Solo by Clyde Edgerton Read Free Book Online Page A

the T-41 instrument panel. The T-37 had dual engines; each monitoring instrument had a twin, one reason the panel looked busy.
    We attended classroom lectures on the T-37 systems—electrical, hydraulic, air-conditioning and defrosting—on the principles of turbojet propulsion, and on weather, navigation, and other topics. Normally a sergeant lectured using slides of graphs, tables, and charts. Occasionally a lecturer stomped his foot. That meant that what he’d just said would be on the test. Some instructors were just instructors; others were “foot stompers.” This was true throughout pilot training.
    On the day we were to first fly the real T-37, we were seated around tables, four student pilots per table, in a room with maps on the wall. Our instructors came in; we stood at attention, saluted as our instructor approached. My instructor was a beefy captain who seemed relaxed and carefree (though I was to learn otherwise): Captain Coleman. When he sat in a chair, he leaned it back on two legs. His presence was big. He’d look at you, say something, smile slightly, and raise an eyebrow.
    He informed us that each student would normally fly every other day, sometimes every third day, but that I’d be flying every day for several weeks—with another instructor, a Captain Dunning. My initial flying would be accelerated; then I’d be sent back to Captain Coleman. No one mentioned that this was because I’d finished T-41s at the top of my section. (I thought about Kevin Boyd, who’d finished at the top of the other squadron. Before pilot traininghe’d been a crop duster. His flying abilities were already legendary. He’d had hours of crop dusting and I’d had Mr. Vaughn. Would I be able to keep up with him—to stay at the top?)
    We soon learned that the classic Air Force instructor pilot, or IP, expected us to know our stuff, to be overprepared, and he would
not
patiently guide us through procedures. He wanted to scare us with his strict demeanor. This was serious business. That’s how he had learned. That’s how he would teach.
    But not so with my new instructor, Captain Dunning, the one who’d have only me as his student. First, he was a bit older that the others. He’d quit the Air Force for ten years—I never knew why—and then reenlisted. At his age he should have been a major or a lieutenant colonel. He was a faithful churchgoer, a Southern Baptist, soft spoken, a bit droopy eyed, and almost constantly smiling. He was an excellent instructor, very patient. He was a Mr. Rogers among Rockys.
    Before our first flight, as just the two of us sat facing each other across a table, he explained that we’d be flying together every day, and then he gave a flight briefing, an overview of our first flight. He called the T-37 the Tweet, short for its affectionate name, Tweety Bird, a consequence of its small size and the high-pitched sound of its engines.
    Before leaving for the equipment room, where we’d pick up our helmets and parachutes, he asked me to recite several emergency procedures that we all had tomemorize: the correct procedures for responding to an engine failure on takeoff or an engine fire in flight, for example.
    And then he did an odd thing. He invited me to his home for supper that evening. I said yes, of course, and then we walked out to the flight line and around our aircraft.
    I was wearing boots. Finally.
    Captain Dunning talked me through my first preflight inspection, encouraging me to ask questions. I looked down into a cockpit wide enough to seat two pilots comfortably side by side. The wings, large and
not
swept back, would make the airplane easier to fly, more stable than many jets.
    Once we were in the cockpit—I in the left seat, he in the right—he said, “Okay now, I’m going to talk you through the starting procedure.” I glanced at him. This man was like neither Mr. Vaughn nor Mr. Washburn: he smiled.
    The simulator training had been helpful. Though the instrument panel seemed