pilot. This time, if the question of military training came up, I had decided to say that I indeed did have "government training" (I had wised up on the "government/military" thing). I was asked the question, and when I said that I had passed all seven courses of the government-sponsored Civilian Pilot Training Program that led up to a commercial, instrument, instructor and multiengine rating, I was told to wait for the crash truck to come out to pick me up for an interview. It is amazing how fast one's emotions can go from dismal to cloud nine.

B.A. "Bud" Gillies, vice president of flight operations, met me and, after asking questions about my background, said that Grumman paid $80 a week straight time for pilots. I multiplied that by four and it came to $200 a month more than I would have earned as Fourth Officer (almost a steward) at Pan Am. He offered me a job. The abrupt change in the aviation community's interest in me, the fantastic salary and the thought of those beautiful Hellcats and Wildcats that I would be flying made me speechless! I just couldn't get the word "Yes" out fast enough. It seemed as though it took me half an hour to simultaneously nod my head, say yes and shake his hand. I started the next day, November 11, 1942Armistice Day.

In the next week, with 423 hours total time, I got checked out in the Grumman Widgeon, Goose, TBF Avenger, F4F Wildcat and one of the experimental Hellcats. I was one very excited (and happy) young pilot. I progressed from production pilot to experimental pilot in one week! I thought it was talent, but I found out several weeks later that they needed a young fellow to do a lot of high-altitude test flying in the Hellcat because the next youngest pilot was 11 years older than me, and none of the other pilots were enthusiastic about high-altitude flying. Bud Gillies also thought that Grumman should have experimental test pilots attached to engineering instead of to the production test-pilot group. I learned later that this was a Grumman first for the industry. My engineering training from then on was not formal, but it was intense and most provocative.

Let me introduce you to two characters of my OJT cast: Bud Gillies became a Navy pilot after he graduated from MIT in 1927. His active duty was with the Fighting Five on the Lexington. Following that, he was a test pilot and engineer with the Loening Aircraft Corp. for four years. In 1932, he joined Grumman and became a vice president of flight operations and a director. He did the first flights on the twin-engine Skyrocket fighter, the Widgeon, the Duck and many others. Bob Hall, after graduating from Michigan in 1928 as an aeronautical engineer, decided that he needed to learn to fly. He had been told by Fairchild's chief test pilot to "stuff it" when Bob tried to tell him how to do a flight test. With less than 75 hours of total flight time, Bob designed and flight-tested Gee Bee racers. He then flew for Stinson as an experimental test pilot. He came to Grumman in 1936 and did the experimental flight-testing on the F3F, Wildcat, XP-50, Grumman Goose, Hellcat, Tigercat and Bearcat.