Jet Age by Sam Howe Verhovek

Author:Sam Howe Verhovek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2010-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

Johnston was on his way to an interview with the Boeing Airplane Company, where he would soon become a test pilot for both the B-47 Stratojet and the forthcoming B-52 Stratofortress, an eight-engine jet behemoth that would be able to fly halfway around the world without refueling. Barely a year into his new job, the dangers of the occupation got brought home in a most tragic way to Johnston and the other test pilots. One of their colleagues, E. Scott Osler, a former Pan American pilot, was killed when the bubble-shaped canopy of a Boeing XB-47 Stratojet sheared off its moorings in flight and struck him in the head. His copilot managed to get the jet plane down for an emergency landing, but Osler was already dead.

While Johnston started out at Boeing as a pilot of military jets, he would become the chief test pilot for its commercial ventures. And in a forty-two-year career in aviation, he would be best known as the test pilot for Boeing’s first jet airliner—and for what he had done with the prototype Dash-80 on that day of the hydroplane races in 1955, his famous barrel roll.

As Boeing began lining up the heads of airlines to come to Seattle and see the future of air travel, Tex Johnston would turn out to be a perfect ambassador to the air, selling these executives and their chief pilots on the Boeing 707 and his “college of jet knowledge” with his unflagging enthusiasm. He frequently invited his visitors to take the captain’s seat, though he could keep ultimate command with an identical set of controls in the copilot’s seat.

Bill Cook, a Boeing engineer in charge of the high-speed wind tunnel, said Tex Johnston was “a master” during this sales demonstration, especially when a fellow pilot was involved. “The airline pilot would be very much elated, as it was his first exposure to high altitude cruise above the weather,” Cook recalled. “He would have noted the lack of vibration, the low cockpit noise, and the ease of control. This was a sales opportunity never again to be equaled on account of the dramatic nature of the transition from piston engines and propellers to jets.” The airplane was impressive enough on its own, Cook said with a chuckle, “but having Tex in there did help to seal the deal. He had sort of a contagious enthusiasm, if you will. That guy was a born showman.”

Johnston’s counterpart at the de Havilland company, Group Captain John “Cat’s Eyes” Cunningham, was a deft salesman as well, though in a much more understated, British way. No one could possibly imagine the shy, proper Cunningham ever barrel-rolling the de Havilland Comet. While Alvin Johnston reveled in a nickname, “Tex,” that was based on a myth (the idea that he was from Texas), “Cat’s Eyes” Cunningham was embarrassed by his, also based on a fib. His wartime jet-fighting skills, he insisted to anyone who would listen, had far more to do with engineering and radar improvements than to any special powers in his eyes.

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