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Pax River Profiles is a special supplement to The Enterprise

Christy Bailey, acting publisher / Al Dailey, associate publisherWritten by Rick Thompson / Edited by Megan Johnson

Cover design by Brandon Youngwww.somdnews.com

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Capt. Albert K. Earnest as commanding officer, NAS Oceana, Va.

Albert K. EarnestBy RICK THOMPSONSpecial to Pax River Profiles

The U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, thencalled the Test Pilot TrainingDivision of theNaval Air Test Center, was established inApril 1948, and convened its first class onJuly 6 of that year.

There were, of course, test pilots beforethat. One of those was Albert Kyle Earnest,who served with the Tactical Test Divisionfrom August 1944 to April 1947, and thenreturned to NAS Patuxent River from Sep-tember 1958 to July 1960.

During his tour at Pax River, the manytest divisions— tactical, flight, radio, arma-ment, service, electronics, etc.—were con-solidated into one entity, the Naval Air TestCenter, on June 16, 1945. Forty-seven yearslater, on Jan. 1, 1992, NATC would becomethe Flight Test and Engineering Groupwiththe formal establishment of the Naval AirWarfare Center Aircraft Division (NAW-CAD).

Earnest was one of hundreds of combat-experienced pilots who came to Pax River.Because of that experience, they were well-

suited to evaluate the combat-worthinessof aircraft and equipment. Not only didthey fly new American planes, they testedcaptured enemy aircraft, passing on theirvulnerabilities and flight weaknesses topilots in the fleet.

Albert K. Earnest was born April 1, 1917in Richmond, Va., the son of James Giffordand JessieMullanEarnest.Graduating fromthe Virginia Military Academy in 1938, hewas commissioned as a second lieutenantin the ArmyReserve. He resigned that com-mission in February 1942 so he could becommissioned aNavy ensign.

After winning his wings in November1941 at NAS Opa-Locka (decommissionedin 1946 and now Opa-Locka Executive Air-port), his first fleet assignment was withTorpedoBomberSquadron8 (VT-8)aboardtheUSSHornet. “I wasn’t particularly over-joyed,” Earnest wrote later. “At Opa Lockawe’d flown fighters and dive bombers buttorpedo planes weren’t evenmentioned.”

He continued, “I knew, of course, whattorpedo planes were supposed to do —

See Earnest, Page 6

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penetrate the screen and drop a torpedo, low andslow, at an enemy vessel — but it didn’t seem like arecipe for a long life.

“Nevertheless, those were my orders.”He was on leave when the Japanese attacked

Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, and reported to his newassignment thenext day. Just under sixmonths later,Torpedo 8 would be famously wiped out during itsattack without fighter escort on the Japanese fleetduring the Battle of Midway. Only one pilot, GeorgeGay, survived.

While a member of Torpedo 8, Earnest wasn’twith them that day — but he still participated in thebattle.

“We [a detachment of Torpedo 8] were supposedto bring out the new TBF Avengers from Norfolk andjoin the squadron,” said Earnest in a 1999 interview.“As it turned out, we got to Pearl Harbor the dayafter the Hornet sailed for Midway, so they decidedto send the first six TBFs they could get ready up toMidway to back up the forces already there.”

The rest of Torpedo on the Hornet was still flyingthe now-obsolete TBD Devastator. “For its time itwas a pretty good airplane,” said Earnest, “but it wasvery slow, and carrying a torpedo just made it thatmuch slower. It didn’t have the protection we hadin the TBF. The TBF was a far superior airplane, butwe didn’t get it in time.” The lumbering Devastatorswere easy pickings for the nimble Japanese Zerofighters.

When the six TBFs arrived at Midway, they addedto the potpourri of different aircraft on the field. “Itwas full of B-17s, PBYs, four B-26 bombers that hadtorpedoes slung underneath them, some BrewsterBuffaloes which weren’t worth a damn at altitude,some obsolete SB2U Vindicator dive bombers, a fewSBD Dauntlesses, and eight F4F Wildcats.”

Then came the waiting. Pilots would sit in theirplanes after they were warmed, periodically restart-ing them to keep them warm. “Then someone cameover, jumped on the wing and told me 320 degrees,150 miles. Right about that time everything was tak-ing off.”

At this point in his career, Earnest had only 400hours in the air. Until the flight of the six TBFs fromPearl Harbor to Midway, he had never flown out ofsight of land.

After about an hour in the air, they found “whatlooked like a transport. A few seconds later I couldsee the whole Jap fleet,” said Earnest. “We weregoing to split into two groups of three and comefrom opposite sides and so I nosed down to start arun-in on the carriers.”

The Avengers were about 200 feet above theocean, flying slow, when the Japanese combat airpatrol’s Zeros pounced. The Zero’s top speed of 410mph far exceeded what the Avenger could do evenwithout a torpedo (276 mph).

“They were all over us. We had a power turretin the TBF, but pretty soon the gunner [Manning]stopped firing. I didn’t know it but he was dead,”Earnest said. “My tunnel gunner [Ferrier] got hit inthe forehead, but it just knocked him out. He lived.”

The Avenger was hammered by bullets fromanother Zero, and this time they severed the elevatorcontrol cables. With one crewman dead and another

unconscious, Earnest was effectively alone in thecockpit, trying to control a 10,000-pound aircraftwith no elevator controls and failing hydraulics. Hehad also been hit in the neck and was bleeding fromthat wound.

“I figured I was going in the water, but I had thetrim well enough that it was nose down just a little,”said Earnest. “There was a destroyer aport, so Ikicked it around with the ailerons and rudder, triedto take a lead on him and let the torpedo go.”

By now he was nearing the surface and losingaltitude, but the shot-up TBF had a surprise for him.“Just as I was about to hit the water, my left hand— for no reason that I know, because I didn’t tell itto — hit the elevator tab which is used for landing,”he related. “When I did that, the airplane jumpedup in the air, and I realized that I could fly with anelevator tab.”

Earnest’s was the only Avenger to return to Mid-way, but it wasn’t easy. “My compass was gone, butsince the sun was in the east I decided I’d fly until Ifigured I was opposite Midway and then turn.” Ear-nest also got a good surprise when Ferrier regainedconsciousness.

Finally, it was time to turn. “I could see a verybig plume of smoke, so I figured that was probablyMidway.”

It was, but Earnest still wasn’t home free. Whenhe came in to land, only one wheel of the landinggear would lower. “The guy at the end of the runwaygave me a wave-off, so I went up and tried to shakeit down,” Earnest stated. “It wouldn’t come down.”Another try, another wave-off, then another try atshaking the wheel loose; it stayed stuck.

The whole time, he continued, “They were calling

EarnestContinued from Page 4

Ground crewmen surround Earnest’s heavily damaged TBF Avenger after the attack.

See Earnest, page 8

Albert K.Earneston leavein 1943.

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me on the radio, which didn’t work,telling me to bail out. I wasn’t goingto do that anyway, because I had onewounded man besides myself andprobably a deadman onboard.”

Earnest decided on the thirdapproach that this was it. The Avenger“landed rightnicely,went ondown therunway and eventually lost lift on theright wing where there was no wheeland spun itself around,” he said. “Itparked itself right off the edge of therunway. It turned out they didn’t wantthe runwayblocked and I didn’t blamethem.”

After landing, “I wanted to goaround and look at my turret gunner,but a very bigMarine grabbedme andsaid, ‘No, you don’t want to see that.’”

Earnest and Ferrier were the onlysurvivors of the Torpedo 8 detach-ment’s attack fromMidway.

The turningpointof thebattle camelater that day, when dive bombersfromEnterprise and Yorktownwent inunopposed at 10:20 a.m. The Japanesefighters were scattered at low altitudesafter battling torpedo bombers andArmy Air Force B-17s and B-26s.

In addition to thePurpleHeart, Ear-nest received two Navy Crosses for hisactions on June 4: one for the attackand the other for bringing the shot-up Avenger home for evaluation. Hewouldearnanother, alongwith twoAirMedals, before the war ended.

Earnest continued serving with areconstituted VT-8, this time on theUSS Saratoga, during the landings onGuadalcanal and theBattle of theEast-ern Solomons. After the Saratoga wasstruck by a torpedo, he flew numer-ousmissions fromHendersonFieldonGuadalcanal. When VT-8 was decom-missioned, he was transferred to FleetComposite Squadron 7 on the USSManila Bay.

Then came his first arrival at PaxRiver in August 1944, were he wasassigned to the Tactical Test Division.As part of Air Development Squad-ron Four (VX-4), he was the first U.S.pilot tofly the “Kate” Japanese torpedobomber.

He was commissioned as Navy JetPilot No. 62, flying the XP-59A Aira-comet. He would also fly the P-80Shooting Star and the FR-1 Fireball, acarrier-based plane that combined jetpower with a conventional propeller.He would be part of other projects,among them the evaluation of a cap-


See Earnest, page 10

The XP-39 Airacomet, the jet that many Navy pilots, includingAlbert Earnest, flew to attain their jet pilot qualifications.

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tured German Messerschmitt ME-262jet fighter.

During his career, Earnest attend-ed the Naval Postgraduate School inAnnapolis (since relocated to Mon-terey,Calif.);General LineSchool (nowSurface Warfare Officers School) inNewport, R.I.; and the Industrial Col-lege of the Armed Forces (renamedin 2013 as the Dwight D. Eisenhow-er School for National Security andResource Strategy).

He was commanding officer ofStrike Fighter Squadron Fourteen (VA-14A) and Air Task Group 181 (ATG-181) at NAS Oceana, Va. When Ear-nest returned to Pax River in 1958,he was again assigned to Flight Test,staying there until July 1960. That wasfollowed by two tours at the AttackDesign Branch at the Bureau of Aero-nautics (which was combined withthe Bureau of Ordnance in Decemberto become the Bureau of Weapons,which in turn becameNAVAIR inMay1966).

Earnest commanded USS Estes,an amphibious force command ship,fromOct. 19, 1965 to Oct. 7, 1966, dur-ing the ship’s service off the coast ofVietnam. A month later, he became

commanding officer of NAS Oceana,serving two years in that post untilNovember 1968.

Earnest rounded out his navalcareer serving in Paris, France asRepresentative in Europe to theCommander, Striking Fleet Atlantic;and Representative in Europe of theSupreme Allied Commander, Atlanticbefore retiring as Assistant Chief ofStaff (Logistics) to the Supreme AlliedCommander Atlantic, in 1972.

After his retirement, Earnest wasexecutive secretary to the operationaltest and evaluation group of amedicaldevice company, before become a realestate salesman and broker. He wasa member of the Association of NavalAviation, Early and Pioneer Naval Avi-ator’sAssociation“GoldenEagles” andTailhook Association, Virginia BeachSports Club, and the Princess AnneHunt Club. He was inducted into theCarrier Hall of Fame onUSS YorktowninOctober 1990.

Albert K. Earnest died Oct. 27, 2009at Sentra Virginia Beach General Hos-pital. He was 92 years old. Harry H.Ferrier, Earnest’s tunnel gunner onthat TBF-1 Avenger on June 4, 1942,is now the sole surviving member ofTorpedo 8.


Pilot Ens. Albert K. Earnest, center,with his crew, RM3 Harry H. Ferrierand AMM3 J.D. Manning.

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Jerry GallagherBy RICK THOMPSONSpecial to Pax River Profiles

Sometimes you have a friend whoturns out to be a prophet. Jerry Galla-gher had one of those friends.

He was completing his first tour asan A-7 Corsair II pilot on USS America(CVA-66) when he applied for admis-sion to the United States Naval TestPilot School. A squadronmate warnedhim, “If you go to Pax River, then youroperational career will be over, andyou’ll end upmarried.”

Truer words were never said. Gal-lagher spent the rest of his career, bothmilitary and civilian, at NAS PatuxentRiver, almost entirely at the Test PilotSchool— and yes, he gotmarried.

Until then, Gallagher had followed astraightforwardcourse inhis career. Theson of Leo and Garnett Gallagher (oneof his brothers, Leo Jr., is the watermel-on-smashing comedian Gallagher), hegraduated from H.B. Plant High Schoolin Tampa, Fla., in 1965, with plans to

study mathematics in college. As ateenager he was active in roller skat-ing, winning theU.S. Southern RegionalChampionship in figure skating, as wellas trampoline, gymnastics and spring-board diving.

In one of those cases where it turnedout that father did indeed know best,“I had a scholarship to Emory Univer-sity, but applied to the Naval Acade-my to appease my father. I received anappointment just weeks before gradu-ation. I knew nothing about the Acad-emy, the Navy or aviation.” His fatherhad been an Army paratrooper duringWorld War II, but Jerry Gallagher wasthe only one of Leo Sr.’s four children toserve in themilitary.

A funny thing happened in Annapo-lis. “I got interested in aviation, prob-ably frommytumblingbackground,”hesaid. “I was a varsity gymnast, special-izing in trampoline and floor exercise.”He would eventually run the Test Pilot

See Gallagher, Page 14

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School’s spin program, whichhe described as “tumbling inan airplane. Acrobatics in anairplaneare thesameasdoingsomersaults on a trampolineor from a springboard, exceptthat you’re sitting down. Yoursense of what’s up andwhat’sdown — your orientation —is about the same.”

Gallagher had never flownin anything but an airliner,but “in the summer after yourjunior year at the Academyyou were exposed to the vari-ous options in naval service,besides surface line, follow-ing graduation — naval avia-tion, submarines, the MarineCorps. Most of the midship-men went to Pensacola forflight indoctrination, but Iwas involved in the leader-ship program greeting thenew plebes, so that kept mefrom going themain route.”

Instead, he got his firstvisit to NAS Patuxent Riverin 1968, arriving by bus. “Theywere going to give us a ridein one of the airplanes at PaxRiver,” Gallagher said. “Theyjust happened to stick us allon a Super Constellation (thefamous four-engine piston-driven aircraft with the triplerudder) that they had at SouthSite, so we all got a ride in anairplane, but it was basicallyno different than an airliner.”

In spite of the abbreviated expo-sure to Naval aviation, that was thecareer path he chose. After graduat-ing from Annapolis in 1969, “I wentto the Navy Postgraduate School inMonterey, California, and earned bymaster’s in mathematics,” Gallagherstated. “I then went to flight schooland got my wings in 1971.” After hisfirst tour flying the A-7 Corsair II overVietnam, he applied to USNTPS.

Arriving at Pax River in 1975, hefound a place quite different fromtoday.Route235wasstill just two lanesall the way from Waldorf. A phonecall required dialing just five numbersas 863 was the only exchange, andon-base “Cedar Point Road was threelanes, with beautiful mature elm treesliningboth sides of the roadall thewaydown to the post office,” according toGallagher. “At low tide you could walkalong the beach all of theway to CedarPoint Lighthouse,” which has sincebeen torn down.

It was during his TPS training that

the first part of the prediction cametrue.

On the staff was Lt. Cmdr. WilliamBowes, later a vice admiral and com-manderof theNaval Air SystemsCom-mand (NAVAIR). “Bill and hiswifeDeeset up a blind date with one of Dee’sfriends, a 12th grade English teacherat Great Mills High School named JanSmith,” said Gallagher, “and our firstdate was to a bluegrass festival at theTake-It-Easy Ranch in Callaway thatfeatured John Hartford,” the famedsongwriter and recording artist whowrote the Glen Campbell hit “GentleonMyMind.”

“I took her to the festival in myCorvette,” Gallagher said. “Of course,I was a young naval aviator. I had theCorvette for 10 years.” The rest, as theysay, is history. Jerry and Jan weremar-ried on May 6, 1978, at St. NicholasChapel. They would eventually havethree children: two boys and a girl.

“Janmade it easy forme tomeetmy

GallagherContinued from Page 12

Jerry Gallagher as a gymnast at the Naval Academy.Below, Jerry and Jan Gallagher just before passingunder the traditional Saber Arch saluting their newly-married status.

See Gallagher, page 15

1959003

Now Offering Management and Leadership


obligations at the Test Pilot School,”Gallagher said of his wife. “We hadmajor graduation exercises for eachclass, so every six months I was ona trip somewhere, usually to France,Italy, Spain, England or California. I’dbe gone, and shewould be left holdingdown the fort. She did the lion’s shareof raising the kids.”

And the Corvette? “Typical of Cor-vettes, the brakes and exhaust systemwere a problem, so I eventually had itup on blocks in my garage. I never gota chance towork on it because by thenI was at TPS and TPS is just a tornadoof activity all the time. I ended up giv-ing it to my younger brother, and hetook it to Florida and fixed it up.”

Gallagher became the proud ownerof a station wagon, complete with carseats for children — not that it mat-tered. “By then Iwas gettingmyexcite-ment at work and didn’t need a fastcar,” he said.

GraduatingwithClass68 inDecem-ber 1975, he was assigned to VX-23(then called “Strike”), but after oneyear he was sent back to TPS as a“plowback” instructor — a recent

graduate now teaching. Being at TPS,he added, is for a flyer “like being a kidin a candy store. I got to fly everything,and ended up flying 138 different air-craft, including helicopters.” By thetime he retired, he would accumulatemore than 10,000 hours in the air.

In 1978, life at the Test Pilot Schoolwas very different from what it istoday. “Our offices were in the upperspaces of the [current] hangar, and thehangars were in disrepair,” Gallaghersaid. “You’d arrive in themorning and

turnon the light in the coffeemess andthe roaches would scatter.”

He continued, “Any time it rained,we had strategically placed trash cansunder all of the leaks. It was reallyembarrassing to host professionalsfrom other organizations and showthemour spaces. Theywere really sub-par.”

The opening of the Test PilotSchool’s current building in 1993changed everything. “It lifted the atti-tude of everybody,” Gallagher said.

“We are professionals, we have a nicefacility andwe do goodwork.” The air-craft hangar and maintenance spaceswere improved as well.

After his year as a “plowback,” Gal-


Lt. Jerry Gallagher receives his diplomaduring the Class 68 USNTPS GraduationCeremonies.

Jerry Gallagher after completing 1,000 flying hours in the TPS’ de Havilland Otter, the old-est aircraft in the U.S. Navy’s inventory.



lagher, whoby thenhadbeenpromot-ed to lieutenant commander, receivedorders for a return to operational dutyaboard USS America, but tragedy inthe form of a T-38 accident at TPSblocked the way. “It claimed the livesof two key instructors, and so theydidn’t have anyone to run the fixed-wing program,” said Gallagher. “Theyput an operational hold on me andcancelledmyorderswithin amonth ofmy reporting date.”

When the extended tour at TPSended, Gallagher resigned his com-mission after 10 years of service andwent to then-Commanding OfficerCmdr. Robert V. Sallada with an idea:a full-time contract instructor testpilot. Cmdr. Sallada liked it. In Gal-lagher’s words, “It made sense to havesomeone at the school who had beenin flight testing long enough to mas-ter the material and actually be ableto answer the tough questions thatstudents had. You simply can’t reallylearn enough about flight testing in acouple of years.”

It was 1980, and Gallagher wouldstay there until his retirement in 2013,being named Instructor of the Year in1988. The second part of the predic-

tion had come true.Having resigned his commission,

there was an immediate change.“When I left the service, I was chief orthe fixed-wing syllabus, so Iwas free tomake the changes that I felt were nec-essary,” Gallagher said. “I came backas a contractor, and support by its verynature is not supervisory. I was moreof a consultant to help the guys along,and pretty much stayed as the localexpert in out-of-control and spin test-ing, flying qualities and tail-draggers(aircraft whose third wheel is in therear rather than the nose).”

Over the years, the curriculum haschanged. “We started in the late 1970strying to get smart on airplane sys-tems,” Gallagher stated. “That waswhen TPS took charge of maintainingthe A-7s, which had been maintainedat Strike. We began a systems syllabuswhere we were testing the radar, theinertial navigation system, the heads-up display and the bombing systemof the A-7. Later, the F-18 Hornet waschosen to replace both the A-7 andthe F-4 in the fleet, so the A-7s wereretired. In 1978 the first F-18s arrivedat Pax River for testing, and after awhile TPS got their ownHornets.”

The Test Pilots School doesn’t usu-ally get the latest models, however.“Generally what TPS gets are the oldpre-production prototype airplanes,typically with the ‘N’ designation,”said Gallagher, “meaning they’ve been

highly-modified as testarticles and are of no realuse to the fleet. They weregreat for testing, but weretoo far from final fleetstandard configuration tomake conversion practi-cal.”

The newest program isunmanned aerial systems(UAS). “They were start-ing to get into UAS testingwhen Iwas leaving.Byandlarge, however, the funda-mentals of how airplanesfly and how propulsionsystems work is prettymuch the same,” accord-ing to Gallagher.

What revolutionizedeverything, he continued,was GPS (Global Position-ing System). “It used to be that youreally had to pay attention to whereyou were flying because you had lim-ited navigational equipment,” he said.“Now you have GPS and inertial navi-gation systems, so you really can’t getlost.

“It used to be quite dicey when wewould do spin flights in the area. Onceyou spin, the gyros in the airplanewould tumble,” Gallagher continued.“If you couldn’t erect them, then youhad to find your way back home with-out an attitude gyro or a compass. Ifyou had to penetrate the clouds, then

it was a real challenge.”With GPS, “The guessing is gone.

You knowexactlywhere you are all thetime, and so do the ATR [Atlantic TestRange] folks. Everybody knows exactlywhere you are and what you’re doing,which is like having a camera on youall the time.”

Testing itself has improved, andalso gotten a lot safer, partly becausesimulators can do somuchmore, “butlargely it was the supervisory atten-tion that really turned things around,”said Gallagher. “It was a lot looser in



Jerry Gallagher’s fully com-bat-loaded A-7 ready fortakeoff from USS America.

Jerry Gallagher gives one of his many lectures at theTest Pilot School.

The Burch Family would like to thank themen andwomen of the armed forces who

support the Patuxent RiverNavalAir StationMission...

Saluting the 70thAnniversaryof theTest Pilot SchoolPax RiverNAS

1959068


’70s and ’80s, but now thesupervisory chain is heav-ily involved in test planningand execution. It had to gettighter because the cost offlying and the cost of acci-dents — not to mention theloss of lives— is just prohibi-tive. You’ve got to managethe assets as intelligently asyou can, and so we reallyimproved the disciplines oftest planning and risk man-agement. All that has reallypaid dividends.”

As a contractor andinstructor, he still got to fly,averaging 250 hours a year, but therewas also paperwork— a lot of it, grad-ing reports and managing exercises.“There were classroom lectures toprepare and give, airplane programsto manage, NATOPS [Naval Avia-tion Training Operational ProceduresStandardization] programs, exams,qualifications and coordination withmaintenance,” he said. “It was mainlyfly during the day and take the papershome at night, grading technicalreports and preparing lectures. Mywife and I would sit at the table andgrade papers, hers from language artsclasses andmine fromTPS.”

In short, “I was the luckiest guy inthe world. It was a super job—peoplewould say that to me,” Gallagher said.“We taught the cream of the crop.There are no more willing studentsthan you find at TPS, and the staff andsupport people are top-notch. One ofthe wives used to say that we didn’treally have a squadron, we had a base-ball team, because everybody pullstogether to a common objective.”

The level of instruction now “is wayhigher thanwhen I started, and I thinkit’s largely because of the staffing,”he continued. “They started bring-ing back second-tour guys to instruct,guys who had been in flight testingand acquisition for a while and hadgotten valuable perspective. Then youadd the full-timers, both governmentservice and contract, who raised thelevel of understandingbecauseof theirexperience and corporate knowledge.Both factors have elevated the levelinstruction quite a bit, and I’m reallytickled with how I was able to contrib-ute to it myself.”

All told, “It was a dream job,” hesaid. “I was totally fortunate to be atthe right place at the right time andhave TPS be responsive when I cameto market the whole idea of contracttest pilot support. I was the first con-

tractor support test pilot on base.”So why’d he leave it?Gallagher: “It was time. I could

sense that I wasn’t as sharp as I usedto be. I could sense that I was slowingdown and knew that the job requiredonly the best that I could give. I wasbeginning to feel the physical wearand tear of putting on and taking offthe poopy suit and parachutemultipletimes a day. As a young man I didn’tnotice it, but it got physically wearyingfor me. I gave up flying the jets abouttwo years before I retired. I continuedflying just the tail-draggers and thegliders.”

His wife had retired from teachingthe year before, so on Dec. 23, 2013,Gallagher took his last flight, with Lt.Cmdr. Brian Sandberg, son of Acad-emy classmate James Sandberg, in anH-72 Lakota.

His post-retirement career is self-described as “bouncing around.” SaidGallagher, “I’m bouncing aroundbetween my house on the water inNorth Carolina, where I have a dock, aboatlift and afishing boat.” Then therearehis grandchildren. “I have adaugh-ter and a son both living in the D.C.area who each have givenme a grand-son, so I’m spending time bouncingbetween their residences.”

Gallagher’s other passion is being“a fiddler in an Irish band. I love play-ing the fiddle, especially for dances.Our band does a few bluegrass andold-time tunes, but mainly we con-centrate on Celtic, mostly Irish music— reels, slides, jigs, hornpipes, andpolkas.”

Retirement has opened up time forall that. “I’m finding it hard to main-tain two houses and find time for mytwo grandchildren,” he said. “Asmuchas I enjoyed working, it was just tootime-consuming.”

Still, “I was able to contribute toTPS, and just enjoyed all 36 years I wasat the school.”


Jerry Gallagher, right, is congratulated by Lt. Cmdr.Brian Sandberg after his last flight in a Navy aircraft.


Frederick M.Trapnell

By RICK THOMPSONSpecial to Pax River Profiles

Your flight lands and as it taxis to thegate the pilot announces, “Welcome toTrapnell Field.”

Question:Where are you?Answer: NAS Patuxent River,

because the station’s air field is namedin honor of Capt. FrederickM. Trapnell— but like in the old American Expresscommercials, almost nobody todayknowswho hewas.

Frederick Mackay Trapnell (1902-1975) was an aviation pioneer: a mem-ber of the Navy’s first precision flyingteam, one of its foremost test pilotsand the first Navy pilot to fly a jet. Mostimportant for Pax River, he was instru-mental in the creation of today’s U.S.Naval Test Pilot School.

By 1949, after his appearance at aCongressional hearing, TimeMagazinewould describe him as having “prob-ably flown more types of planes thanany other U.S. pilot.”

Trapnell graduated from Annapolisin 1923 and served two years on the

battleship USS California and cruiserUSSMarblehead before arriving atNASPensacola in 1926 for flight training. Hehad a natural flying ability combinedwith a firm grasp of aerodynamics. Heworked at obtaining a detailed knowl-edge of every type of plane he flew.

Trapnell’s natural skills got himassigned to the Flight Test Section atNAS Anacostia in 1930, where he andtwo other young officers were madethe “Three Flying Fish,” the Navy’s firstofficial aerial demonstration team. Forthe first time, the Navy had a year-round unit that performed around thecountry, using Curtiss F6C-4 biplanesspecially modified to fly upside downfor long periods.

Said an article in the June 22, 1930edition of the Washington SundayStar, “With these three planes, any ofthe maneuvers possible with the pres-ent-day airplanes may be duplicated,including the inverted or outside ‘fall-ing leaf,’ which has been performed byonly two pilots in the world.”

The “Three Flying Fish” were pre-decessors of today’s “Blue Angels,” but

their life was short. The “Three FlyingFish” aerial demonstration team wasdisbanded in April 1931.

Trapnell briefly had acareer on two unusual air-craft carriers. For two years(1932-34), he was assignedto the small airplane units,first onUSS Akron and thenUSS Macon. What madethem unusual was that theyweren’t ships. They werethe only two aircraft-carry-ing dirigibles (commonlycalledblimps) theNavyeverowned. Trapnell and theother pilots would fly from,and then return to, the air-ship while it was in flight.

The dirigible programwas short-lived, however.On April 4, 1933, the Akronencountered a violentstorm over the New Jerseycoast and crashed into thesea, killing 73 of its 76-mancrew, and then two yearslater, theMaconsankoff theCalifornia coast after windshear caused a structuralfailure. Thanks to the warmconditions and introduc-tion of inflatable life jackets

and rafts, only two of the 76-man crewwere lost.

During this time, Trapnell wasresponsible for a complete redesign ofthe gear and method of airplane hook-up to the dirigibles, but the crash of thetwo airships sounded the death knell ofthe program.

By 1940, now Lt. Cmdr. Trapnellwas back at the Anacostia Flight TestSection as its head. He became fullcommander in 1942, and moved withthe section to the new Naval Air TestCenter Patuxent River.

World War II meant new develop-ments in aircraft, engines and equip-ment. To keep up with these develop-ments, Trapnell expanded the Navy’sflight test procedures. If pilots were toexamine in detail and then report howthis new equipment handled in the air,they had to know engineering. Trapnellset up a lecture series to improve theirflying skills and also their engineeringknowledge of aircraft performance, sta-bility and control under various condi-tions.

Trapnell was so well respected thata new Navy fighter went to the fleetunder a test program best describedas informal. As the war began, it was

U.S. Navy photo

Capt. Frederick M. Trapnell in 1949 as Naval Air Test Center commander.

Naval Historical Center photo

The “Three Flying Fish” with one of their Curtiss F6C-4 Hawks. Trapnell is at left. See Trapnell, Page 19

1958961


obvious that the Japanese Zero was farsuperior to the Navy’s frontline fighter,the Grumman F4F Wildcat, in every-thing but ability to take punishment.

Grumman embarked on a crashprogram for something much better.The result was the F6F Hellcat. Insteadof the usual six- to eight-month flighttest schedule, Grumman in mid-1942asked the Navy to let Trapnell evaluateit personally.

Roy Grumman wrote later, “Hecame to the factory and flew the proto-type F6F. It suited him, as I remember,except for the longitudinal stability —he wanted more of that. We built it inand rushed into production withouta Navy certificate on the model. Werelied on Trapnell’s opinion. His testflight took less than three hours. I’mnot sure we ever got an official OK onthe Hellcat design.” By the time WorldWar II was over, Navy Hellcats had shotdown 5,155 Japanese planes.

When he tested the F6F, Trapnellknew very well what it would be upagainst. Shortly after the Battle of Mid-way, a Japanese Zero had been foundnearly intact on Akutan Island in the

Aleutians. It was taken to San Diego forrepair andevaluation, andTrapnellwas

one of the pilots who tested it exten-sively against nearly all U.S. fighters of

the day.Trapnell and his flight test unit eval-

uated a raft of new fighters, includingversions of Army and British aircraft.Trapnell personally spentmonthsflighttesting a new fighter from Vought Avi-ation. As a result, Vought engineersmade extensive modifications. Result:the gull-winged F4U Corsair, whichwould ultimately have a productionrun of over 10,000. It would remaina firstline Navy aircraft until the endof the Korean War, and is the onlypropeller-driven fighter to shoot downa jet — 12 of them, including a MiG-15.

In the spring of 1943, Trapnell wassent as an exchange pilot to the ArmyAir Force’s secret test field at what isnow Edwards Air Force Base. On April21, he made the first jet flight by a navalaviator, in a Bell XP-59 Aeracomet. TheAeracomet was America’s first jet-pro-pelled airplane.

Promoted to captain in mid-1943,Trapnell spent the rest of the war yearson fleet duty, commanding in succes-sion two squadrons and an escort car-rier, and also earning a Bronze Star. InOctober 1944, he became chief of stafffor the Commander Carrier Division 6,participating inall themajor strikes andlandings until the war ended.

In June 1946, Trapnell returned to

TrapnellContinued from Page 18

Naval Historical Center photo

Officers of the USS Akron Air Group, 1933, from left: Lt. (jg) Robert W. Lawson, Lt. HaroldB. Miller, Lt. Frederick M. Trapnell, Lt. Howard L. Young and Lt. (jg) Frederick N. Kivette.

See Trapnell, page 21

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1959197


Pax River, this time as test coordi-nator. It was a time of vast changein naval aviation, as the Navy tran-sitioned from aircraft where radialpiston engines turned propellers tojets. The jets flewat higher altitudesand made oxygen use by pilotsmandatory. In addition, instru-ment and all-weather flying werebecoming required.

Trapnell had always believed inall-weather flying, and practicedinstrument flying for years. Whenthose licenses were introduced, hewas the first one to earn a greencard, the top qualification. Hepushed all his test pilots to do thesame.

The Naval Air Test Center hadchanged, too. More than the FlightTest Division, it was also the Arma-ment Test, Tactical Test, ElectronicTest and Service Test Divisions. Allhad their own aircraft, hangars andspecialty shops, and all reported toTrapnell.

Jets meant new flying charac-teristics, new tactics and new fuel


Seated in the cockpit of an XP-59A Airacomet, Capt. Frederick Trapnell is briefed by Bell Aircraft Company Crew Chief Joseph Brown prior toTrapnell’s take-off on April 23, 1943. Trapnell thus became the Navy’s first jet pilot.See Trapnell, page 22


consumption problems. They hadswept wings, pressurized cabins, ejec-tion seats and radar for flight intercep-tion of bombers. They were also faster,and reaction times to thrust changesat low speeds, especially during carrierapproaches, were less.

Patuxent River NATC would be atthe forefront in finding solutions.

Trapnell insisted all his test pilotsdo what he did and earn their “greencard.” Very quickly, they became acrack team ready to take on the job ofevaluating the new jets.

The new test coordinator was at thecenter of making the transition hap-pen — and work — for the Navy. Likean umpire, he would call them as hesaw them.

As John Lacouture stated in a 1991article, “In testing of airplanes, integritywas his motto, and [Trapnell] reportedresults as theywere, not as some senioror contractor wanted them to be. Oncetheairplane’sflight characteristicsweredetermined, he then had all his pilotswork on converting the test results intodesign change recommendations forthe contractorswhowould improve thecapabilities of the aircraft.”

He “also insisted that an airplaneworthy of Navy procurement has to beable to operate well and safely over abroad range of flying conditions.”

Trapnell saw a problem up ahead,though. Most of the test pilots wouldbe moving on to the fleet, where theywould be invaluable to squadrons fly-ing the new jets for the first time. Theirreplacements would be less experi-enced, and unfamiliar with flight test-ing new aircraft and equipment.

Pax River had a Test Pilot School,but Trapnell insisted on its upgradingand expansion. It would have a com-plete flying program that covered per-formance, stability and control testing.The classroom work would be a com-plete aeronautical engineering course.Trapnell himself had flownmore typesof aircraft than any of his pilots, and heflew all aircraft assigned to Pax River.

The goal then, as now: provide theNavy with better airplanes for all mis-sions, whether from carriers or not.

The Test Pilot School at the timehad an informal technical school peri-odically run by Capt. Sydney S. Sherby.As Sherby later wrote, Trapnell andNATCCommander Capt. James Barner“became very interested in the infor-mal school, and were highly impressedwith the results. One of the fallouts ofthe training was the knowledge thatour pilots took back to the fleet with

them. It was beginning to show up inimprovement in fleet operations. Theywere the ones who started the ball roll-ing in theNavyDepartment to have theschool set up as the Test Pilot TrainingDivision of the Naval Air Test Center.”

Barner was relieved as NATC Com-mander by Rear Adm. Apollo Soucekin 1947, but for six months in between,Trapnell served in the position beforereverting back to Test Coordinator.Soucek, like Barner, “fully concurredwith the effort to have the school setup as a permanent school and joinedTrapnell in the effort to get the schoolapproved,” said Sherby.

They ultimately succeeded. On Jan.22, 1948, Trapnell’s plan for a formaltest pilot school as a division of NATCwas approvedbyDeputyChief ofNavalOperations Adm. J.D. Price. The TestPilot Division was established in April1948, with Sherby as its first director.

Trapnell’s involvement in theschool’s establishment was far fromover, though. He chaired the selectionof the school’s first class. The criteria,

according to Sherby: “Candidatesmustbe volunteers, have a good operationalrecord, at least a high school education,be commissioned officers and have aletter of recommendation from theircommanding officers.”

He chose well. The first class rangedfrom ex-enlisted pilots with a highschool diploma to one with a master’sin aeronautics,with ranks from lieuten-ant junior grade to commander.

“The traits that all had were a veryhigh intelligence, were exceptionallyfine pilots and were all enthusiastic,”said Sherby. “The course was paced sothat we did not bore the Master of Sci-ence or leave the high school behind. Ittook a little doing, but no one flunkedthe course.”

Trapnell collected a library of about550 technical books and assortedused desks to outfit the school, andthe Test Pilot Training Division’s firstclass began on July 6, 1948. He wouldeventually write the foreword to thetextbook Airplane Aerodynamics. Thebook had been created from the Test

Pilot Training Division’s lectures andconcepts by Sherby and his successor,Capt. (eventually Vice Adm.) ThomasConnolly. Twenty-seven universitieswould eventually use its four editions(1951, 1957, 1961 and 1967) as the textfor courses in aircraft design.

In the book’s foreword, Trapnellwrote, “In the flight testing of aircraft,the talents of the engineer and thepilot must be available to the maxi-mum attainable extent in one individ-ual. Without a sound understanding ofthe basic principles and a reasonableappreciation of the more advancedproblems of the aeronautical engineer,the test pilot can neither gather usabledata nor analyze his own experienceswith sufficient clarity to convey them toothers in usable form. The requirementgrowsmore severe as the complexity ofthe aircraft increases.”

However, “Such dual personalitiesdo not occur in nature. Very few pilotshave acquired an engineering back-


U.S. Navy photo

A Curtiss XF9C-1 “Sparrowhawk” fighter attempts to engage the “trapeze” landing gear prior to being lifted into the hangar of airshipUSS Akron on May 3, 1932.

See Trapnell, page 23

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ground in the normal course of events.In most cases, both time and inclina-tion are missing during the early stagesof his career. Later on, however, theinclination often appears rather strik-ingly,” Trapnell said. “When advantageis taken of this manifestation, and timeand facilities are provided for study, theresults are likely to be gratifying.”

He concluded, “Such a proceduremay not produce aeronautical engi-neers, but it does qualify pilots to meetthe aeronautical engineer on commonground and to perform their flyingduties with greatly improved insightand effectiveness.”

In June 1949, Trapnell again becameNATC commander. It was later thatyear that he appeared in House ArmedServices Committee hearings that dis-puted Air Force claims for the B-36— that flying at 40,000 feet it would beundetectable by radar andunreachableby enemy fighters.

According to Time Magazine’sreport, Trapnell “testified that standardNavy radar had no trouble picking upsmall jet fighters at 40,000 feet, and thatNavy fighters had made interceptionsat that altitude by day and by night.”

He told the committee, “If you wereable to ride as an observer in a B-36 at40,000 feet during joint exercises, youwould see (F2H) Banshees diving andzooming all around you and makingrepeated gunnery attacks with a speedadvantage of over 100miles per hour.”

That summer Trapnell was namedrecipient of theOctaveChanute Award,named for the man who gave criti-cal support and encouragement to theWright brothers during their design oftheir aircraft. Given annually by theAmerican Institute of Aeronautics andAstronautics for “notable contribu-tion by a pilot to the aerospace sci-ences,” the award recognized Trapnell

for “showing outstanding ability notonly in flying every type of aircraft butalso in detecting critical defects in newairplanes and suggesting ways to dealwith them.”

Trapnell’s career at Pax River endedinApril 1950whenhewas named com-mandingofficerof thecarrierUSSCoralSea. While CO, he developed a two-line system for aircraft takeoff, with theleft line turning left and the right lineturning right. This system significantlyreduced takeoff times over carriers thatused only one line.

Promoted to rear admiral in Feb.1951, Trapnell was deputy commanderof Sandia Base and of the Field Com-mand Armed Forces Special WeaponsProject at Albuquerque, N.M. fromMarch 1951 to April 1952. That waswhen he suffered a heart attack andwas retired for physical disability inSeptember 1952 with the rank of viceadmiral. The medical findings alsoended his days as a pilot.

He spent the next 23 years as a con-sultant for Grumman Aircraft, andbecame a sailing enthusiast, first in theLong Island, N.Y. area and then SanDiego. Vice Adm. FrederickM. Trapnelldied in the U.S. Naval Hospital, SanDiego, on Jan. 30, 1975.

On April 1, 1976, the 33rd anni-versary of the commissioning of NASPatuxent River, the station’s air fieldwas officially named “Trapnell Field.” Asmallmemorial to the left of the tarmacoutside Air Operations was unveiledin his honor. More than 300 guestsattended the ceremony.

Chief of Naval Material Adm. Fred-erick Michaelis said in his keynoteaddress, “ViceAdm.Trapnellwas apio-neer test pilot whose calculated daringand prophetic vision served to advancethe science of naval aviation test andevaluation. ‘Get the numbers’ was thewatchword of the test pilots he trainedand led. His contributions to aviationwere enormous. All who fly in Navyblue remain indebted to Vice Adm.Trapnell.”


This monument to thenamesake of TrapnellField is on the left side,outside Air Operations.Its bronze plaque salutesTrapnell’s “calculated dar-ing and prophetic vision.”It declares, “His insis-tence on formal test pilottraining and a systematicapproach to flight testingwas instrumental in thefounding of the U.S. NavalTest Pilot School and theemergence of the engi-neering test pilot.”

Photo by Rick Thompson

1951365


1959022


Vernon GordonBy RICK THOMPSONSpecial to Pax River Profiles

“Space comprising the earth’s atmo-sphere and the space beyond; an industrythat deals with travel in and above theearth’s atmosphere and with the produc-tion of vehicles used in such travel.”

That is how the dictionary defines “aero-space”—andalmost fromthe start, VernonGordonknew thatwaswherehewantedhisfuture to be.

His father, Curtis Gordon, was a cottonfarmer, and his mother, Ruth Gordon (neeRay) was a teacher, but right from elemen-tary school young Vernon was looking tothe skies. “Iwas buildingmodel airplanes atthat age,” Gordon says today, “so I had tonsofmodel airplanes.”

By high school he was heavily into mathand science, not that thephysical side of hislife was ignored. He played football (quar-terback), basketball (point guard) andbase-ball (shortstop and secondbase) for TannerHigh School in Tanner, Ala. He graduatedsecond in his class (of 28) and as salutato-rian gave a speech at graduation.

Onwardandupward: “When Igraduatedfrom high school, I received a fellowship towork in Huntsville (Ala.) for Chrysler Cor-poration SpaceDivision in their space engi-neering facility,” which was then design-ing the first-stage boosters of the SaturnI-B that would become an Apollo programmainstay. After that summer fellowship, “Ithen went to college at Auburn University,where I studied aerospace engineering.”

Hedidn’tknowitthen,buthewasalreadydonningU.S.Naval Test Pilot School colors.Both USNTPS and Auburn have the sameorange and blue color scheme.

He was one quarter from graduationwhen he realized, “I was about to be 1-Aand drafted into the Army.” His preferencewas the Navy, but “I didn’t realize at thetime that you could fly if you didn’t have20/20 vision, so I talked to the blackshoe(surface Navy) recruiter to get into NavyOCS [Officer Candidate School].”

Gordon was accepted, and shortly aftergraduation in June 1968 was told he didn’thave to report until the following January.

See Gordon, Page 26


That being the case, he started work-ing on his master’s degree at Auburn.“I planned on doing a couple of yearsin the Navy and then going back to getmy master’s degree,” he said.

When he reported to OCS in New-port, R.I., he got some happy news:his vision was good enough that hecould pass the aviation flight physicalas a flight officer. He then got moreencouraging news.

“TheaviationdetaileraskedmewhyI wanted to fly, and I answered that Iwas working on my master’s degree inaerospace engineering before I joinedthe Navy,” Gordon said. “He asked ifI’d like to finish my master’s before Iwent to Pensacola. When I asked howI could do that, he said he could makeit happen.”

The detailer was as good as hisword, and Ensign Gordon was offto the Naval Postgraduate School inMonterey, Calif., where he earned hismaster’s degree in 1970. From therehe went to Pensacola and VT (Train-ing Squadron)-10, earning his wings inMarch 1971.

“In those days you went from VT-10to the Navy Air Technical Training

Center in Glynco, Ga., for follow-ontraining,” said Gordon. “I had selectedEA-6B Prowlers out of VT-10, so I wentto electronic warfare school and gotmy wings. I stayed another month toget my jetnav [jet navigation] qualifi-cation.”

Next stop was NAS Whidbey Island,where he became part of VAQ (Elec-tronic Attack Squadron)-129 in 1971.His follow-on assignment was VAQ-131, which was the second operation-al EA-6B squadron, flying from USSEnterprise as part of Air Wing 14 inSoutheast Asia from September 1972to June 1973, flying in Operation Line-backer 2 against North Vietnam.

“We stayed there until they signedall the papers and got the POWs out,and then supported the minesweep-ers as they removed mines from theharbors,” Gordon said. “They keptus in the area just in case the NorthVietnamese decided to do anythingagainst the minesweepers.”

Returning home, he was ordered totheVX (Air Test andEvaluationSquad-ron)-5 detachment at NAS WhidbeyIsland, which was then the operationalevaluation squadron for the EA-6B.In 1993, VX-5 would merge with VX-4to become the current VX-9, based atNAWS (Naval Air Weapons Station)China Lake, Calif. By that time, how-

GordonContinued from Page 25

Vernon Gordon, second from right in the second row, graduated from the U.S. Naval TestPilot School with Class 74 in December 1978.

See Gordon, page 28Lt. Comdr. Vernon Gordon at his USNTPS graduation as part of Class 74 in December1978.

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Dr. Vernon Gordon, fourth from right in back row, as part of the USNTPS instructional staff in July 1980.

ever, Gordon had long since departedthe squadron.

“When I left there, I went to SanDiego as electronic warfare officer

with Carrier Group 1,” he said. “WeworkedupUSSConstellationand thenspent twoweeks onUSS Ranger doinga reserve airwing workup. Then weflew to Japan and USS Midway. Sixweeks after we were on Midway, shewas going to the yard, so they cross-decked us to USS Coral Sea, where wespent the rest of the cruise.”

He completed the circle by return-

ing to the Enterprise. His next des-tination: NAS Patuxent River as partof USNTPS Class 74, graduating inDecember 1978.

After graduation, Gordon, by nowa LCDR, was assigned to the StrikeAircraft Test Directorate (now VX-23),testing equipment for the A-6 Intruderand EA-6B. After a year, he returnedto TPS as a “plowback” instructor. A

“plowback” was a TPS graduate who,after a year’s experience of actual test-ing, would return as an officer staffmember.

“When I was here the first time asan instructor, themajority of staffwereplowbacks,” Gordon stated. “We don’tdo that anymore because the concern


See Gordon, page 30

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was that the guys did not have enoughexperience to quickly be up to speedon all the flight exercises.”

He left TPS in 1981 because hehad been selected to study for hisdoctorate, again at the Naval Post-graduate School. After graduating onSept. 1, 1984, Gordon was assigned toNAVAIRPAC (Naval Air Forces, Pacific)in SanDiego for two years before com-ing back to Maryland. By now a fullcommander, he would be head of theAerospace EngineeringDepartment atthe U.S. Naval Academy.

It was a position that fitted wellinto his love for teaching. Even today,“I come to work every day because Ilike it. Teaching is the reason I’m stillhere.”

After four years at the Naval Acad-emy and two years on the AviationBoardof InspectionandSurvey (whichno longer exists), Gordon retired fromthe Navy and accepted a position atthe Test Pilot School in 1993.

Things had changed since his pre-vious tenure. “When I was here thefirst time, we were still in the han-gar,”Gordon said. “Whenever it rainedthere were buckets in several strategicplaces because they could never stopthe leaks. You had to walk around thebuckets and you had to empty themevery so often to keep the floors frombeing wet.”

TPS was still operating from thehangar, but that all changed in 1993with opening of the new building.

“Classes were smaller when I washere before, and I think it was alsomore fun,” Gordon said. “We hadmore airplanes and more differenttypesofplanes tofly,whichwasgood.”

Instructionally, “When I wentthrough the school and as an instruc-tor on active duty, we had the threecurriculums we do now— fixed wing,rotary and systems — but the sys-tems curriculum was a combinationof pilots and NFOs (Naval Flight Offi-cers). We would fly most of our exer-cises with pilots who were classmatesas opposed to staff instructors.”

When he came back in 1993, how-ever, “Classes were bigger and thesystems curriculum had changed tojust NFOs. We had gone from four toeight or nine NFO/FTEs (Flight TestEngineer) in a class in the systemscurriculum.” While some aircraft werethe same, others had been replaced,most notably TA-7 Corsair IIs by F-18Hornets.

“The staff was a lot bigger too,”said Gordon. “When I went throughschool here in 1978, we had a total offive civilian instructors. The number islarger now.”

In addition, “When I came back, alot more had been put on the plate,and it shows in the report-writing.They had been 15-20 pages long, andnow I see reports that are 50-60 pageson the same types of subjects becauseof the way things have changed.”

There are also more foreign stu-dents now. As Gordon noted, “Inmy day we had a couple of foreignstudents. Now we have five or six inevery class, kind of a cross-pollination


Vernon Gordon, left, in 1972 as part of Tactical Electronic Warfare Squadron (VAQ) 131,flying the EA-6B aboard the USS Enterprise. At center is squadron commanding officer JohnDiloreto and Jim Stokoe.

See Gordon, page 32

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around the world.”There was, and is, improved equip-

ment such as the ASTARS (AirborneSystems Training and Research Sup-port) aircraft. StartingwithaP-3Orion,“We put a complete Radar/EOS (Elec-tro-Optical System) suite in it,” saidGordon. “You could be in there andhave all your equipment act as if youwere in aHornet.We evenput an ejec-tion seat tomake itmore realistic.”Thebig difference is that “the instructorcan stand there or sit next to you andhelp you learn how to evaluate theequipment.”

The P-3 has since been replacedby a similarly-outfitted Saab 340 tur-boprop airliner, and in turn will soonbe replaced by a Fairchild Metroliner.“We’ll put a new ESA [ElectronicallyScanned Array] system in the nose,which iswhat all thenewfightershave,and a new FLIR [Forward LookingInfra-Red] system in it,” Gordon said.“It will have a forward-looking infra-red camera and a visible light camera,so it can be used for both nighttimeand daytime testing.”

The system is more economicalbecause “you can have four or fiveguys and an instructor in the airplane,which is much cheaper than flying aHornet five times.”

He continued, “On top of that, rightnext to the student you have an NFOinstructor who is used to doing sys-tems tests, which makes it really easyto teach. While it’s mostly for flightofficers, we put jet pilots and helicop-ter pilots in it as well so they can learnhow to do systems testing.”

Collaboration is brought into theprocess. “Wehave a testwherewe takea flight officer, two jet pilots and tworotary-wing pilots and make them ateam. They write a test plan and thenhave to test this system against testtargets,” Gordon stated. “We usuallyhave the NFO in the lead because heknowsmore about the systems testingprocess.”

Equipment improvements throughthe years have had another benefit:fewer mishaps and fewer fatalities.“Theplanes arebetter, and the simula-tors help as well,” he said. “People area lot more conscious about test plan-ning than they used to be— thatwe’renot going to fly this airplane until weget everything correct and understand


Cmdr. Vernon Gordon, Ph.D., as chairman of the Aerospace Engineering Dept. at the U.S.Naval Academy in 1990.

See Gordon, page 34

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all the risks. If you crash a simulator,you walk away, and once you’ve donethe simulator work, then you knowhow you’re going to fly the test whenyou get on the airplane.”

In short, “We’re all a littlemore risk-averse, and this is a good thing. Wespend a lot of time doing everythingwe can to make sure we cover all thebases.”

But there is a flip side to this. SaidGordon, “If we went under the ruleswe have today, we’d have never goneto the moon. They took a lot of risksgoing to the moon that would neverbe acceptable in this society today —at least not the waywe operate now.”

Gordon has had a few times “whenmy heart rate got up pretty high, butnot very often. I never had to eject.”Of course, “In my first flight back as acivilian in one of the jets, we had justgotten on the other side of the Chesa-peake Bay when the canopy came offthe airplane at 15,000 feet. I askedmyself why I was doing this, but wekept flying, we landed, and I had agood story to tell.” Still, “It was a coldride back across the bay.”

In all, however, “It’s been really funto work with the students here. Youget a diverse group, some who know agoodbit about aerospacebecause theymajored in it and others who don’tknow much about it at all. I get to seethem learn and understand that allthat stuff they learned in college reallyhas an application if you start workingwith it.”

He likes it so much that he alsoteaches classes in aerospace engineer-ing for Florida Institute of Technology,something he plans to continue evenafter retiring fromUSNTPS.

And whenmight that be? “That willdepend a lot on my wife. She’s a testpilot instructor here at the school andthe aviation safety officer. She likes fly-ing and she’s got several years of flyingleft in her,” Gordon said. “I’ll probablywork a little while longer, but thenhang around here even after I retireuntil she decides she wants to give upflying and try something else.”

He’ll also continue his two avoca-tions, being an amateur (“ham”) radiooperator and reading techno-adven-ture and spy novels. Gordon is an“extra class” operator,meaning he has

every privilege the Federal Communi-cations Commission allows amateurs.A special exam is required to achieveeach class of amateur radio: techni-cian, general and extra.

What does he want people tosay after he retires, when they say“I remember Vernon Gordon, he —what?”

Gordon: “I hope they’ll say that Iwas a pretty good instructor, that Itaught thema lot about thebusiness athand in a way that they could under-stand it.”

Looking back on his career, “Thebiggest thing is that wewho have beenteaching at TPS for a long time madea difference in the capabilities of thewarfighters who have been out therein Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of theworld,” said Gordon. “We’ve trainedthe people who tested the equipmentthat was procured, so the warfighterscould go out and get the job done.”

There’s a personal element as well:“I think aboutmydaughter and I thinkabout my son, both Marines. I knowthat they could be in a fight any daythey’re deployed overseas, and I wantthere to be the equipment that willkeep them safe and bring them homesafely.

“That’s what I like about it.”

Cmdr. Vernon Gordon with his daughter Melissa and son Bradley, both now majors in theMarine Corps, at Melissa’s commissioning as a second lieutenant.


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