Time in Type

The summer of 1982 was full of marked contrasts as I trained for my first space flight. After an intense day of simulator training, I would drive to our local airport and pull the Starduster Too out of the hangar to log an hour of aerobatics. This served two purposes. It helped me to relax from the training, and it acclimatized the old head bone to help to ward off space motion sickness. I always marveled at the irony of climbing out of a simulator of the most complex flying machine invented by man and into the open cockpit of an aircraft without a radio or electrical system.

I had not always wanted to be an astronaut. As a young boy my heart was looking forward only to the cockpits of the beautiful (at least to me) DC-3s and -4s climbing out of Cleveland Hopkins International Airport as they passed 500 feet above our suburban home. The United and Capital Airline emblems were clearly visible to my reverent eyes. An occasional Eastern Air Lines Super Connie would flash by, its curved fuselage clearly distinct from the more tubular Douglas products.

Those graceful airplanes sure looked inviting. Unfortunately, for me flying had to wait until after college. Running out of money and ideas, I settled for a degree in physics from Baldwin-Wallace College. That qualified me to apply for military flight training. But which service?

I talked with the Air Force recruiter, and he said, "Five years obligated service after flight training." The Navy said, "Four years," and the Marine Corps must have been desperate — they said, "Two and some reserve time." What a deal; two successful years and I could be knocking on the doors of United and American and, soon thereafter, piloting those airliners passing over my house.

After a miserable summer at boot camp in Quantico, Virginia, learning left faces (your other left, you idiot!), running up and down hills, and cleaning rifles and latrines, the Marine Corps declared I was an "officer and a gentleman," pinned gold bars on my shoulders, and shipped me off to Pensacola, Florida, the starting point for all aspiring naval aviators. Right there, my resolve to become an airline pilot was tested as I admired the F9F-5 Panthers and SNJ Texans operating near the Pensacola Mainside Bachelor Officers Quarters.

Flight training was a blast. 1958 and '59 passed in a blur of varied airplanes and phases: aerobatics, formation, gunnery — and, yes, those carrier landings, first in the T-28 flying a "paddles" pass directed by the landing signal officer, and then in the F9F-8 using the modern mirror system. And, of course, those terrible "blue boxes" called Link trainers — a better torture chamber has yet to be invented.

In September 1959 I graduated and was given orders to Hawaii. The Marine Corps said that it would pay to move a dependent with me only if I would sign another one-year extension. What a deal. To my surprise, my girlfriend said "yes" to my proposal. So, we enjoyed a free trip to the Hawaiian Islands plus three years of fun-filled flying in the famous Black Sheep squadron (VMA 214).

The perfect flying weather in Hawaii, plus the fantastic availability of the North American FJ4B Fury, allowed flight time to pile up in the logbook. But then from the Marine Corps came another offer that I couldn't refuse. They wanted to send me to graduate school to study for a master's degree in aeronautical engineering. The only catch — you guessed it — three more years of obligated service. But I'd always wanted to complete those engineering studies I'd started before I ran out of money; besides, they wanted me to do it in Monterey, California, the golfer's mecca. (Studying the trajectory of little white balls was my second-favorite activity.) Those airlines would just have to wait a few more years.

My wife, Kit, really loved Monterey and the exquisite golf courses. Me? All I saw were classrooms and wind tunnels. Long hours were spent in solving impossible fluid- flow problems and determining the stability of some interesting airplanes. With diploma in hand, I was determined to go forth and teach fellow pilots how to live at the edge of the envelope, and maybe even make the envelope a bit more understandable. By this time I knew I couldn't be content simply to understand airplanes — I wanted to test them. Test pilot school (TPS) would be my next priority. I had to work seriously on acquiring the minimum flight time needed to qualify for TPS. I hoped that I would go to a high- performance jet squadron. Alas, that was too much to ask of the Marine Corps.

Then my orders came: independent assignment to the 1st Marine Air Wing in Iwakuni, Japan. That looked like a severe blow to my plans for building flight time. Staff duty, not much flying, endless planning for war, hours of watching the guys in the squadron having all the fun. Oh, well, with seven years of great duty behind me, I could endure 13 months of driving a desk.

When I walked into wing headquarters, the officer in charge of placement was puzzled. What could he do with an aeronautical engineer in a combat air wing? He rummaged through his list of open billets and came across an assistant maintenance officer slot in the wing maintenance squadron. "What the hell," he said. "Aeronautical engineering is something like aircraft maintenance. Why don't you go over to Marine Air Maintenance Squadron 17 and help them maintain our airplanes?"

My new CO wasn't ecstatic about having a brand-new aeronautical engineer assigned to his well-oiled, smoothly running maintenance outfit. He already had a great group of "mustangs," warrant officers who were former maintenance chiefs; they had been maintaining aircraft while I was still in high school. He thought a while and then asked if I'd mind becoming his assistant operations officer. Here was a ragtag fleet of assorted airplanes ranging from ancient Beech C-45s to tired Grumman F9F-8T Cougars, all waiting to be flown. Don't throw me into that briar patch. This was my ticket to those qualification hours for test pilot school — the hours were ripe for the picking, and I was determined to make the most of them.

In a few months, thanks to many long C-45 round trips from Iwakuni to Kadena Air Force Base on Okinawa, my logbook reflected the necessary 1,500 hours and I could apply for TPS. In due course I received a set of orders. But wait — these were not to the Naval Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland. They were to Aerospace Research Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The famous Eddy AFB, Muroc Lake, and the prowling grounds of such luminaries as Yeager, Crossfield, Cotton, and Fulton. It would be hog heaven for this fighter jock.

With a happy wave goodbye to my little ragtag airline, I was off to Edwards and the Air Force way of doing business. Study and fly, study and fly; then for a change we'd fly and study. What a great life. Kit also enjoyed Edwards. Imagine being on the golf course while a prototype Harrier makes a routine vertical landing in the rough just off the fairway.

Even while my class was learning the intricate details of testing aircraft and blasting to new heights in F-104s, we were all mesmerized by space. Spaceships were looking like the ultimate pilot experience and would have to be considered, but first I wanted to savor the experience of being the only Marine in the Air Force's TPS. I decided to set a minor personal goal while in the school: to fly all of the operational airplanes of the "Century Series." The F-101, - 102, -104, and -106 should be easy because the school had one copy of each. Wrong. The day I was scheduled to fly the F-101 Voodoo, my good friend and classmate, Tom Smith, had to make an emergency landing on the lake bed when a main gear drag link failed on takeoff. The resulting cracked wing spar grounded the bird too long for me to fly it. Tom and I had swapped scheduled flights that day. Otherwise, I'd have had my first flight in the 101 and my first aircraft accident all in the same day.

The school had no F-100s, and I had to sell my test pilot soul to fly one from Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. I agreed to be wired up and wrung out in a series of aerobatic and zero-G maneuvers while my vital signs were transmitted to the ground. Shades of Deke Slayton: during zero-G put together a string of bad heartbeats that the docs didn't understand and I could kiss my whole flying career goodbye. I never thought of that in my quest to fly the 100.

After a glorious year, I was wondering what I could do to top it, when orders came to go to the space program — not NASA, but the Department of Defense Manned Orbiting Laboratory. Space is space, however, and the ride is the thing. I didn't particularly care whether NASA or USAF was painted on the booster. Just getting there would be enough. Disaster struck when the program was canceled on June 10, 1969, but fate intervened again as the manned orbiting laboratory crewmembers were invited to NASA in Houston to interview with Slayton. For seven of us, it was our lucky day. We became NASA astronauts. We were last in a long line, with constant fear of being canceled — as first Apollo 20, then 19, and finally 18 were scrubbed, along with half of the Skylab flights. But the shuttle was on the horizon, and that really had my attention.

I was also interested in general aviation airplanes, as well as the jets, but my first civilian experience wasn't too pleasant. Early in 1960 my wife and I planned to do some Hawaiian island-hopping, so I decided to check out in a Piper Tri-Pacer at Honolulu International Airport. My instructor was a real gem. He made me fly the old Tri-Pacer over to Dillingham Field on the windward side of Oahu to shoot landings. It didn't seem to bother him that the windsock was indicating a 30-knot direct crosswind. He appeared to relish my discomfort and kept muttering something about "hot jet jocks" who didn't even know there were things called rudders. I vowed to be a more understanding instructor when I earned my CFI a few years later.

My wife and I survived the rocky introduction to lightplanes and went on to enjoy soaring and aerobatic flying. We currently experience the joys of aircraft ownership, with a Mooney 201 for traveling and a Starduster Too biplane for fun. Along the way, the family got into the act. My wife earned her private pilot certificate. My oldest daughter has her commercial certificate with instrument and multiengine ratings, and my son has the same collection. Both started in the family Cessna 150 that we reluctantly sold a few years ago when owning three airplanes became too great a burden.

Only my middle daughter turned down flying. She has been too busy hurling her beautiful (fathers are allowed to brag a little) tanned body off a 10-meter platform in a quest for her Olympic diving dream. She enjoys riding through the rolls and loops of aerobatics; she compares it to the flips and twists of diving.

This is the experience base that I bring to these pages. Some 9,000-plus hours and two space flights have given me a wealth of ideas and experiences that I would like to share. Also, we will explore some modern gadgets such as GPS. For a guy who started with the old "coffee grinder" radios that got you somewhere in the vicinity of a fix, the precision of GPS is almost mind-boggling, even compared to the inertial navigation systems of the space shuttle, which I ended up flying twice.

I'm looking forward to a long relationship, and I hope that you're aboard for the duration.

As a space shuttle astronaut and former Marine Corps test pilot, Bob Overmyer brings a wealth of experience to his new column, "Time in Type." Overmyer's flight qualifications are not limited to aircraft with Mach meters, though. He owns and regularly flies a Mooney 201 and a Starduster Too biplane. You won't find a more enthusiastic general aviation pilot, as you'll discover in the months to come — Ed.