Chapter 64

Ben came in and kicked us out of his office. He sent us back to the rebuild room where the SNJ reposed in naked splendor. Looking at it let me know how simple an aircraft could be ... especially after delving into the complications of an AD-2.

I have been sitting in both front and rear cockpits for hours at a time touching switches and buttons, levers and handles, naming their names and what they do, with the Restricted manual in the map holder as a guide and I still haven't even started the engine or unfolded the wings.

Hydraulic emergency by-pass valve control, oxygen filter valve, emergency hydraulic pump switch, hydraulic system pressure gauge, high intensity floodlight switch, arm rest ... I used that a lot ... fuel selector panel, canopy jettison switch, centerline bomb rack lock, center wing bomb release, canopy control release plunger, outboard wing bomb release, canopy control, canopy jettison test switch switch, gyro control switch, wing flap control, canopy jettison test light, throttle control and microphone switch, oil cooler door control, carburetor air switch, master exterior light switch, throttle static grip, supercharger control, landing gear safety control lock, landing gear control release plunger, landing gear control, oxygen regulator panel, propeller control, engine controls friction lock, mixture control, cowl flap control switch, dive brake control, piss tube, dive brake solenoid safety release, trim tab controls, aileron power boost release, anti-G receptacle, horizontal stabilizer control, oxygen hose, tailwheel lock control, fuel boost pump switch, fuel tank selector and the automatic pilot emergency release.

All of those controls, levers, switches, knobs, buttons and plugins are in a space as long as my arm from elbow to wrist, about eighteen inches high and I have to be able to grab, turn, lift, push or plug the right one in the DARK!! WITHOUT LOOKING! and that's only the left side console.

There are as many on the right side and the important ones are in my face! I'll never get it right. What ever happened to kick the tires, light the fires and buckle up?

The Chief says he's located a simulator for only two hundred thousand dollars but it's broke and ... evidently ... the Navy can't fix it or they'd keep it.

I know I have no common sense but am I really that dumb?

The SNJ fuselage was completely rewired and up to date instruments as required by the CAA in 1956. The skin was off where it was supposed to come off and I noticed several newly installed pipes.

Harold, Ben's son, showed me every removed pipe. The inside was rusty as hell.

"They hadn't dipped these pipes before they welded. They didn't miss them all, just a few, but they weren't protected against corrosion.

"The plumbing aft was terrible ... a few more hours of in the air vibration and your whole tail would have you going one way the the tail feathers going another. You would have hit first.

"What had you been doing with this?"

"Crop dusting over Lake Michigan," Grace said.

"Crop Dusting?"

"How do crop-dusters dust?"

"They fly the length of a field really low spray until they hit the end of the field. Pull up really hard and make an abrupt turn, dive, turn on the sprayer at the edge of the field and do it from dark thirty to dark thirty. Puts a hell of a strain on an aircraft."

"We were flying the length of the Lake over the south Chippewa Basin on a line dead east of Milwaukee to the Michigan shore. We covered the south part of the Lake from Gary, Indiana to the Milwaukee line. Fly the Gary line north at a hundred feet of altitude."

"Or less," I said.

"Thank you, David," she qualified that, "Or less. Pull up and head back about a hundred feet east or west of the last line and do it over and over."

"Thirteen hundred hours," I said.

"All summer long. Dark thirty to dark thirty and then we did it east to west and west to east."

"Every hundred hours, we'd land at Meigs and the Navy would take the old motor off and bolt a new one on. They did it so we wouldn't lose time."

Harold's jaw was dragging, "Doing what?"