Senior Birdman: The Guy Who Just Had to Fly.

By Eldon N. Price

Senior Birdman: The Guy Who Just Had to Fly is the autobiography of one man's improbable rise from a humble farming community to the glamour and glitz of southern California, the epicenter of aviation development. Starting with an awe-inspiring moment in a desolate field in western Nebraska, the book will wing you-in Forrest Gump-like fashion-through a series of vignettes that bump into the lives of prominent historical figures like General Omar Bradley, Howard Hughes, even Hugh Heffner. Unedited and as raw as a diary, Senior Birdman jumps like a crop duster from naval pre-flight training to McDonnell Douglas to the launch of the DC-8 Jetliner to numerous fly-by commentaries about people, places, big government and life. If you loved the movie The Aviator, you'll want to climb into the cockpit with Eldon Price-pilot, aeronautical engineer, aerospace executive, and family man-and take this short, literary flight through some of aviation history's defining moments.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 21, 2006
• ISBN: 9780595808540

Eldon N. Price

Eldon N. Price was born in St. Paul, Nebraska. He joined the Navy in 1944 and became a fully commissioned naval aviator. Like Chuck Yeager and other contemporaries, he experienced the exhilaration?and, often, the terror?of flight-testing. With an aeronautical degree from California Polytechnic State University and more than forty years of industry experience, Eldon Price is an expert in aeronautical engineering. During his tenure at McDonnell Douglas, he and others spearheaded the launch of key programs such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM), the KC-10 Supertanker and the Navy Harpoon cruise missile. Mr. Price also invented the speed and altitude calibration system still used with commercial airliners today. Eldon lives in Omaha with Marjorie, his wife of 50 years. He has two daughters and a son, as well as eight grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2006 by Eldon Price

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Contents

FOREWORD

Chapter 1 How It All Began (1940)

2 The Depression Years (1930-1940)

3 My Schooling and the Start of World War II (1941)

4 Flight Preparatory School at Cal Poly (1944)

5 Preflight at Iowa City, Iowa (1944)

6 Primary at NAS Ottumwa, Iowa (1944)

7 Primary NAS at Norman, Oklahoma (1945)

8 Advanced Training at NAAS Kingsville, Texas (1945)

9 NAAS Barin Field, Alabama (1946)

10 NAAS Corey Field, Pensacola (1946)

11 Navy Carrier Qualification (1946)

12 Carrier Landings, USS Saipan (1946)

13 The End Of World War II (1946)

14 Those Days at California Polytechnic (1946-1950)

15 My Single Social Life (1950)

16 Getting Hired by an Aircraft Company (1950)

17 My Initiation into Flight-Testing (1950)

18 The Howard Hughes Riddle (1952)

19 The DC-7 Airplane and the Reunion of Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker and Donald Douglas (1952)

20 The Flight-Test Family at Workand Play (1953)

21 Some Traditions at Douglas Aircraft (1953)

22 Those Flying Missionaries (1954)

23 The Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket (1954)

24 Those Days at Edwards AFB (1954)

25 Testing the AD-5 Bomber (1954)

26 Improving Technology in Flight-Testing (1954)

27 The Solution (1954)

28 Commercial Aviation Milestones (1954)

29 The Advent of Commercial Jet Airplanes (1955)

30 The DC-8 Flight-Test Program (1958)

31 The Winning of My Wife, Marjorie Joyce (1955)

32 Test Programs at NOTS China Lake (1955)

33 Our Friends from the Ice Capades (1954)

34 Our Friends in the Lawrence Welk Band (1959)

35 Gen. Omar Bradley and the Bulova Watch Company (1960)

36 Hugh Hefner and the Big Bunny (1968)

37 The Demise of the Military Aircraft Era (1963)

38 My Initiation into MSSD Marketing (1963)

39 Various Space Program Activities (1963)

40 LBJ and the Dedication of the MSSD Space Center (1963)

41 The Winning Of the Air Force MOL Program (1963)

42 Those Lifting Bodies 

(1963)

43 My Initiation into the Strategic Air Command (1964)

44 Representing Douglas MSSD At SAC Headquarters (1964)

45 The ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) Program (1964)

46 How I Got to Know Warren Buffett (1964)

47 The Colorado Springs Office (1970)

48 The Alaska Alyeska Pipeline (1975)

49 The Western Region Office (1975)

50 Back to Omaha (1979)

51 The KC-10 Program (1985)

52 The Navy Harpoon Missile Program (1985)

53 Other SAC Programs (1988)

54 Field Office Work Had its Surprises

55 Memories of Flying on Commercial Airlines

EPILOGUE

FOREWORD

Last year we were visiting with our daughter, Tracie. In one of our heart-to-heart discussions she said, Dad, do you remember when we were kids and you were always traveling on business? Well, we never knew why you were gone, where you went, and what you were doing. Then, when we asked, you couldn’t tell us. Don’t you think now you can write it down, because if you die we’ll never know.

This got me to thinking. I had to admit that I owed my children, at a minimum, a general explanation for all the times I couldn’t be with them. What I didn’t realize is that my explanation would become a book. Nor did I think that my foray into writing would lead to an autobiography.

I suppose that when some people read these chapters, they might conclude I invented some of these stories. After all, most of these events happened decades ago, some more than 50 years ago. I will be the first to admit that my memory was challenged. I didn’t have written notes to help me, yet I was fortunate to have kept some pictures and other memorabilia. If my memory has erred in any of the details about people I mention, I apologize in advance. I have tried to be as faithful and considerate as possible.

Many of my former colleagues are deceased. Like others before them, they gave their lives in the advance of technology and helped make the United States the world leader in commercial, military and space aeronautics. There were many times while testing airplanes that I could have died. And without question, it is painful to lose a close friend and see a grieving widow at a funeral. It is my hope that these distinguished individuals will not be forgotten and that others close to them might be encouraged to tell their stories, as well.

In conclusion, I hope that you enjoy reading my book and learning about aviation and space history along the way.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would not have been able to write this book without help from special people. My daughters, Tracie and Shan, provided needed encouragement when I was ready to give up the writing because it was too much effort. My wife, Marjorie also read and corrected many of my errors and gave invaluable advice on how to make the text more understandable and rewarding for the reader. My son, Stewart wrote the title and promotional copy, and served as the liaison to the publisher. His colleague, Carey Cockrum shot the photography and designed the cover. Andrea Cranford edited the text. Without everyone’s help, this book would never have come to fruition.

A final word of appreciation goes out to all those who helped advance my career. They are mentioned throughout this book.

From There

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To Here

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1 

How It All Began 

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(1940)

When I was in the second grade, Dad was professor and coach at Dix High School, just east of Kimball, Nebraska. Those were the glamour days of the railroad. The Union Pacific went right through town with double tracks. On Saturdays us kids would go down to the depot and watch the parade of passenger and freight trains going east and west. We would wave to the engineers and they would wave back. In those days the highways were covered with gravel and going forty mph in a Model A Ford was considered fast. If you went fifty-five, you were really daring. Watching those huge train engines going sixty-five and even seventy-five mph was really something! After seeing trains week after week there was no doubt about it; someday we all wanted to be railroad engineers.

One Sunday, Mr. Brothers invited us out to his ranch north of town for dinner. Afterward we climbed into his truck to tour the ranch. As we arrived on a mesa, we could see his herd of horses about half a mile east of us. Then someone noticed a black line on the horizon. What could it be? It was a bright day—no clouds—and it wasn’t the time of the year for a bird flyway. As we watched, the line came closer and got bigger. When it reached the horses, we could distinguish airplanes. Then one plane broke from the formation and dove on the horses, causing them to stampede. As the planes roared above our heads, we could see the pilots’ faces. Finally we cheered. What a day!

The next week we read in the newspaper that the planes were flying across the country—from Kelly Air Force Base in Texas to Hamilton Air Force Base in California. And they were traveling at speeds up to 150 mph. It took a while for that to sink in, but then I realized there was something that could go twice as fast as a train and could go anywhere. It was not bound to the rails like a train.

Later that year fog cover at the Cheyenne airport west of us forced a mail plane to land at the emergency field east of town. Us kids ran out there and sure enough, there was a big biplane—big even by today’s standards. The pilot had an open cockpit that he reached by climbing up two footholds on the side of the fuselage. Forward of the pilot was a cabin. The door was reached by a stepladder to the lower wing and a walkway forward. The cabin was where the mail sacks were carried, and sometimes passengers sat on the sacks.

The emergency airfields were covered by grass and outlined by a fence. There was a tower with a searchlight and a telephone shack below. These emergency fields were usually spaced along the paths of the major railroads and highways. Many times the pilots flew over the rails for guidance, affectionately calling them the iron compass.

We got to see the aviator close up, dressed in leather sheepskin flying gear. While we were taking all of this in, another airplane dropped from the sky and landed. And then a third landed. We had three airplanes at our airport at the same time! After some telephone calls, the pilots learned that the fog had lifted at Cheyenne, and they prepared to leave. One of the town roustabouts was given the honor of swinging the propellers, and after the planes taxied to the end of the field, they roared toward us and went right over our heads, one at a time.

As we walked back to town and talked about all of this, I realized my dreams had changed. No longer did becoming a railroad engineer have any appeal. I wanted to fly one of those big machines that looked down on trains, cars, trucks, and buses and could go anywhere really fast.

We also experienced sobering news. One winter night it was snowing and we heard the roar of an airplane. When we went outside to look, we could see a plane, with its landing lights, trying to fly close enough to read the name of our town on the water tower. Later we heard it crashed attempting to land at Potter, the town east of Dix, and the pilot was killed.

2 

The Depression Years 

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(1930-1940)

Around 1931 we moved from Dix back to Nysted, Nebraska, and lived in a house in town. I think Mom had something to do with Dad not continuing to teach at Dix. Our house was about a half mile north of the farm where Mom’s parents lived on Oak Creek, so we were close to her relatives.

Nysted originally was a Danish town. When mass immigration from Europe occurred, many Danes came to the prairies to start a new life. Besides all the other problems they encountered, they had a language barrier. To insure that these new Danish immigrants made a successful transition into the United States, folk schools were established where the people could go to school and learn English, history, philosophy, law, etc. This instruction was for people beyond the public high school age. Nysted had one such Danish folk school. Besides academics there was an emphasis on physical fitness and a gym hall where students took gymnastics and dance. While local farmers and young adults took some classes, students came from all over the United States, as there were dormitories and a dining room for full-time attendance during the winter months. Across the road was a Danish Lutheran Church that was also a part of the religious study program.

Nysted in its prime also had a livery stable, blacksmith shop, dance hall, barber shop, general store, and some others. The name Nysted was given by the mother of Peter Ebbesen when the people couldn’t agree on other suggestions. The name means new place and many of its citizens came from Nysted in Denmark.

People referred to the thirties as hard times, and they were, for many rural people. On top of this, while the whole country was suffering through a depression, the weather was not good for the farmers. The summers were dry and the farmers relied on rain for the crops. These were the days of the dust bowls in Oklahoma and Kansas, and the winds from the South brought withering heat along with the dust. Sometimes, just when it appeared there would be a good crop, swarms of grasshoppers would descend and eat the corn or wheat. The technology in those days was really primitive and the defense was to scatter sawdust soaked in poison in the weed-filled ditches where the insects multiplied. This method was only partially successful. Sometimes when it appeared there would be a good crop of corn, there would be no rain at a critical time so the corn ears never matured and were not worth picking. In that case the corn stocks were harvested and made into silage that was put into trenches in the ground for ripening. Very few farms had silos because they were expensive.

Farming methods were labor intensive. Many farmers used horses when they didn’t have money to buy tractors. Wheat was harvested in bundles, tied with twine, and then assembled by hand into shocks. I did this one summer and received a dollar a day. Corn ears were picked by hand and thrown against a bang board after which they dropped into the wagon. The ears were then stored in grain bins, built so that there was plenty of space for the air to dry the kernels.

Some farmers tried to make a living on forty acres, and even though they had vegetable gardens, just to earn enough money for the other essentials was a daunting task. I saw one farmer hitch a team to his car and transport his family that way, as he didn’t have the money for gasoline. Some farmers just used wagons or buggies in the summer and sleighs in the winter.

The summers were very hot and the winters very cold. One winter the temperature never got above freezing for a whole month. Our house did not have a full basement, so to install a furnace we had to dig out the clay. The furnace did not have pipes; it just heated the dining room and living room. Our bedroom had no heat so we used hot water bottles when we went to bed, but by morning the water was always frozen.

These were the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. There were government assistance programs like the Works Programs Assistance (WPA), more popularly known as We Poke Along. Participants worked on roads, bridges, dams, and similar structures. For the younger men there was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Camps were erected to house the young men while they worked on parks and various other jobs. There were other programs to help the farmers, and it was common to hear that so-and-so had gone on relief. One of the farmers had gone on relief supposedly because he had a bad heart and couldn’t work. However, when there was an evening of old Danish folk dancing, he was out there with everyone else. These folk dances were fairly rigorous and when the tune was finished, the farmer would walk off the floor holding his heart, to demonstrate his handicap or perhaps to draw sympathy.

Entertainment for most people revolved around the public and Danish folk schools. The public school had grades one through eight and junior high grades nine and ten. The students occasionally put on plays or special activities during the holidays. The folk school had an entertainment night every Thursday during which the students or people in the community with special talent provided the programs. People would bring what food they could afford, and then a buffet concluded the evening event.

Christmas was a special time as the whole community observed the holiday on that evening in the gym hall. Someone would cut a big cedar tree from the creek, and it would be placed in the center of the gym and decorated. This was before electricity; wax candles were prevalent. That evening a man was at constant attention with a pail of water and a pole with a wet cloth at the end to put out any fire caused by the candles. Cedar readily burned. The pastor would tell a Christmas story, there would be dancing around the tree, and bags of candy and nuts would be passed out to the kids. This was all some kids got for Christmas. Some families wrapped items they already owned and passed them around, so the gift tradition was still observed. I remember you could buy various candies for one cent. A nickel would buy a big candy bar or a bottle of pop. Gasoline was about fifteen cents a gallon, and I believe a ton of coal cost around ten dollars. Many people cut trees for firewood or burned corncobs. The pastor of the church had to cut his own wood.

While many people lived this way, our family never experienced real hardship. Dad and Mom had been frugal all their lives and had saved their money, so we lived simply but never lacked for any essentials. Likewise, my Jensen grandparents had two farms—one eighty acres and the creek farm of 120 acres—so they fared reasonably well. People always wanted to visit them, as their hospitality was known throughout the community. It was at this time, though, that Uncle Paul Lassen in Hollywood was out of work and having financial trouble, so Aunt Adelaide and cousin Alice came back and lived on the farm with her parents. Since our house was only a block from the public school, Alice and I came home during the noon hour and ate a hot meal. The rest of the kids ate their cold lunches, which they carried in tin tobacco baskets or syrup pails.

Eventually, the economy got a little better and the lifestyle slowly changed, even in this little town. Some people had phones, but they still used kerosene or portable gas lamps. Finally the Grand Island Electric Power Company built a power line to Nysted. Users had to pay for fifteen kilowatts a month whether they used that much or not. I believe the minimum monthly bill was $2.50. When electricity was installed in the homes many people had a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, but the light from that bulb was a big improvement over kerosene lamps.

We were the first family to get a refrigerator. Before that people would put their butter, milk (for which we paid a farmer five cents a gallon), cream, etc., down in a cellar or in the hole by the water pump. When neighbors would visit and the adults played cards, the summer evenings would end with some type of food and lemonade. I remember one time we visited the Faaborgs and Mrs. Faaborg (Helga) didn’t even have cookies, so she made a meringue and put it on individual soda crackers. That is how hard times really were. The coldest the lemonade could be was the same temperature as the water from the well, which wasn’t very cold after it had been poured from a warm pitcher into warm glasses. Mom made it with ice cubes from our refrigerator, so everyone received a cold drink. This wasn’t a new refrigerator as we got it from cousin Fay Beltzer in Lincoln when she bought a new one. Refrigerators in those days didn’t have a freezer compartment, just space for two trays of ice cubes. I suppose some people envied us for being able to serve lemonade with ice cubes.

One of the things we did each summer that no one else in our community did, was travel. This was before the days of motels, so Dad bought a tent and we spent our nights in the town campgrounds that were used by many travelers. We drove a Ford Model A and the tent was the type that attached to the side of the car. Mom and Dad had cots for sleeping. I slept in the back seat of the car. I can’t remember where my brother Milo slept. Mom cooked hot food over a two-burner Coleman portable gas stove. I believe she had a little oven she could put on top of a burner for cake and cookies. Although the car had a trunk on the back, it wasn’t that big so some luggage was carried on the side running boards. Since it took time to erect the tent and set up camp, we rarely spent just one night when we stopped. If it was a good place, we might spend a week. We made a few trips to Colorado and stayed in Estes Park for weeks and in other Colorado towns that had swimming pools. We also went to Canada one year to visit Uncle Rob and Aunt Ethel. While there we also visited my cousin Heather and Stewart Joyce, and I met Marjorie, my future wife, for the first time. She was just a little girl then. We drove to California to see Aunt Adelaide, Uncle Paul Lassen, and Alice and also visited Peter Ebbesen, Mom’s cousin. We drove up the coast to San Francisco, took the ferry across the bay, and went farther north through the redwood trees. Other trips took us to places like Yellowstone Park and Wyoming and Montana. One summer we went to Moline, Illinois, so that Uncle Anders, Aunt Ellinor, and Jess could go to Denmark for a visit. Uncle Andy had a creamery and two grocery stores in Moline that Dad tended while they were gone.

It was in Moline that I got my first view of how upper-class people lived. I played with the mayor’s children and was shocked to learn that they didn’t eat dinner with their parents. The maid served them dinner, and the parents dined later by themselves. Moline was an industrial city. The Y and S Company made hard licorice sticks there and Buddy L trucks—now collector’s items—were also manufactured there. Made of heavy gauge steel, Buddy Ls were large and had a working steering wheel. Many different models were made and all were functional. The fire engine had ladders and you could pump water through the hoses.

I got my first look at Ford Trimotor airplanes at the Moline airport. There were two airlines, NAT and TAT. I believe they were National Airline Transport and Trans Airline Transport, which later became United Airlines and Trans World Airlines. I remember the chairs for the passengers were made out of wicker. I also saw my first Chris-Craft motorboats on the Rock River. The Eagle Fraternity had a big clubhouse and docks where the members kept their boats. I also learned how to gamble. Many of the families worked at the John Deere factory and brought home washers, which looked like coins. The kids set up various games, and if you won, you would get some of these pieces. Going to Uncle Andy’s stores was also a treat. I could always get a cold soda pop and some Monarch Teeny Weenie Toffees. The grocery carried Monarch foods, a top quality brand headquartered in Chicago.

Young people didn’t engage in graffiti or vandalism during those days. The closest thing to that occurred during Halloween, when our intent was to cause mischief, not damage. Our challenge was to enter a farmyard without being discovered, as the farmers usually had a dog and it was hard to avoid setting off a barking dog. When caught we were usually invited in and served cookies or cake and drinks. We then had a good visit. But some farmers were not that hospitable. One Halloween, a farmer set a trap and waited until we were in the middle of his farmyard before confronting us. The closest escape route was between a shed and a granary, and everyone headed that way. However, the farmer had strung a wire about a foot off the ground between the two buildings. It was dark so no one could see it, and as I was running, I could hear my friends hitting the ground. I stopped in time but a few hit the ground hard; it is amazing no one was seriously hurt. From then on that farmer was public enemy number one at Halloween.

Milo and I had an adventure that most boys only dream about. When the WPA built the dam on Oak Creek in Dannebrog, it created a lot of boating. In fact, Roy Jorgensen (Mom’s cousin) gave boat rides in the evening when the local dance hall was open and people went outside for relaxation. He charged a quarter for a ride in a boat with a fifteen-horsepower Johnson Seahorse outboard. Roy eventually made boats from galvanized sheet metal with oak trim and sold them for fifty dollars. We wanted a boat in Dannebrog but couldn’t afford to buy one, so we planned to make one out of scrap lumber. There was another fellow in Dannebrog who made wooden boats. He ran a resort at Detroit Lakes in Minnesota and built fishing boats in the winter for use up there. We watched him work and learned how to do it. The problem was, how were we going to get our boat from Nysted to Dannebrog? I don’t know why we didn’t just have someone truck it. Instead, we waited until there was a big rain and took it down on the high water on Oak Creek. We also took a friend, Arnold Lang, along. Why our folks ever let us do this I don’t know, as it really was dangerous. No one had ever done it before.

It was about twenty-two miles by water and we hit a big whirlpool that spun us around, but the real thriller was when we got caught in a chute of sorts between high, steep banks. Blocking the creek was a fallen tree surrounded by wheat shocks and debris. The speed of the stream pushed us right on top of the debris about twenty feet from the tree. What to do? Getting into that fast muddy water with the debris on top wasn’t wise, and the banks were too steep to climb even if we could get to them. Finally Milo stepped on the debris and found that it would hold him if he walked fast, so he took the boat rope and walked forward to the tree and pulled us toward it. Then we slid the boat through the tree and put it into water below. From then on it was pretty uneventful down to the dam. We tied up the boat by the creamery, notified the folks, had our pictures taken, and were town heroes for a few days.

Dannebrog had a dance hall named Pleasure Isle that was reached by a bridge across Oak Creek. It was the era of big band music. Lawrence Welk and his orchestra—as well as other bands—occasionally played there. You could also roller skate on an oval that ran around the dance floor.

During my senior year (1940) Dannebrog had a flood scare. A heavy rain north and west of the town had swept grain bundles and debris into Oak Creek, which ran through town. The dam the WPA had built on the creek to provide boating, fishing, and other recreation now created a problem. The dam had wood panels that had to be raised by chains wound around a long shaft at the top, but the wood had swelled in the steel channels so they couldn’t be moved. The debris came down to the dam and jammed against these wood gates. The water started to rise and back up and eventually flowed down the main street. Some people wanted to dynamite the wood gates but others were concerned about potential damage from blowing all the wood parts and debris into the air. No one had experience with dynamite, so nothing was done and the water got higher and higher. Eventually it was about three feet deep on the main street, and there was a lot of mud damage when it was all over. If you go out there today, you will see that the wood panels and support posts were never replaced.

When we go back on visits to Nysted and Dannebrog, some of the buildings are still there, prompting these memories. The rural land is now irrigated and the crops look wonderful. Many of the farm homes sit vacant, and small farms are rare, as economics dictates larger farming operations. Another change is that even way out in the country every road corner has a street or avenue name, just like in the cities. I am sure that all of us who lived there through the Depression were permanently affected in one way or another. We don’t just throw things away. We might find use for them sometime. We save our money, and we plan for rainy days. I am reminded of a story about Pete Fredricksen, a bachelor who bought two buffalo coats at a farm sale. When asked why he bought two since he could only wear one, he said, There may come a time when you can’t get them. He was right; have you tried to buy a buffalo coat recently?

Finally the time came in our mature lives when we revered our parents and relatives who suffered through those depression