VERY GOOD General Dynamics-Convair-
It was probably 1919. I remember that I was pulling boles,in the cotton field and looked up at a strange noise and saw my first airplane. I don't remember seeing a picture of one. We seldom had a newspaper or magazine at our home. (When we married, and visited them in Oklahoma, I asked them for something to read. They just looked at me. They were surprised at me asking, they had nothing.)
I would have given my right arm to fly in the air like that.
It took me twenty three years, 1942. I was a staff sgt, mess sgt, in the army and paid for my own flying lessons and soloed in a small airplane at the small Mineral Wells airport. I could fly!
There I met a trainee from Camp Wolters who had his pilot license. We each rented a small plane. He and I was going to play 'follow the leader.' He took off and saw a small herd of cows. He dived at them and they stampeded. He got a way to close and I turned away.
His Mother was staying on the 12th floor of the Baker Hotel, the tallest one in Mineral Wells. He circled the hotel, a way to close. I flew back to the field. The police were waiting. They wanted to know if I was the one who scared the cows and flew around the Baker.
I told them that I was not. About that time he come back to the field. I never saw him again.
I was on a cross country flight, across west Texas. I got low on gas, I thought I could have made it. But it would have been close, I stopped at a small airport close to Breckenridge. A guy come out and got me five gallons of 80 octane gas and I come on.
I waited until a big strike was over at General Dynamics and got a job there, January 21, 1947.
I thought, "If I could get a raise, with the 'night bonus', my 'take home' would be $40 dollars a week!"
That would be real good pay.
May, 1951, Boeing was building a new B52 bomber. At the same time,General Dynamics was building a new B36 at it's heavily-guarded experimental building in Convair's Fort Worth building. It was chosen by the US government over the Boeing plane. We were very proud.
The B-36 never fought in a war, it's nickname: B-36 'Peacemaker', it was a weapon of peace. It probably kept us from getting in war. It was the worlds largest piston powered bomber. It could carry up to 72,000 pounds of ammo--with no need to refuel for three days.
At that time we were the only ones with nuclear bombs. We flew around to different places in the world, to keep the Russians on edge. It carried a crew of up to 15, it had a nose gunner and on both sides of the aft compartment. There was a tail gunner,too.They were all in big clear bubbles, that stuck out from the plane, so they could see.
On the ground, it set as high as a four-story building, with a wingspan of 230 feet. it required 36,000 gallons of fuel. Each of it's engines took 50 gallons of oil. No B-36 ever crashed.
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I worked a year on the B-36 and asked for a transfer to the test department, I stayed there.
Most G D employees had no interest in the airplane or what they were working on, just the paycheck. The only parts of a plane that they knew- was the wing and the tail. I could fly an airplane and I had a real interest in it all.
It was big. It had six propeller, pusher engines and they added two jet engines under each wing.
The big runway was on the east of our big buildings and Carswell AFB was on that other side of the runway. Carswell and G D both used that runway.
Going north, the runway ended at the edge of Lake Worth. The four jets had just been added under the B-36 plane wings and there was to be a test flight. The plane lost power on take off and went into Lake Worth. It sank just far enough out in the lake, that the crew members in the aft compartments had to climb out. They waited on top of the plane untill they could be rescued by a small boat.
That was the nearest that I ever knew of; of a crash of a B-36.
They pulled the B-36 to the edge of the water and put a sling under each wing. A helicopter lifted on them and a big truck pulled the B-36 back onto the runway. They did not tie it down good.
It come a storm that night, that blew it back eastwards,to nearly across the fence and into the lake again
B-36 is heavy, 410,000 pounds
A tractor was being used to pull a B-36 to it's place in line. An employee was walking along with a broom. He was sweeping in front of the tires to make sure that tacks and little rocks were not under the tires. He stumbled and both his legs were crushed.
He recovered and could walk with his artificial legs and a cane.
He was building a shed at his home, it was nearly finished. He was on a ladder, using a skill saw to trim the boards along the edge of the roof. The ladder turned and the skill saw cut the man's juggler vane. His last words were to his neighbor across the fence, "Well I guess I killed myself this time."
A ride on the B-36
Robertson wanted to ride on that big plane. He talked about it. He and Thel had been working to get it ready for a short test run. It took off and Thel looked around and Robertson was gone, Thel asked another employee where he was. "He hid in the wheel well of that B-36." Thel quickly called the plane and told them not to raise the wheels, "There is a man hiding in your wheel well."
They come back around and they got him out. He thought there would be room for his body and the wheel, there was not. If they had raised the big wheels, it would have crushed him.
They never did anything to him.
The B-36 had to fly slower, untill we put air conditioners in the leading edges of the wings.
The wings were getting so hot that the pilot would loose control of the airplane.
Mach 1, the speed of sound was normally 600 miles per hour, but it changed with atmospheric pressure
Into the marsh
The B-58 that dove into the marsh near New Orleans, it went 30 foot down.
They lifted it with a helicopter. Volunteer workers went into that hole and dug out all other parts. They were brought back to Fort Worth. They drew an outline on the hanger floor and laid the cleaned parts in the correct place on that outline. The gumbo clay mud; it took days and days for it to be washed from each part before it was laid out on the floor. It was found that there was a problem with the auto pilot.
I was 'skinniest' B-58
I 'worked the flight line', summer and winter. I had some heavy clothes, mostly wool, old army. All test planes had to be pre- flighted and then post-flighted as soon as they landed. Ship 109 was to fly before daylight. Several of us come to work at 4 AM, to have it preflighted on time.
The dew had froze and made ice on the wing that morning. We rubbed it all off to make sure that it didn't cause static electricity. I had on a heavy flight suit and a heavy belt where they tied two ropes on each side of me. It was 10 or 12 foot to the ground, it would have hurt to fall that far. I was to 'stick the tanks'. Reach down and fill a special little fuel sample bottle with the 110 octane gasoline from each of the three tanks in each wing and the two fuselage tanks. Two 500 gallon fuel tanks were carried under each wing, ten tanks. We labeled each bottle and we sent them all to Wright Patterson Field. I never knew why we had to test the fuel so carefully, before and after each flight. Except that we got fuel from several suppliers.
I was going to 'stick' the inboard tank first, it was up, like on the cone of the house.
They would pull me, to-far one way and then to-far the other way. They were having all the fun in the world. I thought they were through playing and I opened the tank and looked in with my flashlight. They gave me a little pull and knocked my flashlight out of my hand. I watched it sink down through that 100+ gallons of fuel, still burning!!
I thought about quiting and leaving. It would take a week to defuel that tank and blow the fumes out.
They run and got long aluminum tubing, put mechanical fingers in it. Tied wire to it, to ground it.
I again rubbed the dew that had fell and turned to ice on that wing; that could caused static electricity.
I started fishing, I reached and reached and finally caught that flashlight! I was almost scared to lift it up in the fumes above the fuel. I got it up through that fuel and into my hand! It hadn't leaked!
I sure was glad that it was a rubber sealed safety flashlight. I guarantee you that we were all happy.
Nuclear power
Thel told me to erase all this. He could get in serious trouble if certain people found about it.
He's still not supposed to talk about any of it, even now.
Nuclear power was new to us all. We all had top secret cards. I was safety man and the men did not believe that they cold be hurt by something that they couldn't see. We tried to fix it so that the B-36 could fly by nuclear power. The reactor in the plane had to have a twelve inch lead shield between it and the crew. We had a crane on a track that would roll to where the twelve inches of lead were stored, and to where they fit in the airplane. When those 12 inches of lead got contamination by radiation, they were stacked out in the open air, 'a red zone' circle. They replaced them with 'cold' lead shields. I think that they were 12x15 inches. The lead was to heavy to work with and we never were very successful.
Water was a good insulator too. We tried lots of things. Short Stop Miller was watching water that had come off of the reactor. It was being demineralized. After that process the water was safe.
Short Stop Miller went to sleep and the water got nearly to the lake. They called us all out! If that water had got in the lake, drinking it or fishing would have had to be stopped. We barely stopped it.
That plane would drive over a 'bridge' and stop. They would let the reactor down into a 70 ft pit.
Us workers down in the 'snake pit'; we wore big coveralls that went over our head and had an air hose attached so we had good air to breathe.We wore special shoes so that we wouldn't take any radiation home with us. You wore a film badge that told you how long that you could stay down there and work. When you were getting "hot,' a light bulb would burn, when you held it in your hand.
S P Jones was a supervisor, he would 'bird dog' the men and lean over the edge of that pit. I warned him that his head get all the radiation that was rising out of the pit. It did not show on his film badge that was on his chest. He ignored me.
I told him that I had a full dose on my film badge and was coming out of the pit. He said, "I'll tell you when to come out!" I answered that it was my life, not his, and I was on my way out. I kept climbing. He had a pickup ready and took me down to fire me for disobeying orders. The Union president, Levy convinced them that they couldn't. Levy was a good President, he stood up for us.
S P Jones got sick before long. He didn't die quick.
I was safety man and all the men thought that I was fussing at them to much. Safety man was rotated among us men, a month at a time. I wanted the union to sue the company, or do something about the deaths. The union wasn't interested. I thought that they might be, ''Sleeping with the enemy"
There were safety measures everywhere. There was a geiger counter in the corner of a room.
We noticed that it was going off regularly. We watched and saw that a spider was weaving his web. As he went past that geiger counter; it would sound off. They had us put that spider in a jar. We punched little holes in the lid and they flew it to Wright Patterson Field in Ohio.
The story was running along in the funny paper every day- just about what we were doing. It was a picture story about workers trying to make a nuclear airplane fly. It was telling what we were doing every day. We talked about it and went to a boss. It was all very secret and some one had to be telling what we were doing. In a very few days, in the funny paper, that plane crashed.
It wasn't heard of, in the funny paper again. And never in the daily news.
I was issued a special 'crash pass.' I still have the bright red card, to allow me to get up to the crash site of an airplane with radiation or a reactor. We learned how to get in behind the lead shields, and 'work in their shadow' on the airplane, if they were still in place. I am very thankful that I never was called to use that crash pass.
We experimented medically. A small piece of metal would be 'radiated' and then placed in a persons body for a day or so, it would kill the cancer in that body. And yet radiation can cause cancer.
Kathi had thyroid problems. She drank some meicine that had been radiated and it helped her.
I listened to all their warnings, I respected them. Most of the men scoffed at the idea that something that you couldn't see; would hurt you. We took a piece of steel and radiated it. It had little holes, like a sponge, that we could see,--all through it.
We went to see E L Duke in the hospital, his stomach was very swelled. He didn't live long.
He was the one that laid his apple up on the lead shields, inside the red line. He leaned back against the 'hot' shield, to be in the shade and eat his lunch..
When I retired, GD sent me a letter telling how many 'MRs' of radiation that I received. I know that I received a way more than they said.
MOVE DOWN IN STORY
After I retired, I got a job at San Angelo for Mitsubishi.They wanted me to gather other retired GD employees to work there. I had all their old numbers and I called. I got their widows,"He has died. or in poor health."Over and over. The other workers never were as cautious as I thought they should be.
I never found anyone who wanted to work at San Angelo.
F-11, best in the world First flight
Ostricher was the test pilot at Edwards AFB on the Mojavie desert in California. The F111 had never made a flight, it was making a 'ground run' test. It was not to get it's wheels off the ground. Ostricher was making his run, a sudden burst of wind lifted it, scraped the end of the wing and took the plane into the air. The pilot flew it on around the field and landed it safely. He exclaimed that the plane flew better than any he had ever flown. He saved the plane from crashing.
I was watching and it was chilling to see how close it come to crashing. He saved it. Later,
Phil Ostricher and Knight were test pilots, they asked me what planes I had flown. They wanted me to fly the F-11 to show it's simplicity. Fort Worth wouldn't let me do it, on account of their insurance.
The B58 taking off, it's wings were extended. In the air the wings could be swept back and it would go faster. They wanted a test on sweeping back just one of its wings while it was in flight. I built the solenoid switch that could suddenly cut the two inch fuel line to each engine. I was in the cockpit seat when that test was run on the ground. Full speed engines and suddenly cut one side off. I almost refused to do it, on the ground. The plane gave a hard jerk. I thought that I knew what it would do when it had that test in the air.
Fitzgerald, a test pilot who lived down the street from us, was to receive $10.000 for doing it in the air, over Oklahoma. He talked to me about it, he almost refused to fly it.That $10,000 won him over
The other wing broke off and it disegenerated, in the air. No one survived. Volunteers searched for weeks, all over southern Oklahoma, there were pieces. They found most of them, brought them and laid them out in a big drawing on the hanger floor.
The next day after the crash, they had a big awards ceremony that had been planned and set up for weeks. To all of us 'who had did such good work in building the B 58.' It sure made us feel bad. I made several landing gear and viberator gage suggestions. I did not get copyrights or pay for them. They said that was my job to figure out things like that, and I got paid every week.
Years later, Ryan and Nathaniel got to flying radio control airplanes from kits. I wanted to fly too. I remembered the old tests and cut my own body and wing patterns. I made a number of radio control planes and never bought a kit. The other model flyers couldn't believe anyone could do that.
F16 That plane could refuel in the air. It could guide another plane; right up to it's spout, so smooth.
The buzzard
No 9, B58 was comeing in over Lake Worth and hit a buzzard. It hit a window post and broke the glass. Some of the mess got on the co-pilot. I was the one to post-flight it--immediately. You never smelled anything that would compare to it.
Pressure checks on the ground
An electrician setting in the closed cockpit wasn't watching his guages. Pressure built up in the cockpit and knocked him out. An employee noticed him slumped over and he run up on the stand and grabbed the door handle. The door popped open and broke his arm, it saved that electricians life. An ambulance carried him off. Slow pressure can build up and kill you. It's very dangerous.
I did not like to set in the cockpit and watch all the instruments. There was to much to watch and to many things to go wrong. I did it for nearly every plane that we built. There was always a dial or something for me to especially watch for. I operated flaps and alerons, everything. Any time I left the cockpit, I cut the power off.
We always had a good garden. In 1975 I was digging sweet potatoes in the fall. Some were real big. Louise called the Azle newspaper and they come and took a picture of me, that potato weighed seven and a half pounds. They laughed at me at work so I took the potato out there. One of the supervisors said that his wife made real good sweet potato pies. He took the potato home with him and brought back a delicious pie that we shared.
The air force pilot
They hired an experienced F-111 pilot from the army, for a supervisor. I was setting in the cockpit for tests. He told me to 'sweep the wings'. The airplane wings actually folded back along side the body of the airplane. When that was done in the air, the plane went much faster. I told him that the wing tanks were full and unless you get maintance to tie the nose down good--the wings could not be swept.
It would kick the nose up.
"I've got more time flying this plane in the air---------. You sweep the wings now!"
I answered, "I refuse, I will get out and you can sweep them,."
I got out and moved the stands for the workers out of the way and yelled for everybody to stay back.
He crawled in the cockpit The wings started back and weight of the fuel in the wings, it made the nose go straight up. I cut the power-quick. The outboard fuel tanks were damaged as they scraped the cement. Fuel was running everywhere and a spark would have exploded us all. He called for me to turn the power back on so that he could sweep the wings up and get out. I refused. It did $100,000 damage to that plane, both engines on the tail, the wing tips and two afterburners.
He had to set in that 'straight up' F-11 for about two hours, until we could get maintance to bring a crane and reach up and get him down. The fire dept was washing the fuel and trying to make it safe.
He got down and rushed to the main office. They sent a runner for me. Johnson said,"Moore, I thought that you knew better than to sweep the wings." I said, "I do know better. I did not do it. Did he say that I swept those wings?" Johnson jumped between us, "Now there will be no fighting."
He admitted that he swept the wings. Johnson had him get his things and go down into the building.We heard that he was to be boss over a bunch of women that were building small parts.
Flo meter
A flo meter with propeller, in the tank of ship 9 had quit working. I took it out and brought another one and was replaceing it. Bob Bryden the general foreman come along and turned the power on and sprayed me. I shore got mad at him. I was soaking wet, jet fuel, it was stronger than gasoline. A spark could have caused an explosion. I jumped out and stripped off, right there. Someone brought me a coat and took me in a pickup to go get a bath and dry clothes. I was lucky that I was smart enough to have on safety goggles. I would have been blinded, 120 octane is strong. (He come home from work that day--wearing G D coveralls.
The tunnel
Several years later,we were driving along the highway to Euless. We were surprised to see a B-36 set in an open park at Midway Airport. No one was around it and Alicea, Benny, Tommy, we all climbed and played on it. The B-36 had a tunnel that run from the cockpit to the aft compartment. There was a tiny flat sled that you lay down on your back and reached overhead and pulled yourself along. Tommy remembers laying on his back and pulling his self along. I, Louise, remember that it was such a long dark way through that big airplane. The plane was soon moved and probably no one has ever been able to play on a B-36 since.
There is not even one in Fort Worth. We did not have a camera with us.
Many places in the B-36 you could plug in and get oxygen. Employees that come to work with a hangover or headache, they would plug in to that oxygen.
Anything go wrong on the B-36, it was generally the twenty third valve. It was located up overhead at the forward end of the bombay doors.
Pigeons
They roosted and made nests in all of the big hangers. The odor got bad, all the hangers smelled like a chicken roost. The humane society wouldn't let them be trapped or poisoned. Their 'droppings' made a mess on the airplanes, our tool boxes and everything. Johnson was general foreman on the first shift. He was completely bald. A big wad from the pigeons, it hit him right on top of his head.
Not long after that, me and another employee were put on the third shift, the only ones on third shift. We used our slingshots to kill pigeons. They bought us special strechy rubber, made to hold fishing trot lines, to make good slingshots. We used modeling clay to roll balls, for ammunition and that didn't hurt if it hit an airplane. We picked up all the birds that fell, some of them didn't and those hangers got a bad smell. Maintanence used ladders to get to them. As we killed them, more flew in. They gradually thinned out.
The wind tunnel
We had set up for a wind tunnel outside and it was very strong. We were testing the YF16 to see where it got it's 'lift'. We found that got it's lift from the top side of the wing.
I remembered that, when I was making model airplanes. And it worked.
There were danger signs around the plane. To get to the rest room, we had to walk along a chain link fence. It was well marked, where it was safe to walk.
I saw George Stephens, a supervisor, get pinned to the fence by the wind. He did not follow that safe walk and had to grab his eyes.We had to cut the fans off to get him out. He liked to have never lived it down.
He liked to play dominoes. It 'beat him so bad' that I could win, nearly every time. We played when we come in early, during breaks and while we were eating lunch. I could beat most everybody.
And they all had more education than me. Sullivan was a good partner, they were very scattering that could beat us. Pinkerton played whenever he had a chance. I don't believe that he could count to ten; without using his thumb and fingers.
Man and Wife
A man and his wife were both employees. They drove to work together, every day into the G D parking lot. Their pickup, it had a camper on the back of it. At lunch time she would come out with her supervisor and they would get into the camper together.
The husband got wind of it. The next day, he parked, backed up, toward a tall chain link fence in one of the big parking lots. The husband watched and they both got into the camper, at noon. He jumped in their truck and backed the camper tight against the fence. He refused to move it, when ordered to. He waited for a good while; until supervisors, guards and a pretty good croud gathered.
The flood
D T Dean lived in an area that had been under water in about 1952. Big sections of Fort Worth flooded. John Pyburn was a big old guy, he was walking on the street in front of his friends flooded house.
Up the street walked a Red Cross guy. Pyburn didn't want his friend to know that he gave him money.
So he asked the Red Cross guy if he would give D T Dean $100.
He said that he would, so Pyburn handed him $100 and walked on, looking at the flood damage. Pyburn come back by and his friend excitedly told him, "The Red Cross just gave me $50."
Pyburn found the guy and got 'a fist full of shirt', and the other $50.
"Well we have administration costs."
Pyburn was riding to work with me. Flood water was over the road. He walked ahead of my car and punched in the water, with a stick; to see that the wooden road bridge was solid.
It was, but it was very dangerous to do that.
One time I had a woman riding to work with us. She got to telling vulgar jokes and I asked her not to. She didn't quit and I told her to find her another ride. She shore got mad.
My dry board
After the second shift, sometimes there was no one working in one of the big hangers. An electricion was to turn the electricity off to that building. I was an electrition. The switch for the 440 volts was outside. I fixed me a three foot board. I nailed a long nail in each side of the end of it. I could hold that board, reach up and hook one of my nails and turn the electricity off and not touch anything that could be 'hot'. I also kept a flat dry board on top of my big roll around tool box. It was about two by three feet. When it was damp or raining , I took my board and stood on it, under the big switch. I took my long board and reached up and cut all the 440 power to that entire big empty hanger. My co-workers usually laughed at me. One night; another electrician went to turn that power off. He was knocked down and burned. They never laughed at me again.
Test Department
We had a real good, big electric wheel grinder. A man was working and his hand slipped and he jabbed his hand into the grinder. He was shoving pretty hard. It ground three of his knuckles off, on his right hand. Our restrooms had big rollers with re-rolling cotton cloth towels. Jim Kusack run in and used his pocket knife to cut off a long length of the clean cotton towel. He wrapped the bleeding hand. Medical help was there quick. The company made Jim pay for that towel. It was supplied by a vendor, not company owned. If that man ever come back to work; I never did see him.
Radar
We experimented with radar. We could see over the rim of the continent.
A newspaper had blowed up against the fence at the water tower on Azle Avenue, 5 or 7 miles away.
We could read the small print with our radar.
We were experimenting with the first lazer beam. We were excited that it would shoot across the sky, so many uses that we antisipated. We were disappointed to find that it wobbles and is not stable.
2013, in the paper and on TV, pictures of lazer beam coming from the ground and setting an airplane on fire. They said that it cost $1 a shot. What about all the experimenting and work on it since we were working on it 65 years ago?
2015, more publicity about lazers. You all remember that Thel worked on it, in the beginning. And after eye surgery, lazers are now used to remove thin film from the finished eye. So many uses have been found, since they started experimenting with it.
Once the automatic sprinkler system come on in the big main building. That building was a little more than half a mile long. It was like a heavy rain. I got under something but every thing else got soaking wet. Something went wrong with the main control.
We could build it
The engineer would figure out something different. Us machinists worked closely with the engineers. We would build, untill we got what-ever the engineers wanted. If it turned out right, to work better, they would turn, the what-ever that we built, over to 'production'. More would be made. Sometimes they would throw away what we made. We had a good machine shop and could build anything that they thought up.
One of the janitors was black, he was a good one, we all liked him. His last name was 'White'. A new hire come to the department, we would introduce him as 'The blackest White man that you ever saw.'
Top secret card.
I had to get a top secret card. About one fourth of my work was under secret. I had to list all my relatives, where they were living and where they worked. I don't understand why most of it was secret. It didn't amount to nothing that I could see. But I'm still not supposed to talk about any of it. If I had it to do over again, I would not get a top secret card.
The first AWAC, the planes with the big round- sticking up on top.
I built the first AWAC aentena, I used a big piece of 5'8 inch micarta. That is heavier and stronger than plywood. I chalked a string from corner to corner. I cut and then filed it kinda close.
I set the mill on it's slowest speed.
I worked in 12 hour shifts, no one else was allowed to work on it. It was 12 foot across, I cut it perfectly round. I would glue some wire in, wrap it and glueing it down, as I went.
The antena was the wire that I stuck onto that piece of micarta. The finish was sprayed on with a paint gun. It worked and was installed on many airplanes. They fly thick around Oklahoma City.
The flying saucer
People scoff about them. I knew all about them, hover, spin, fast, slow. If it was close enough, it had magnetic pull that could kill car engines. It was all built in an aircraft factory. It had six rocket engines, in a circle, around the edges.
I helped pre flight it and put it in the air. If that fuel got on you, it was like acid, it burned to the bone. You had people standing by; with water to wash you and you'd likely still end up with a blister. We wore cloth gloves then rubber gloves, hoods on our coveralls and fresh air pumped in
The fox
We ate our lunch at 7 on the second shift. We liked to set on the east side of the big hanger, in the shade
Between the runways they didn't keep the grass short. There were no chug holes, sometimes they would taxi on the grass. Rabbits would come out and eat the grass between the runways. Once in a while we would see a fox. He would nearly always catch him a rabbit. That rabbit would squeal!
We would throw part of our lunch out and the fox would come close enough to get it. There was probably more than one fox.
Anytime we went into an airplane, we did not take our tool box with us. We put the tools that we thought that we would need in a canvas bag. There was to be no chance of 'FOD', any 'foreign object' being left on the plane. Several crashed because of that. Before we went up on a plane, they 'shook us down'. We emptied our pockets into a special container.
We were not supposed to wear a ring while you were working. You could be climbing around on the plane and hang your ring--and cut your finger off. I lost two good rings, that Louise gave me. I really hated loosing the heavy rose gold wedding ring that her Aunt Viney gave her.
I was working in a 'tight place' in a plane and I found a good pocket knife that someone had left. No one claimed it, because they would get in trouble for leaving it there.
Rev J.Frank Norris, the biggest, well known Babtist preacher, ever in Fort Worth was close to the Ku Klux Klan. From his pulpit one Sunday, Norris invited the Texas Grand Dragon to lead prayer. He gave thanks for Norris life and boldness, to choruses of "Amen". By 1926, the Klan had dominated Texas politics and Tarrant County for five years. The Fat Stock Show even had "Klan Day".
F-11
Pete Karade, a supervisor, a full blood Italian was showing an engineer around, in the building.
"See this seat pin right here. Don't pull this pin." And he pulled it! It was 70 ft to the roof, it didn't quite go that far. We were lucky that the ejected seat went to one side of us, that no one got hurt.
Auto pilot An F111flew to Edwards and back without a pilot in the seat. No problem.
Clovis, New Mexico
Several of us was sent to Clovis with two F-111s for a bunch of tests at their big Air Force base.
Two unmanned F-111 planes flew together and crashed. We were to figure out why. They both started out in different states. We found that they made the mistake of telling the computers on the planes to meet over a certain place. It was all so accurate that they crashed together, run head on-- at that exact certain place.
We had two big Allison engines that run on butane, to run the generators to make power to pull the engines through-- to start the airplanes.They had four prongs the size of my finger.
I went to work at 3:45pm, just as a storm warning come in. We started our two planes and they flew out, to an airfield where there was no storm.
The air force asked us to help start theirs. We took our generators and went down their line of airplanes. It took us over an hour to start them all. They took off toward the taxi and runways and just kept going. We just barely got done and it started hailing, big marble size hail! It got half knee deep!
I never saw hail big enough to hurt an F-111. It had been a warm day and we had no coats, we like to have froze. Driving back to our motel at 12:45pm, ---the hail had not froze together. Cars would slide around and I couldn't hardly drive. I remember that I drove eight miles an hour.
Twice in one day
I was on the third shift, in the engineering building, standing by a recorder. A recorder helped us figure where the airplane got most of it's lift.
440 electric lines run over the floor. On the aisles, there were protective wooden covers to lay over the lines. That was to protect them from tractors that sometimes run down the aisles.
A fork lift come along and run over an unprotected line, the driver should have known better.
It cut through, on the inside--the hot lead got next to the ground. The heat from the short, made the rubber insulation on the outside, swell. That rubber insulation swelled. It got as big as a two gallon bucket, before it exploded. I was ten foot away, looking right at it, but it still unnerved me. It almost burst my eardrumbs, like a bomb.
Two hours later a maintance man was working on the lighting system, 72 foot over my head.
He slipped and fell and brushed my left sholder, just enough for me to feel it. He hit the floor.
His short death scream, as he come down, I can't ever forget; nor the 'thud' of that man hitting the cement floor. I turned and saw him dead.
How many times have I went through that scream and the sound of him hiting the floor--in a dream. After that I kept a watch out and never stayed under an overhead worker.
Union Rep
As a union representative, I had lunch with Nixon and a bunch of others. I remember his bad language the most. At lunch with Hubert Humphrey, he talked nice, about churches and schools.
Lyndon Johnson come to the union hall, when he first run for office. We lined up and met him. He looked us in the eye and repeated our name. The next time that he saw us--he could call our name. "You men are the backbone of the country! Keep up the good work!" He come back to see us after he was President too. He was smart, I liked him.
The day that John F Kennedy was killed, I was up close. I was watching in the croud as he spoke from a balcony in Fort Worth. The union had strongly requested that we be in that croud, watching. I had got back home, Benny and Sharon were there and we had just eat dinner. It was several months before Benjamin was born. Sharon was ironing and watching 'As the World Turns' on tv, Louise didn't watch it
Walter Kronkite broke in, "President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas."
I had been worried about that--when he stood in the open and spoke in Fort Worth.
We at General Dynamics knew about the invasion that was to take place at 'The Bay of Pigs'. We fueled the planes that were loaded with guns and amunition that were to be used in the invasion of Cuba. that was in April 1961. The CIA trained 1,000 Cuban exiles in Guatemala. They were determined to overthrow Castro's government, which had siezed power in Cuba, 28 months before. Kennedy called our planes that were in the air, loaded with men and guns, and on the way to 'The Bay of Pigs' in Cuba--to come back. Because of his indecisive leadership, many people lost their lives there. Many people hated Kennedy after that. The consensus around G D was that, 'the Cuban fiesco' was what caused Kennedys death, in October. One of his 'lady friends' reported later, that he told her, "I had rather my grand children be "Red than Dead".
October 1962 was the height of the cold war and many people feared that any nuclear war would kill us all. An American U-2 spy plane flying high over Cuba, had snapped pictures of Soviet ballistic missile sites that could launch nuclear warheads at the United States, just 90 miles away.
Nikita Khrushchev warned Kennedy. He threatened President Kennedy with war. "Russia will give all necessary help--to repel the attack on Cuba."
John F Kennedys Father had told the Mafia, that if they would do their part in insuring that he would get elected in 1960-- the President would 'look the other way', when it come to mob crimes.
The President appointed his brother, Bobby as US Attorney general and he began to clamp down on the Mafia. The Mafia had to get rid of the Kennedys. There was a lot of 'back-room' deals and rumors.
Oswald was promised a position as General in Fidel Castows cabinet. He was killed because he knew 'to much' about the Mafia. 26 people were killed because they knew or had information about it.
There were many such stories. But in the 50 years since, it has come to light that there was 'behind the scenes diplomacy'. The United States removed missles from Turkey, near the Soviet border. They were aimed at Russia. Then Russia moved the missles in Cuba, that were aimed at the US.
Now in 2015, Rhoul, Fidel's brother is still leader. They still won't cooperate.
We also, pre flighted the big cargo planes that took food on the big airlift to the starving people in the Berlin Germany, blockade.
Safety officer
The company hired a black machinist that had long hair. He was working on a whirling lathe in the machine shop. I, as safety officer talked to him about wearing a hair net. He refused and took a three day layoff; and for the second time. The company took a picture and fired him. The NAACP brought a descrimination suit. The union wouldn't be on his side either. He never would wear a hair net or cut his hair. he did not get his job back. The NAACP seemed to start lots of lawsuits like that.
Kangaroos
I 'lucked' into that job. 57 F-11 were sold to Australia. Six of their military pilots at a time, come over here with their crews. The 'Aussies' learned how to fly the F-II and repair them and then they flew them back to Australia. Then another bunch would come over. One bunch, of "Roos' just wanted to have fun and loused around, and me waiting. I finally told them,"If you want to learn this, get in here now- no more jokes." They spoke English but it was hard to understand. They called a car hood 'a bonnet'.
Edwards A F B
Me and an engineer was to be sent to Edwards Air Force Base for a month. I refused to go and they tried to fire me. The engineer was a woman, she dressed and tried to act like a man. Her language was awful. I couldn't stand to be around her. The union stood behind me. The union contract said that volunters should be asked for--first. I was 'off the hook.'
100 year storm
A lot of testing was done on the flat open desert at Edwards in California. Louise and I were going to live out there for a year. A friend rented a trailer for us in Lancaster, fifteen miles south of the big base. I drove out there alone, I had to be there on a certain day. It come a '100 year storm'. I kept driving in the snow. I got to our trailer in time to beat the snow off the front door canopy, before it would have broke it down. The whole base was closed, they couldn't fly in the deep snow for eight days. There were marked paved runways but also acres of hard flat sand that they could fly on.
When it rains, every five or twenty years, water stands in places. In a few days the water teems with wiggly things, many kinds of tiny shrimp. Before the water evaporated, the tiny shrimp lay eggs and die. They have had their 'life cycle.' The sand is hard and dry for years and years. Then it rains and the shrimp cycle, it happens again
(Years later, Thel told that at a Bluegrass jam of ten or twelve people, and it amazed everyone. One couple couldn't believe it, they didn't say much. The next night they brought a story that they printed off the innernet about those many kinds of tiny shrimp. Ceta and David said that Thel could tell them anything: and they would always believe him, from now on)
Louise and Richard drove out to California, the next week. He was in the Marines and going overseas soon. We sat on our couch and watched our coffee table sway. It was a small earthquake.
Benjamin and Gina lived about 150 miles south, in Escondido. They has year round school and had a month off, every three months. They would ride the Greyhound bus up to San Bernadino. Louise would drive the 59 miles and bring them on to see us. They never had a problem.
I, Louise, called our rented trailer, a 'tin can'. Gina was afraid that someone would pull the metal back, break into the trailer. They had new better apartments, jammed up new apartments, several stories high. I called them 'chicken coops'.I wouldn't even consider living in one of them,wouldn't look at them
Thel drove us to California City, just north of Edwards base, looking for a place that suited us better. We rented a two bedroom house. The yard was gravel, the whole town was. Once I was walking to the mail box in front of the house, 7601 Exavier. The wind blew the gravel on my legs. I looked down, I thought they would be bleeding. Joe and Lorene loaned us a couch and chairs and things.
The town was built over an underground lake. The water bill was low and they encouraged wattering. It was sparcely beautiful and we loved the strange little town.
Joe and Lorene visited us from 'down' in Los Angeles where they lived. They had a motor home. It was about the first one that we had ever seen. Lorene would stock it with all kinds of good food. They didn't want me to have to cook anything, but I did. Joey was about 8 and Bradley was 6.
They had small motor bikes, Joe and Lorene had larger ones. Joe had figured ways to fasten them all on the outside of their motor home. One on the back, it had an old work boot on the handlebar, so that it wouldn't scratch the motor home.
Joe was rushing to get the bikes all loaded, they needed to start home. Lots of people come north, out of L A for the week end. There was lots of traffic, to 'get back down the mountain', on Sundays late. They especially liked my chocolate pie. We had ate it all. I had some empty crusts baked. I quickly cooked the filling and poured it into the baked crust. I cut a piece and Bradley grabbed it. He hollared as it went down. It was to hot!
Thel got him a motor bike, then I wanted one and Benjamin too. From our house, we cut across a block and then there was acres, miles, that we could ride. Streets had been laid out, graded and named, for lots to be sold, several years before. It didn't happen. With the high desert conditions, the streets that had been laid out, they just set there. There was not enough rain to wash the roads out. Mostly they were straight. There were two or three small 'buttes' and the roads curved around them. Mostly sand but some places had rocks that I thought were pretty. But then, I think that all rocks are pretty.
Marie talked about us being in a motorcycle gang. Thel said "Yes, a Granma, a Granpa and a grandson and two boys, 6 and 7 and their parents."
There were no houses, no trees, just grey sagebrush, blue sky, mountains away off and no clouds.
When Benjamin wasn't there, I never rode alone. I took a three day class and started painting, not oil, acrylic. I wanted it now! I could look any direction and see something that I wanted to paint.
I started exercising with Jack Lalane. Benjamin laughed at us. "Grama, he forgot to tell you to breathe." I stayed busy. So many wives set and complained, about something, anything, everything.
The big desert turtles lived on the desert, they had protected akreage. But they crawled every place. They get as big as a dishpan.Thel and Joe come into their motor home and there was two inches of sand in their bathtub. It had a turtle in it, about as big as a plate. Joe said, "I hope they put the plug in the bathtub first."
They named him Galileo, for the park where they got him from. Back home in their back yard, they fed him lettuce for a couple of months. They heard that it was not legal, so they brought him back to the desert. They made him a house under a piece of tin and left him with extra lettuce. The next time they come, Thel was watching, unbelieving. They called,"Gallileo, Galileo."The sand slowly started moving and a turtle crawled out and eat lettuce. Thel watched them do that for several months.
Gina loved us but not the desert and motor bikes. She said,"If I go home, Benjamin would have more fun." So I took her back to the bus in San Burnadino and she come less often.
Sometimes Benjamin and I would get on our bikes and leave at 7, when Thel left to work. It would be cold. The big old golden sun would come up, with the cold haze, we could look right at it. We would know that it would soon be hot. I would bring some 'left overs' and we could stay out, as long as we wanted to. We never saw anyone on the roads or anywhere. Benjamin and me, we had us a time. We would see many 'horney frogs'.They are a vishus looking spiney flat lizzard with horns, that never gets bigger than your hand. Their short little legs move fast, as they run along kinda slow. I have played with them all my life. We gathered three or four and made a little pen for them. They could climb out.
One day we run across a horney frog when Joe's family was all there. They were agast that I picked it up. I laid it upside down on my pants leg and gently rubbed its tummy. It went right to sleep.
They took a picture! Their favorite food is red ants. They sit at the ant den and flick their long tongue out and get a red ant to eat. I have read that, never seen them do it. I have seen them at the red ant den.
2011 there are no more red ants, here in Granbury, the fire ants have run them off. There are no more horney frogs here either. Stanley says he still has both at his River Ranch, on the Colorado River seventy five miles west. The fire ants haven't reached there yet.
Benjamin, he got to riding over the humps of sand where grass roots held the sand. He got braver and went faster. I was behind him, one hump was bigger and he come down and got throwed off his bike- over the handlebars. It knocked the wind out of him. I got to him, and he got his breath. "Whew, I thought that I was dead." He slowed down for a while, he never was a real daredevil.
Lorene and I were back fixing dinner. Joe was racing with Joey and Brad. On a straight little road, they couldn't see the dip in it. The boys made it, but Joe went over the handlebars and scooped his big plastic helmit full of sandy gravel. Thel caught up and Joey was trying to get his Daddy to breathe. Thel unsnaped his helmit and jerked it off, and dug the gravel out of his mouth and told him to get up on his knees. Thel took Joe to the hospital at Lancaster, he went and got him the next day.
He was stiff but ok, still found sand in his mouth. It took more motorbike riding to get the stiffness out. The Doctor there at the hospital, from his experience, he called motorcycles 'murder cycles'. We all loved it and kept riding.
Big, 100 or more in the big motorcycle clubs, would bring 20 or more Port-A Potties and camp together, on the desert. They would mark their own route and have their own races. One man raced with his dog on his handlebars. It was pretty to watch their dust as they spun around in the desert.Loud!
One laid out race, Thel saw an old open well. He marked it well with some old boards. Many years before, people had lived, very scattering, around on the open desert.
One big bunch camped in town. They slept under their trucks. There; in that desert where it rains maybe once ever two or five years, that night it come a howling windy rain and soaked them all.
Twenty Mule Team Borax comes from an open mine about 20 miles east of California City. It is used in soap making. The biggest hole that you ever saw. You could stand at the fence and look down. As their dump trucks drove the circular road that was cut around the edge, to carry their load out, you realized that they were at least-twice as big as ordinary trucks. There were lots of brick buildings and offices that are above ground. Lots of old pictures of the old '20 mule teams that were used to pull wagons of the borax, in the past. There were old roads that still had the deep ruts, from the big old heavy wagons of the past.
There was a union and a strike at the big mine. They stopped traffic that might be strikebreakers. There was a helicopter that tried to see that Edwards employees were not stopped on their way to work. Our next door neighbor kept working at the Borax place. He said that his family had to have the money. When the strike was over, the union let him keep his job, but they made him pay back the money that he made as a strkebreaker.
Before Thel went to California, he went to see Wilma and Henry. He had heart trouble pretty bad. Thel explained to Wilma that when he went out there; he had to sign that he wouldn't miss their important work for things like funerals. She said that she understood.
That spring it had come more rain on the desert than usual. The flowers were all blooming.
The flowers on the desert are sort of like the tiny shrimp. Unless it rains at least a half an inch of rain, the seed will not germinate. With that half an inch they can grow, mature and make seed, to grow again.
Somewhere I still have the sketch book of flowers that I drawed our Easter week end on the Mojavi Desert. I had seen about half the flowers, back in Texas, lots of bluebonnets. Joe and Lorene come with their motor home and parked it in the midst of the flowers, on the desert. Thel and I and Dock and Bill went the four miles back to our house to sleep. Darice and Alicea and her husband Bob Goldberg were there. Darice was trying to shoot a tin can with a BB gun.
We all went home. Lee and Annie drove up to our house, about that time. Henry had died. Thel told Lee that he would loose his job if he missed work. My Daddy wasn't in good health and I wanted to go and see him. So I crawled in with Lee and Annie. Lee mostly drove but the last 50 miles he got to sleepy. When I drove up to Mama and Daddy's house in Azle, I was tired.
I got Lee and Annie settled in their other bedroom and I was making up the couch in their living room for me to sleep on. Tommy drove up. He had drove in from Leesville, Louisiana.
He said' "I am not going to sleep with my Mama." I said, "You can sleep on the floor then," as I fell asleep on the couch. I never did know where he slept.
At Edwards Air Force base in California, Prince Charles was flying the F-16 . They were testing the F-16s that we were going to sell to England. I pre flighted the plane that he flew. He would tell me if a certain gauge was on 0, and I could make adjustments. I stood around and talked to him, he was a common ordinary old boy, seven years younger than me.
2012 the F-16 looks the same but it has many electronic upgrades. One example is the helmet-mounted cueing system. A pilot need only look in one direction, lock onto a target and fire automatically while keeping his right hand on the stick. With the miniaturization of electronic circuitry, the equivalelent of several dozen personal computers are now at the pilots beck and call.
The Fighting Falcon first flew in December 1976. Lockheed Martin has delivered 4,500.
And still making them in the year of 2015.
The B-58 was a four engine jet, it had three seats in line. We were working on one that was ready to be pulled out of the hanger. We heard engine trouble and we run outside and looked. Another B-58 was taking off, it got in the air and come down hard and busted the landing gear. It caught fire, there were flames 100 feet high.
The plane had a full load of fuel. It went airborn again for a quarter mile with fuel streaming.
The plane run off from the fire and then as the plane slowed down, the fire caught up with it.
The middle man ejected and went straight up. He come down in the stream of fuel that was on fire.
He gave a terrible scream as he come down into those flames. He was right in front of us. The flames quickly passed on. I run out and grabbed him and set him on a bucket. The flesh on his face was dropping off. By then the crash trucks got there and he was dead. I go thru that in a dream too.
I can't ever forget the smell of that burning man or his one terrible scream, either.
Whenever a plane took off--a fire truck did too. Starting right beside it.
I never did like the B-58, compared to the other planes. I thought that they were 'sorry built'. They wanted me to set in one of the window observations when it made a test flight. I refused and Union President Levy told them that I didn't have to fly in it. He would stand up to the company, for the union men. He was a good president.
There were guards at the gate, sometimes they had you open your lunch box for inspection. One man had to open his big thermos bottle. It was plum full of little screws that he was stealing. Some one must have told on him.
An employee showed off the foot long radio car that he had made. It was a radio controled, the first time that we had seen that. We were amazed that he could guide it, fast or slow, running around over the floor. A supervisor looked at it and found that it was made of Convair parts and materials. They made him take it apart and fired him. The union got his job back for him.
My feet and legs were bothering me, so much standing and climbing in and out of airplanes.
I saw how other men had 'broke down on the job'. The last two years I worked at GD, I took 27 cents an hour cut in pay, to be able to set at a bench and wire pannels that would go on the airplane.
The man next to me had a radio that was to loud and not my kind of music. We had an argument and he quited down. The company had a rule that there could be no talking between us employees, as we set there. That rule got changed.
At the end of our shift we were to take a broom and clean the mess, if we made any, around our stool. Some of the men refused- that was not in their job description. They were not going to be janitors. I laughed at them. If the company wanted to pay me 'machinest wages' to sweep the floor, to clean up my own mess, it was fine with me.
I owned three small airplanes, at different times, a Taylorcraft and two Aeronicas.
I belonged to the Civil Air Patrol for a while, flying my own plane. It had to many rules to suit me.
Once we were searching for a man who had disappeared with his airplane. His wife was really worried. We found his airplane at the little Mineral Wells airport. He was up in the Baker Hotel with a lady friend. We had a discussion as to what to tell his wife, when we found him. The man who actually found him said, "We went to a lot of work, looking for him! Hell Yes, I'm going to tell her."
Hap Foster owned a little airfield SE of Fort Worth. I kept my Aeronica Champ there.
I sold it to T Kiper III, before he bought it, he flew it over near Dallas. I went with him. His family owned several homes on a hillside. So they would notice him, he buzzed dangerously low over them. I took over the controls and went back to the airport. He shore was mad. He bought my plane and then he could fly it like he wanted to. He left it there, in the same rented space.
He went alone to start it, without tying it down. It started and run into the back of Hap Fosters twin engine Cessna. Hap Foster got mad at me, untill he learned that I had sold my Aeronica Champ.
T Kiper III is still paying on it, if his Mama didn't pay it. I had insurance on my plane, he didn't.
Hap Foster was planning to fly to San Francisco and back. I was going with him but Joyce and Notchie were comming that week end and I didn't go. He had his plane set on cruise. The altitude was set to low. It hit in the top of a big tree on the side of a mountain in Colorado. He was not hurt bad and walked off for help. He froze to death. Was that a narrow escape for me??? Or I might have saved him.
I had an Aeronica Chief tandem and first kept it at the small Springtown, Keezer airport. I was flying alone when I got shot; a hole in the wing. That was a shock! The fuel was really leaking, I transfered to the forward tank and the overhead tank. I didn't know there was a nudist colony due west of Keezer. I didn't fly over it again.
Once we went over night to Tommys at Oklahoma City. I tied my plane down at a small airport on this side of town. Ryan was a baby, they showed us little bumps on his legs. They were fixing to take him to the doctor. Tommy was setting on the floor with him and saw a flea on Tommy's leg. They lived back up to a big field, where the fleas came from. Tommy could have sprayed the house his self, but not to be 'baby safe'. Tommy didn't really have the money but he paid to have it sprayed, to be safe for Ryan.
Ryan loved flying, the wind in his face-he wanted to just keep flying. Tommy held him and Thel took him up and around 'one more time'. He kicked and cried to stay in the plane with his Granpa. The weather was closing in and we had to leave.
We stopped at an airport at Denton and I talked to a pilot who had just flew in from Fort Worth. He thought the clouds were thin enough for us to fly there. Louise wanted us to keep going, she didn't see anything dangerous. By the time we got back to Azle, we were flying low and following 730 farm road. At the little airport, they knew I had planned to come in and they were watching for us.
They almost reported me- for flying in such bad weather.
Me and Benjamin had flew up around Possum Kingdom and I got low on gas. The gauge showed empty, I stopped at Hicks field and filled up.
Dr Luck owned Luck Optical and Luck Field, It was on the south side of Fort Worth, just west, along side of I 35. I was keeping my plane there and had just took off and started to land again. He was drunk and drove his car up and down the runway, so that I could not land. I flew over to Arlington and called Meacham control tower. They flew to Luck field and he wouldn't let them land either. They sent the police and arrested him. They made him turn the field over to his son.
Me and Charlie Wilkerson were in the air, we radioed into the big new DFW airport and told them that we wanted to land and get a cup of coffee. They told us that it would be the most expensive cup of coffee that we ever had. There was a landing fee of $50. None of the other fields charged anything. I circled the field and landed at Arlington.
I was making 'good money' at General Dynamics and I worked all the overtime that I could get. I got a lot of pleasure out of my airplanes and flying. Louise and Benny and Tommy didn't get much fun out of flying. Richard did, he was always wanting me to do 'something exciting'.