Guardian Angels Of This Flying Business! (Read 509 times)

Guardian Angels Of This Flying Business

Every generation of every nationality requires a hero. It finds one or makes one. In earliest times, he was mythical. A little later, he was some great warrior or explorer. But some man has always been set apart from this fellows and accorded the adulation of the multitude...then along came the spectacular flights. At this juncture, America was search its collective soul for a new hero, and it seized upon these unsuspecting fliers. So the toga was handed about, falling in turn upon each succeeding ocean spanner or record breaker.

Strangely enough, with all the shouting that has been done, all the medals which have been struck, the right man in this flying business has yet to be picked.

Human flight was a comparatively new art. For thousands of years, man had longed to soar among the clouds. It was not unnatural then that some member of the flying fraternity should fill the national need for a hero.

For some reason the pilot was selected. He it was whose will directed these new machines of flight, whos courage permitted performance of such feats of daring high above the earth.

So, selected he was. And each small boy decided not to be a policeman, fireman or railroad engineer, but envisioned himself a flier when he grew to man's estate.

So we pulled a parade, waved flags, made medals, played the band and greeted like a Viking arriving at Valhalla each new pilot who flew a little higher, or a little longer, or a little faster.

Why not? Your airman wore proudly the symbols of his profession. He was a striking figure in this new industry. Small wonder that the little lads foreswore old models and changed their boyhood dreams.

But we made a great mistake, as multitudes often do. The fellows who make airplanes fly, and make records fall, and who drive 10,000 airplanes 50 million miles a year, were not the pilots. They were the mechanics.

Let me tell you about this fellow as I have come to know him...and see if you don't agree with me.

Most men work for reward. There are various forms of reward-cheers and commendations of onlookers, money, pleasure, self-expression, self-satisfaction. The pilots get all of these in some degree.

What does the mechanic get...his hands are cut and black from contact with greasy engines. He can't keep that-skin-you-love-to-touch and maintain any intimacy with an airplane power plant...Don't ask me why or what kind of man would elect such a role, such a life. Rather, tell me why there is a hermit, wizard, nurse, nun or saint. I don't know! There is no accounting for occupational tastes, but every time I fly I thank fate for a good mechanic.

He's no dunce, either. To learn all he knows would give many a college professor an awful headache. He gets his invaluable training over a long period of years. The school of hard knocks is his. Truly, he learns to do by doing.

The modern airplane engine is no simple mechanism. It has more parts than has the human body, and more ailments. A divine providence has fashioned your own mechanism more smoothly, coordinated your organs better than man has built this engine. But the good engine mechanic knows every part, every symptom, every malfunction, as well as any doctor knows the cases of and remedies for you aches and pains.

Some years ago, I was assigned a plane for flight. I started to climb in and the mechanic said, "Lieutenant, I wouldn't take that ship up. The engine doesn't sound right to me." I ran it up and it delivered full power. It hit on both switches, accelerating promptly, and I couldn't detect any indication of trouble. I called for the engineering officer. He ran it up and marked it OK, but the mechanic still shook his head.

I took off and joined a practice formation and soon forgot the warning of my mechanic as we flew over San Diego Bay, past Point Loma.

Twenty minutes later, the engine quit cold without warning. I set her down in the sea. Being a land plane, she soon sank.

While swimming around, waiting for a rescue boat, I made one resolve that has remained with me through the years. When a good mechanic says an engine's bad, I don't fly that plane. He's the doctor.

Those mechanics are versatile, too. Mine was on that rescue boat. He has never to this day said, "I told you so," but couldn't rest until we had fished that plane off the ocean floor.

Then he displayed one of his rare "human weaknesses" by spending his Sunday holiday taking it apart to see what had failed. His expression never changed as he showed me the cause.

So you see, the airplane mechanic is human. In fact, he has the instincts, training and mental ability of a surgeon.

One of the characteristics that we always like to associate with heroes is courage. Here your mechanic is not found wanting. He'll fly with any pilot, any time, and that's something I won't do. It takes more courage to ride than to pilot the plane yourself. You always know what you are going to do. He never does...I have known some pilots to get cold feet. Yet, I have never known a mechanic to decline to fly.

One of my best men who had cared for the special plane of high officials in Washington for some years, once came to me and asked to be relieved from those duties and assigned to routine work. He said that the tremendous responsibility he carried was undermining his health.

I know another mechanic who spent his last dollar to buy a flashlight so that he could better see to make his inspection in closed hangars on dark winter days.

Examine the rolls of the airmen dead and you'll find mechanics as well as pilots. Yet, their names are forgotten. Others get the adulation, the praise, but the medals and the commendations...but I say, "My hat's off to you mechanics. You may be ragged grease monkeys to some, but to me you're the guardian angels of this flying business."

This tribute to mechanics first appeared in print in April 1931. The author was Capt. Ira C. Eaker, later LTGen. Ira C. Eaker, Chief of Air Staff, USAF, who retired in 1947.