Future naval aviators undergo their primary flight training at Whiting Field. For the doctor students of Flight Surgeon Class 92002, Whiting Field was Mecca. Unlike the other services, the Navy put student flight surgeons through the exact initial flight curriculum as student naval aviators. Our pilgrimage to that sacred airfield was not to engage in additional medical training, but to realize our fantasies of soaring on mighty wings — a thrill our civilian medical counterparts could not fathom.
The gurus of Naval Air reasoned that flight surgeons, to be effective in their duties, must understand the rigors and challenges, and the thrill, of the flight environment. You just don’t get that sensitivity from reading about it. At Whiting Field, we would be dispersed among the three resident training squadrons, sharing classroom and flight time with Navy and Marine Corps future aviators — our future patients. Not only would we learn the fundamentals of aviation, we would also fly the Navy’s trainer — at that time the T-34C single engine turboprop. (Beyond familiarizing us with the stresses of flight, the T-34 would instill in some of us a career long quest for “stick time,” to get our hands on the controls and actually fly whatever Navy aircraft we happened to occupy at the time.) In primary training at Whiting, the curriculum consisted of a series of familiarization flights (“Fams”). Each fam progressed from basic to complex skills, culminating at the pinnacle: Fam 14 - Solo Flight. A fortunate few of us might get enough sorties (weather always a factor in Florida spring) and aviate well enough to demonstrate that we had the right stuff to fly Fam 14 - commanding the airplane without an instructor on board. With my civilian commercial pilot and flight instructor certificates tucked in my wallet, I felt certain to be one of the lucky few to execute Fam 14.
I soon learned that Navy flight training — in spite of my several hundred hours of civilian flight time — would be no walk in the park, much less a turn around the pattern at my former home airport in Scottsdale, AZ. Naval Air makes training and proficiency a serious challenge, unlike the civilian flight school (one of the best) that I had attended ten years previously. At Whiting, ground school gave us a more rigorous academic challenge than medical school. We memorized aircraft systems to greater detail than we’d ever devoted to human anatomy (except, perhaps, the reproductive systems). We could not expect to sit in the cockpit of a real T-34C until we demonstrated blindfolded knowledge of the location of all flight controls and gages in a series of “static” exercises in a mock-up cockpit. Before we could move on to the flight line, we must man the same simulator to demonstrate rote knowledge of the full preflight, engine start, pre-takeoff and post-landing procedures, including parroting the exact verbiage of the checklists.
By the time we went out to the tarmac for our first sortie in the real bird, we knew all there was about its anatomy and physiology. Or so we thought.
Finally, after three weeks of non-stop class and book study, we donned our flight suits and boots, checked out helmets and parachute harnesses, and headed (swaggered) to the flight line for our first escape from the “surly bonds of earth.”
I feel the need, for speed.
We were each assigned to an “on-wing” flight instructor. Mine did not like flight surgeons. He never said so. Didn’t have to. You just know.
After a tense preflight brief, I approached the airplane with my instructor close at hand. First I had to complete the preflight check that I had memorized in consummate detail during the ground instruction phase. It went well until the part that requires the pilot to open the cowling and inspect the engine and its components. I took my time as I made a show of meticulous attention to detail on each item. Then I turned to my on-wing, who I thought by now must have recognized that I was no rookie on a flight line. “Looks okay,” I said.
“Is it airworthy, Doc?”
“Looks good to me.”
“You sure about that, Doc?” A sneer barely showed on the corner of his mustachioed upper lip.
Oh-oh, what am I missing? All at once anxious, I took out my pocket checklist and reinspected the entire engine assemblage, this time verifying each step as written in the manual. I found nothing out of order. This arrogant aviator is just messing with me. “It’s airworthy,” I said.
“You’d risk your life to fly this airplane, Doc?”
Realizing that I needed to sound more confident than I felt, I replied in a strong voice. “It’s ready to fly.”
“Okay, Doc, let’s fly.” Then he reached into the engine compartment and, with a flourish that only a naval aviator could perfect, picked his watch off the engine block and strapped it back on his wrist.
Every flight begins with a thorough preflight. Lesson learned.
And yet another lesson re-learned: Pride goeth…
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