Ride of the Valkyries

THE YOUNG SAILOR stood at my desk looking pale and distraught. He held in his hand a crumpled telegram from the Red Cross representative in his small hometown of western North Carolina. The telegram, which I had just returned to him, advised him that his father was terminally ill and was in the intensive care unit of the hospital near Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base. His father, the telegram further advised, was not expected to live for more than a few hours, and he had specifically asked for his son's visit.

Editors' note: this is a chapter from Adm. Gillerist's book, "Vulture's Row." It can be ordered from Amazon.com, Schiffer Books and Barnes & Noble.

Could I help? That was the simple request. I thought for a moment and considered the circumstances. It was April 4, 1961. The afternoon was wearing on, and it was raining torrentially. I knew that if I asked the boss, Capt. Bob Elder, director of Flight Test, he would approve. The problem was, it was Friday; if I took the flight (who else would do it on such short notice?), I probably wouldn't return until Saturday morning in the early hours.

We lived across the river from the Patuxent River test center. The picket boats stopped running at 9 p.m. and didn't resume until Saturday morning at 10 a.m. It would mean another one of those Friday afternoon telephone calls that always start with, "Honey, I won't be home tonight ...." I dreaded making those calls and the ensuing string of questions, none of which I was very good at fielding. I also knew that I would take the young man standing before me to see his dying father. Picking up the telephone, I made the two calls.

Bob Elder approved the flight. My wife gracefully acknowledged my impending mission of mercy. She had been caring for three sick children all day, and I knew the telephone call was a hard pill for her to swallow. I sent the sailor in search of a flight suit, helmet, gloves, boots and an oxygen mask. While he was doing that, I jumped into my car and drove to the operations building to get my weather briefing and file a flight plan.

The weather briefing was an unpleasant experience. The meteorologist consulted the bank of Teletype machines behind him. They were busily clicking away, describing a line of thunderstorms 100 miles west of my destination and moving eastward at 20 knots, and accelerating.

"Sir," he announced forebodingly, "If this squall line stays at its present speed and direction, it will hit Seymour-Johnson about forty minutes after your arrival. The terminal forecast in that case will be minimum visibility of one half mile in heavy rain." I grunted disapproval, beginning to dislike the sound of the first shoe dropping.

"However," he added, seeming to draw some pleasure from my pained expression, "If this weather continues to accelerate, the squall line will hit that field at just about the time you arrive. And, Sir, it's going to be the damnedest frog strangler you'll see in a long time. It will be a monster storm with gale-force gusts, and they'll surely shut down the field. You'd better be damned careful about the alternate base you pick, 'cause that's where you'll end up."

The T2V-1 Lockheed Shooting Star would have plenty of fuel when we got to Seymour-Johnson, so I picked my alternate field well out in front of the weather: Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, South Carolina-a good 120 miles east on the Atlantic coast. I was pretty sure that it was a safe bet. On an instrument flight plan, Federal Aviation Agency rules require that a pilot include in his plan the route speed, time, altitude and fuel required to proceed to an alternate field in the event weather precludes his landing at the primary destination.

I did all these things and drove, now hurriedly, back to the Flight Test hangar to meet my passenger. The rain had grown noticeably heavier, and the windshield wipers couldn't keep up. I had to drastically slow down, squinting warily through the streaked glass in fleeting fragments of clarity for the roadway.

The sailor was nervously waiting in the line shack when I sprinted across the parking ramp, getting totally soaked in the process. It was getting prematurely dark from the dense black cloudbank that was dumping on the tidelands like a giant waterfall. I took an extra 15 minutes to show the sailor how to hook his oxygen mask to his helmet and how the parachute and seat restraint buckles worked. I also gave him a few words of advice about the use of oxygen and the phenomena associated with high-altitude flight. Finally, I explained what he should do and what to expect in the event I should tell him to eject. It was a cursory bit of training, to be sure; but I knew we couldn't do the usual routine of leaning over the edge of the cockpit explaining all of this in a downpour. It was absolutely essential that the canopy be open only long enough for us to step in and close the lid.

If too much rain were to enter the cockpit, none of the electronic and electrical equipment would work. I simply hoped that the young man had strapped himself in and hooked up his oxygen and radio equipment the way I had showed him.