Death and Honor

[FOUR]

Jackson Army Air Base Jackson, Mississippi 1745 5 August 1943

“Do you think you can put it down there, Clete?” Howard Hughes asked.

They were flying over a small airfield at an altitude of two thousand feet as slow as Clete dared to fly the Constellation. He had his hand on the throttles, ready to firewall them the moment he suspected they were close to a stall.

Howard’s now serious; otherwise he’d have said “Little Cletus.”

When in doubt, tell the truth.

“I don’t know, Howard. It would be helpful if I knew how long that runway is, and what the Constellation needs.”

“I like you so much better when you are cautious and modest,” Hughes said.

Clete flashed him a dirty look.

“Let me put it this way,” Hughes said. “I could get us in there . . .”

“You want to land it, go ahead. I have a total of five hours thirty in this airplane, one takeoff, zero landings. I really don’t know how to fly it.”

“At the risk of repeating myself,” Hughes said, “I like you so much better when you are cautious and modest. What I was going to say is: I would come in low and slow, full flaps, lots of power. I would try to touch down as close to the threshold as I could, and I would chop the power the moment before I heard the chirp. I would then judiciously apply the brakes, so as not to burn them out, and then, when I was halfway down the runway, I would decide whether I had enough runway and brakes left or should firewall the throttles.”

Clete didn’t reply.

Hughes then said, “It occurs to me that if you were to steer and work the brakes, and I worked the throttles and flaps, this would be educational for you. Do you want to have a whack at trying that?”

He wouldn’t make the offer unless he thought I could handle it.

"What about me shooting a touch-and-go—a couple of touch-and-goes— first ?”

“I was about to make that very suggestion,” Hughes said. He picked up the microphone: “Jackson, this is Army Three Four Three. As you may have noticed, we’ve been flying around your field. The reason for this is there is a student pilot at the controls who has been gathering his courage to shoot a couple of touch-and-goes. He has found the courage, but considering his youth, lack of experience, and all-around flying ineptness, you might want to wake up the fire truck drivers and have an ambulance on standby.”

The controller was laughing as he replied, “Three Four Three, you are cleared for multiple touch-and-goes. You are number one to land.”

Twenty minutes later, Cletus Frade, having approached the runway threshold as low and slow as seemed appropriate based on the experience of two previous aborted landings, touched down very close to the threshold, quickly retarded the throttles, and, a moment later, gingerly applied the brakes. Long before he reached the halfway point of the runway, he decided he had more than enough of it left to stop before burning out the brakes.

“We’re down, Howard. We seem to have cheated death again.”

Hughes chuckled. “For a moment, I wasn’t too sure about that. Not bad, Little Cletus. There may be hope for you yet.”

“This is a great airplane,” Clete said.

“We think so. Just remember when you go to turn it around that it’s a great big airplane.”

The proof of that came ten minutes later, when they tried to get off the Constellation. The airfield—which was apparently used as an auxiliary field for Air Force pilot training; Clete saw on the tarmac maybe a dozen North American AT-6 Texan two-seat advanced trainers, four Beech C-45 Expeditors used for twin-engine pilot training and for navigator training, and maybe a dozen Vultee BT-13 basic trainers—was not equipped with any sort of stairs or even maintenance scaffolding for an aircraft as high off the ground as the Constellation.

The problem was finally solved—as what looked like all the pilots and student pilots of the AT-6s, the C-45s, and the BT-13s gathered to watch—by leaning against the Constellation’s fuselage a very tall stepladder otherwise used to change the lights in the hangar ceilings.

By the time that was done, there were two staff cars and two lieutenant colonels on the tarmac.

“Let me deal with this,” Colonel Graham said, and carefully got on the ladder and climbed down it.

Three minutes later, he climbed back up.

“I’m going out to Camp Clinton to have a look at Colonel Frogger,” Graham announced to Howard and Clete. “I may or may not be back tonight. The base commander here will take care of the enlisted people. There’s a transient BOQ here, and an officers’ club. Do I have to remind you two to behave yourselves? ”