MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
My high school physics teacher was a US Navy Aviator before WWII, graduating from the US Naval Academy in the early 1930's. For much of his career he flew floatplanes and flying boats; he was in command of a small seaplane tender at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. But he also flew carrier based and ground based Navy aircraft, and there was an incident where the engine on his airplane quit and he deadsticked it onto an aircraft carrier. The Captain of the carrier asked him how did he dare to endanger the ship wth that landing. His response was that he was supremely confident that he was the best pilot in the US Navy. In the late 1930's he was stationed at Long Beach, CA.
The US Navy was ready to accept the XSBD-1 dive bomber but wanted one last test conducted, a climb to 20,000 ft followed by a dive and pull out while carrying a live 500 lb bomb. The Douglas test pilot responded that he did not fly with live ordnance and refused to fly the test. Someone might have remembered that "the best pilot in the US Navy" was stationed at Long Beach and so my future physics teacher was approached by the Douglas Aircraft people. They asked him if he would be willing to conduct the test with the live bomb. His response was that he did it every day with the much older airplanes they had at Long Beach and would be happy to do it with a brand new one.
The flight took 30 minutes from takeoff to landing. The airplane passed the test and the SBD went into production. Douglas paid my future physics teacher $500 for doing the test and decades later he said that flight gave him his highest ever hourly wage of $1000/hour.
The US Navy was ready to accept the XSBD-1 dive bomber but wanted one last test conducted, a climb to 20,000 ft followed by a dive and pull out while carrying a live 500 lb bomb. The Douglas test pilot responded that he did not fly with live ordnance and refused to fly the test. Someone might have remembered that "the best pilot in the US Navy" was stationed at Long Beach and so my future physics teacher was approached by the Douglas Aircraft people. They asked him if he would be willing to conduct the test with the live bomb. His response was that he did it every day with the much older airplanes they had at Long Beach and would be happy to do it with a brand new one.
The flight took 30 minutes from takeoff to landing. The airplane passed the test and the SBD went into production. Douglas paid my future physics teacher $500 for doing the test and decades later he said that flight gave him his highest ever hourly wage of $1000/hour.
