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Test Pilot

Chapter 52: KILLED BY KINDNESS
By James Collins
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About This Book

A former army aviator presents a collection of personal essays and reports recounting his rise from modest origins through flight training to a career as a test and stunt pilot. Chapters mix technical descriptions of dive testing, aerial combat, and cross-country flying with vivid accounts of crashes, near-misses, and efforts to refine aircraft performance. Interwoven are reflections on the physical and psychological demands of flying, the teamwork and rivalry among pilots, and the pull of danger that motivates high-risk testing. The narrative alternates between autobiographical memoir, incident-driven stories, and practical observations about piloting technique, safety, and the culture of early aviation.

KILLED BY KINDNESS

Earle R. Southee was so good-hearted he killed a guy. I don’t mean that he actually killed him, but you can see for yourself from the following story that, nevertheless, he killed him.

Southee was a civilian flying instructor to the army before the war, when the Signal Corps was the flying branch of the army. He was also an instructor during the war, after the Air Service had been created.

It was while he was instructing at Wilbur Wright Field during the war that he met up with this guy. The guy had come down there to learn to fly and then go to France and shoot Germans—or get shot by them. For some reason or other he couldn’t pick the stuff up. Some people are like that. They simply can’t get going when they first start to learn to fly. Most of them actually have no flying ability and ought to quit trying. It’s not in their blood. But occasionally you run across one who later gets going and is all right.

This guy came up to Southee for washout flight. He was so obviously broken up over the idea that he was going to get kicked out of the Air Service into some other branch of service, he loved flying so much, that Southee took pity on him, held him over a while, gave him special instruction, and finally got the guy through. The guy even became an instructor himself, and a very good one.

Later, most of the gang was transferred to Ellington Field, Houston, Tex. At Ellington, this guy had such a tough time at first, got so hot, that he was made a check pilot and put in charge of a stage or section.

One day one of the students came up to him for washout check. The kid was just as broken up about it as he was. He gave the kid a chance, like Southee had given him. Three days later the student froze on him, spun him in, and lulled him.