FLYING STORIES

By Captain Marvin Arnold
Confessions of an Aircraft Engineer and Pilot.
The Story of One Man's Pursuit of the Aviation Adventure.

THE BOOK - Begins with the telling of many of my boyhood experiences and what it was like growing up during World War II. A brief look at the external forces that work on each of us to cause us to become what we become. In my case, it was an engineer and a pilot. Hopefully, to also give the reader an insight into the American aerospace industry's coming of age and to share some of my funny and not so funny flying experiences.

PART I. GROWING UP

In writing this book, I resisted the temptation to do a lot of basic research for two reasons. First of all, I did not want to burden the non-technical reader with too much techno-babble. Secondly, because I wanted to write it the way I remembered it, even if it would not be recorded for posterity exactly the way it really happened.
Chapter 1 . . . SHOUDA BEEN A COWBOY
Chapter 2 . . . THE WOOD CITY KID
Chapter 3 . . . MECHANICAL WONDERS
Chapter 4 . . . TRIMOTORS TO UFOs
Chapter 5 . . . SOMEWHERE WEST OF EDEN

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01-02-03 WWII dance at the airbase; LL General Hap Arnold; Flight instructor, Lt. R.J. at Enid AAC flight school; PFC Harold; Top Sergeant Roy; Corps of Engineers Sergeant Raymond, POW and highly decorated. Taken from Beech Log, factory open house after V-J Day; Earl in radio test lab; Beechcraft BT-10 bomber trainer; Boeing B-29 beside Stearman trainer in Wichita; LL Boeing XB-19; Douglas XB-15.

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04-05 Fairchild aircraft, Earl assigned as AF liaison after WW II; B-36 beside B-29, this picture on my dad's office for many years; Earl with Vandalia flight test pilots; Earl with WPAFB intelligence officer; Earl and Air Force Material Command staff. P-80 Shooting Star aircraft parked at entrance gate to Wood City; Captured German aircraft, jet flying wing just out of view on right is same type that Werner von Braun sister was killed in during flight test; View from my bedroom window, German and Jap fighters flank a V-1 rocket.

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09-10 Ford Trimotor, first airplane flight, Sandusky, Ohio. Explorer Scout Sesquicentennial Air Encampment at Clinton County AFB, second airplane ride in C-46; LR Guard duty at Cox Municipal Dayton International Air show, 1953.

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11-12 Overlooking Huffman Dam and Wright Memorial, picture on right and on left were taken forty-five years apart; Mock-up of Wright Pusher and recent picture of Wright Memorial. These three aircraft were milestones in aviation, Earl was avionics procurement chief on all of them; Top P-61 Black Widow night fighter designed to not reflect searchlight beams and used airborne intercept radar, precursor to modern jet aircraft fighter intercepts; LL Boeing B-47, jet bombers to replace prop driven bombers; F-90 fighter airframe design was ahead of engine designers capability. Sleek, but not supersonic, was made famous in the Blackhawk comic books.

PART II . . . PRIVATE AVIATION:

 The survivors write the history books anyway, don’t they? In the play, "Dancing at Lughnasa", the narrator says as he begins to tell the Irish tale, "Of course my memories have no reality in fact," and thus, neither do mine. Things our really only the way we remember them.
Chapter 6 . . . LEARNING TO FLY
Chapter 7 . . . AERO CLUBS AND AIRPORTS
Chapter 8 . . . PURSUIT OF RATINGS
Chapter 9 . . . FAY OUR FRENDLY SKY
Chapter 10 . . . FURTHER AND FASTER

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14-15 Taylorcraft BC-12 at Max Westheimer belonging to OU Flying Club; CAR and books to study for private lessons; Top overhaul on Luscombe Silvair, my first airplane. Flight Deck restaurant menu, located upstairs at Southwest Airmotive on Love Field; Hensley Field Aero Club Beech T-34; Grand Prairie squadron CAP Aeronca 7AC Champion.

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16-17 Bonanza used for instrument rating and flight test; Link Blue Box trainer, WW II version of flight simulator; Beech Twin Baron used for multi-engine rating. Seaplane base at Winter Haven, Florida; Seaplane rating in Piper Cub floatplane; Flying over Chain of Lakes in Central Florida.

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18-19 U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, one of best military air collections in world. Started in a bone yard at Wood City in 1940s and grew into this must see airplane buff tourist attraction. With aircraft like the Valkytie parked out front. Bobby and Judy and family in front of one of Bob's favorite airplanes, the Swift 125. Bobby later purchased and fully restored a used Cessna 172 Skyhawk to beautiful condition. The 1966 Cessna G model was based at Ennis Airport for years.

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21-22 The trusty Cessna 310 Twin and trips to Albuquerque Balloon Festival and Las Vegas, Nevada. Cut away view of SNB, Texas T-6 military trainer. Many of these trainers made their way into civilian hands in late 1960s.

PART III. MILITARY AVIATION:

 Most of the stories in this book are true to the best of my recollection. Only some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty and those who are possibly still alive. There is one thing that might be a little different about the chronology of this book, it is not really a biography in that it is by aviation subject first, military aviation, commercial aviation, etc., and then chronologically within that subject area.
Chapter 11. . . NAVAL AVIATION AN OXYMORON
Chapter 12. . . THEY FLY ON SUNDAYS
Chapter 13. . . ASW PATROL SQUADRON
Chapter 14. . . NINETY MILES OFF THE COAST

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23-24 Naval Reserve flight line where SNB and SNJ aircraft were made available for Korean era pilots to stay current on flight time; Corsair squadron from NAS on flight training; PY-2 four-engine support aircraft; Loading wing machine guns on Corsair. Ocean-going sailors DD653 escorting light cruiser off Norfolk; ROTC drill at OU; AF ROTC cadet uniform.

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25-26 NAS Brunswick P-2Vs in snow; First helicopter ride; View from P-2V nose bubble and right wing with searchlight in wingtip tank. View from pilot's seat coming in on surface target; P-2V instrument panel; View looking aft through observation bubble towards rear of old model P-2V with gun turret still installed; View through cockpit windshield diving on rocket target in Falon, Nevada, note circle target in upper right-hand of photo; P-2V squadron of old models, prior to 5F series; 1959 NAS Alameda; One of last Navy blimp squadrons; Crew on ground in Albuquerque awaiting refueling; Survival training with May West and typical flight gear.

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27-28 Flight line at NAS Dallas with North American fighters used by reserved squadron; Blimp cross-country; Navy Cougar soon to be retired; Chief AP (airplane pilot) last chief pilot retired in early 70s; Navy AD with long range fuel tank and searchlight installed. My flight crew on P-2V flight deck, Commander Kovak far right, note crash helmet sitting on Nav table; Main hangar at NAS Dallas; My flight crew on ground.

PART V. COMMERCIAL AVIATION:

 After World War II was over, who wanted pilots anyway? Pilots were a dime a dozen, a hundred thousand young men had learned to fly. Some did not come home, but many did. About that time, there were some kids born in the mid 1930s that came of age in the 1950s. They were born too late to be part of the era of dirigibles and barnstormers. They were too young to fly the B-17s and P-51s or help design those early post war birds like the P-80 jet airplane and Bell X-1 rocket plane.
Chapter 15. . . DALLAS LOVE FIELD
Chapter 16. . . FLIGHT DYNAMICS
Chapter 17. . . AIRCRAFT DEALERSHIP
Chapter 18. . . GREATER SOUTHWEST AVIATION
Chapter 19. . . REQUIEM TO GENERAL AVIATION

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32-33-34 My brother Don enlisted in Navy and opted not to have anything to do with aircrew, he became some type of computer wizard for flight training; Rare photo of Douglas C-67 Dragon, the bomber version of C-47; F-111 retired to pedestal at Clovis AFB; Twenty years ago, Lear said of his aircraft design that when they want to advertise a car as modern, they photograph it in front of my twenty year old jets; Suzie found an old Chance Vought jet for which she typed many of the tech manuals and E-letters. Old skyline of Dallas; Love Field when it used to be serviced by prop driven aircraft in the 50s and 60s. Aircraft on Mustang Aviation ramp on Love Field; Capital Aviation offices at Love Field;

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36-35 New Cardinal aircraft; Our Cessna 182 demonstrator at GenAero in San Antonio; Dinner at the Hemisfair space needle. Cessna 172 demonstrator. Discover Flying 150 being taxied up on grass at Runaway Bay Lodge; Colorful paint job of Discover Flying Cessna 150 Aerobat. . .
20-37 When it gets cold in Dallas, jump in trusty Bellanca and head for beaches of Florida; "I'll Follow You Anywhere" cartoon; Nancy at beach; Suzie in front of seaplane port, house in background belonged to author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull; Antique aircraft fly-in at Denton Airport sponsored by Aerosmith and the Piper dealer.

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38-39 Signs around Greater Southwest Airport of Flight Dynamics and Mid-Cities Aviation; View of terminal and aircraft parking ramps. One of many Cessna 150s purchased new and used to solo many new pilots; AJ in front of her favorite Piper Cherokee 180; Ramp transportation; One of the few airplane accidents we ever experienced, a Cessna 150 turnover during a forced landing; Brand new Cessna 210 fully IFR equipped.

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40-41 Confederate Air Force Colonel, B-17 Piccadilly Lil used in movie War Lovers, got to fly her one time; Covol and his never-ending B-25 work project; Photograph of B-17 which hung over my office desk; old style CAF Colonel uniform; Convair with Buckwheat painted on tail. SNJ T-6; Warner-Lambert converted DC-3 N37F; Three Threes: 37F interior and airstair.

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42-43 Mid-Cities fuel ramp looking south towards old American Airlines repair center at GSW. Aircraft sales from 8629 Lemmon Avenue, high dollar and low dollar aircraft for sale; Aero Commander in lower right is last airplane brokered.

PART VI. AIRCRAFT ENGINEERING:

 This in-between generation entered the work force while the baby boomers were still in grade school, but they were the ones who picked up where the aviation pioneers left off and established the United States as the unchallenged world leader in the aviation industry.
Chapter 20. . . ENGINEERS DO WHAT
Chapter 21. . . HAVE BRIEFCASE WILL TRAVEL
Chapter 22. . . AEROSPATIALE FACTORY
Chapter 23. . . AVIONICS TO COMPUTERS

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29-30 Artist's drawing of one of LTV C-142 VTOL cargo transport; Lockheed C-5A worked on in Marietta, GA; Drawings of F-111 AF and Navy versions. 1963 Lincoln suicide door Continental and palm tree lined Florida Coast Boulevard; Press releases for C-142 and F-111.

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45 Aerospatiale Puma, one of three custom built for president of Mexico; Instrument panel with first color weather radar ever to be installed in helicopter; Insignia on side is of Kukulcan the serpent god. Pictures in and around the development hangar at Aerospatiale and avionics flight-test offices; Instrument panel is a dummy mockup of new Dolphin cockpit.

PART VI. VIGNETTES:

 This is the story of one of those kids who was too young to go to the last big war, but grew up in the midst of it. One of those faceless thousands of young engineers who helped make air travel safer than riding on a bus and made it possible to put the first man on the moon. This is a story about the 1960s and 70s, the golden age of civil aviation, and the forgotten aircraft engineers and pilots of that era.
Chapter 24. . . FLIGHT TO AFRICA
Chapter 25. . . THE EPALOG

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47-56 Howard Hughes giant HK-1 flying boat affectionately the Spruce Goose; photos in center are of H-1 when it was stored in Long Beach hangar. 1939 Lincoln Zephyr Sedan that went to Queen Mary ’39 exhibit.

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Bell Textron Osprey Tilt rotor VTOL being assembled in Amarillo; Aerospatiale Astar Life Flight; Buffalo Flying Club Bonanza, 46S which this author presently flies.

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55-58 Space shuttle Enterprise; Socorro radio observatory in New Mexico; UFO Museum in Roswell; telescope used to discover Pluto at Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff; visit to largest radio antennae at Arecibo, Porto Rico. CAF AIRCRAFT & ISKRA TS-11; B-17 Sentimental Journey, Veterans Day at Albuquerque; Bobby, Andy and Susie CAF Air Show static displays.

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59-60 DAVIS-MONTHAN AFB - BONE YARD Cessna T-37 Tweet and C-47 in salvage yard; Davis-Monthan AFB storage facility in Arizona desert near Tucson: TS11 Iskra, Polish trainer converted to private use; Buffalo Flying Club Bonanza flown by author. CAF AIR SHOWS _ MIDLAND TEXAS CAF Tora Tora Tora mock Pearl Harbor attack show at Midland, Texas

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