Riding Rockets

The ’38 served two functions: transportation to various meetings and proficiency training. NASA’s simulators were great at preparing astronauts to fly the space shuttle, but they had one critical shortcoming. They lacked a fear factor. No matter how badly you screwed up, simulators couldn’t kill you. But high-performance jet aircraft could. Flying the T-38s kept the pilots razor sharp in dealing with potentially deadly time-critical situations, something spaceflight had in abundance.

Before being cleared to fly the ’38 we first had to complete water-survival training at Eglin AFB in the panhandle of Florida. We parasailed to several hundred feet altitude and then were released from the towboat to float into the water in a simulation of an aircraft ejection. Once in the water we had to release the parachute, climb into a one-man raft, signal a helicopter, then don a harness to be winched aboard in a simulated rescue. We were also towed behind fast-moving boats in a simulation of landing in a gale. We were dumped into the water and covered with the canopy of a parachute and taught how to escape before the nylon sank and became an anchor to pull us to our deaths. For the military flyers this training was a review. We had all been through it several times in our careers. But it was a first for the civilians. I carefully watched them, wondering if any would balk at some of the scarier training or need remedial instruction. In particular I watched the women for displays of fear or for a cry for help during the more physically demanding activities. But they performed as well as me or any of the other vets. I began to reassess my feeling of superiority over the post-docs and women. It would take several more years for the full transition of respect to occur, but this was my start.

The biggest surprise of our introduction to NASA’s T-38 flight operations was the rules. There were none, or at least there were very few. In military flight operations, every phase, from engine start to engine shutdown, was usually part of a training program and closely monitored by superior officers. The ready rooms of military squadrons had credenzas filled with volumes of rules and regulations for operating the aircraft. NASA management, on the other hand, had the misguided belief that astronauts were professionals and didn’t need big brother watching or a thick manual of rules to safely operate one of their jets. Sure…and a teenager being handed the keys to a 160-mile-per-hour Ferrari doesn’t need any rules or supervision either.

We were the teenagers, and the skies over the nearby Gulf of Mexico were our back roads. After a radar-controlled exit from the Houston airspace, we would make that glorious call to Air Traffic Control (ATC), “Houston Center, NASA 904. Please cancel my IFR.” Translation: “Houston, I’m off to play. Don’t bother me. I’ll call when I’m done.”

On many occasions a cooperative TFNG pilot would say, “You’ve got it, Mike,” and I would take control of the aircraft. (Since the ’38 was designed as a trainer it had a full set of controls in the backseat.) When there were thunderstorms in the area I would send the plane twisting among their cauliflowered blossoms like a skier darting through the gates of a downhill slalom. Wisps of vapor would pass inches from the canopy, enhancing the sensation of speed. If there is orgasm outside of sex, this was it—speed and the unbound freedom of the sky.

We would flat-hat across the water, passing alongside container ships and super-tankers. That a seabird might come crashing through the windscreen like a cannon shot and kill us was a fear…but not much of one. We were intoxicated on velocity.

For thrills it didn’t get much better than being in Fred Gregory’s backseat. Fred, a USAF helicopter pilot, was one of the three African-American TFNGs. Apparently helicopter pilots believed they would get nosebleeds if they ever flew above a few feet altitude, or at least I got that impression from flying with Fred. We would depart Houston’s Ellington Field and fly ATC control to the Amarillo City airfield in the panhandle of Texas. There we would refuel and then fly VFR (under our own control) at butt cheek–tightening low altitude to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We would pass over the tops of windmills with just yards of clearance. The only thing that protected us from running into buzzards and hawks was that they had sense enough to cruise at higher altitudes. We streaked across the tips of 13,000-foot mountains and dove into canyons. The 600-foot-deep Rio Grande River Gorge in northern New Mexico was a favorite. I would lookup to see the rim of that canyon. As power lines appeared, Fred would hop the jet across them and dive back on the other side. In what is truly a remarkable irony, many years later Fred was appointed NASA’s associate administrator for safety. I guess we all eventually grow brains.