WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:06.519 Hi Jes, retired Air Force Lice colonel and retired NASA. 2 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:09.960 I'm the author of what we call Father of the Motherplanes. 3 00:00:10.240 --> 00:00:13.599 You are listening to the Doctor Sky Show. Thank you 4 00:00:13.640 --> 00:00:14.800 for listening to our show. 5 00:00:15.039 --> 00:00:18.239 Mister Fulton, one of the most phenomenal airplanes I think 6 00:00:18.280 --> 00:00:22.000 of all time was the XB seventy and B seventy bomber. 7 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:24.800 You flew it. Talk about the B seventy bomber. 8 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:31.079 It's a big airplane, sorr offwa's stainless steel, honey comb, 9 00:00:31.719 --> 00:00:36.240 unusual construction. It's not my favorite airplane. Was my second favorite, 10 00:00:36.479 --> 00:00:40.200 B fifteen being the number one. But B seventy was 11 00:00:40.719 --> 00:00:43.640 five hundred and fifty thousand pounds, one hundred and eighty 12 00:00:43.640 --> 00:00:47.880 five feet long and five Mark three a Florida Mark 13 00:00:47.960 --> 00:00:51.359 three and fifty. Some of my applies to the airplane 14 00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:54.560 and joined on had some tragedy in the program. But 15 00:00:54.920 --> 00:00:56.159 who was a good airplane? 16 00:00:56.320 --> 00:00:58.439 Absolutely, sir, And let's go back one minute for the 17 00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:01.840 B fifty eight. I think that's also a beautiful airplane. 18 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.079 But you tell our audience you flew that to over 19 00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:07.480 eighty five thousand feet and you received the nineteen sixty 20 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:11.560 two Harman International Aviation Trophy. That's a beautiful airplane. 21 00:01:11.959 --> 00:01:15.200 It's your airplane. Has some real problems to be a 22 00:01:15.239 --> 00:01:18.079 but live around the Air Force pause. We had the 23 00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:21.519 obscurity fly and I'll tell you they thought you was fine. 24 00:01:21.799 --> 00:01:23.680 It's some beautiful airplane, sir, and I want to thank 25 00:01:23.719 --> 00:01:26.000 you for spending a time today. And one last question 26 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:28.480 for all the young students out there and people that 27 00:01:28.519 --> 00:01:31.719 aspire to aviation, what do you recommend they do if 28 00:01:31.719 --> 00:01:34.439 they want to be pilots of airplanes of the future. 29 00:01:35.280 --> 00:01:39.760 Many things. Get some education, get some knowledge of there 30 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:42.280 you want to be in, try to use some light 31 00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:45.480 plane fly and then move on up to the heavier stuff. 32 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:48.560 If you have the optuities with the Air Force or 33 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:54.359 with commercial operation pass still have jobs available. Hard work 34 00:01:54.439 --> 00:01:55.920 is well. 35 00:01:55.760 --> 00:01:57.920 Mister Fulton. I want to thank you for your service 36 00:01:57.920 --> 00:02:00.239 to the United States of America and to the Air 37 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:03.359 Force and all of the airplanes that you've flown. I 38 00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:05.879 thank you, sir for your time, and look forward to 39 00:02:05.959 --> 00:02:08.599 talking to you folks. If you'd like to learn much 40 00:02:08.639 --> 00:02:12.280 more about our special guest, Fitz Fulton, a legend and aviation, 41 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:15.639 get a copy of his book entitled Father of the 42 00:02:15.639 --> 00:02:18.360 Mother Planes. Colonel. I want to thank you for joining 43 00:02:18.439 --> 00:02:20.439 us here on the Doctor Sky Show. Thank you so 44 00:02:20.520 --> 00:02:21.759 much for spending time with us. 45 00:02:22.199 --> 00:02:26.039 Thank you one of my favorite places met my wife 46 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:28.759 who married her. I hope we have it up to 47 00:02:29.719 --> 00:02:31.879 meet and talk airplanes well. 48 00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:34.240 I'd like to congratulate you on being married for well 49 00:02:34.280 --> 00:02:37.439 over seventy years to the love of your life. And again, 50 00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:40.840 thank you fitz Fulton for joining us today. A great 51 00:02:40.879 --> 00:02:44.479 history in the story of aviation today our very special 52 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:47.800 guest fits you, Ill fitz Fulton Junior, born back on 53 00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:55.280 June sixth of nineteen twenty five. Our tribute to fitz 54 00:02:55.280 --> 00:02:58.560 Fulton continues as I read here an article my Carl 55 00:02:58.599 --> 00:03:01.000 Posey from Air and Space Magaze seeing Back in December 56 00:03:01.039 --> 00:03:04.639 of twenty thirteen, entitled the Greatest test Pilot You've Never 57 00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:09.400 Heard of? Carl Posey introduces us to Fitzfulton. The photograph 58 00:03:09.479 --> 00:03:12.199 shows a boy of five or six, jugg eared and happy, 59 00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:17.039 holding onto the wingstrut of a biplane, taken in rural Blakeley, 60 00:03:17.080 --> 00:03:20.520 Georgia in the early nineteen thirties. The image captures the 61 00:03:20.639 --> 00:03:24.919 joy afforded by small pleasures during hard times. But what 62 00:03:25.039 --> 00:03:28.840 boy would not have cheered by being close to a real, 63 00:03:28.919 --> 00:03:32.639 honest to goodness airplane. His mother evidently sensed the effect 64 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:36.520 on her son, for she labeled a photograph first Love, 65 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:39.919 the first of many. The boy would spend this working 66 00:03:39.960 --> 00:03:44.240 life in the close, sometimes perilous company of aircraft, taking 67 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:47.280 them to war and exploring the extremes of their performance. 68 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:51.159 His log book, with some seventeen thousand or so hours 69 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:54.000 of flight in more than two hundred types of aircraft, 70 00:03:54.199 --> 00:03:56.800 would tell the story of how aviation evolved from a 71 00:03:56.879 --> 00:04:00.800 nineteen forties onward. For this Georgia boy would be present 72 00:04:00.960 --> 00:04:05.039 every crucial branching out of that evolutionary path, from pistons 73 00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:10.199 to jets, subsonic to supersonic. He would fly everywhere and everything, 74 00:04:10.639 --> 00:04:15.360 all aircraft great and small. Now eighty nine, fitz Al 75 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:19.279 Fulton Junior, fits to family and friends, still has his 76 00:04:19.319 --> 00:04:23.560 mother's photos. I like that photograph, he says, we protected it. 77 00:04:24.199 --> 00:04:26.560 He thinks the airplane was a keen or powered bird. 78 00:04:27.480 --> 00:04:29.839 He never flew in it. He got his first flight 79 00:04:29.879 --> 00:04:32.319 several years later when a cousin sprang for a dollar 80 00:04:32.399 --> 00:04:37.040 ride in a Ford tri motor. After his parents separated, Fulton, 81 00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:39.720 his two siblings moved with their mother to the larger 82 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:43.519 Georgia town of Columbus Or. Among other things, there was 83 00:04:43.560 --> 00:04:46.360 what was called a real airport. He had a four 84 00:04:46.399 --> 00:04:49.519 thousand foot grass runway and a fixed base operation that 85 00:04:49.560 --> 00:04:53.720 flew J three cubs and Taylor Crafts in the time 86 00:04:53.759 --> 00:04:56.879 honored way of air minded youngsters. He began hanging out 87 00:04:56.920 --> 00:05:01.160 at the field, doing occasional chores and reaping occasion riots. 88 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:04.879 Eventually he settled into a more organized border system, sweeping 89 00:05:04.879 --> 00:05:08.199 the hangar, washing and fueling the airplanes. Pushing the airplanes 90 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:10.360 in and out of the hangar. Each was good for 91 00:05:10.399 --> 00:05:13.720 five minutes of flight, which he hoarded, then spent twenty 92 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:17.120 minutes at a time. In June of nineteen forty two, 93 00:05:17.319 --> 00:05:20.240 seventeen years old, just out of high school and not 94 00:05:20.360 --> 00:05:23.439 yet driving a car, he soloed in a J three 95 00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:27.160 cop In nineteen forty three, with the US Armed Forces 96 00:05:27.160 --> 00:05:29.800 needing pilots to serve in World War II, he entered 97 00:05:29.800 --> 00:05:33.680 the United States Army Air Force's Air Cadet program. Fledgling 98 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:37.360 pilots of movies and myth invariably opt for single engine 99 00:05:37.399 --> 00:05:41.240 training with A nine, becoming fighter races. Fulton wanted to 100 00:05:41.240 --> 00:05:44.319 fly the twin engine lockeed P thirty eight, though he 101 00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:47.480 so chose multi engine aircraft training, but when the P 102 00:05:47.600 --> 00:05:50.639 thirty eight failed to materialize, he followed the less glamorous 103 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:54.399 road to transports and bombers. It was one of those 104 00:05:54.600 --> 00:05:57.879 less traveled roads that would make all the difference. A 105 00:05:57.959 --> 00:06:01.360 career pilot of big airplanes. Houlton would fly the bombers 106 00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:04.920 that dropped the X fifteen and other experimental speedsters at 107 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:08.000 Edward's Air Force Base in California during the time now 108 00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:11.759 regarded as the Golden Age of flight test, and that 109 00:06:11.879 --> 00:06:15.279 experience led to opportunities in the Space Shuttle program. I 110 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:19.160 certainly welcomed that opportunity to drop the explains he said not. 111 00:06:19.439 --> 00:06:23.160 He adds quickly that he was uniquely qualified. Anybody could 112 00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:25.759 have flown the mother ships. But I had a lot 113 00:06:25.800 --> 00:06:27.920 of experience by then, and I like to think I 114 00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:31.240 helped to train some of those people. In nineteen forty five, 115 00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:33.720 his own train led him to Davis mont And Army 116 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:37.040 Airfield in Tucson, Arizona. He reported for duty on August 117 00:06:37.079 --> 00:06:39.680 the fourteenth, but the officer checking him in the next 118 00:06:39.759 --> 00:06:42.759 day wonted why he bothered to show up the war 119 00:06:43.199 --> 00:06:47.120 was over. Although somewhat devoid of flight, the Tucson assignment 120 00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:50.199 had an unexpected reward. It was there that Fulton met 121 00:06:50.199 --> 00:06:53.040 Irma Beck, to whom he has now been married for 122 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:57.680 almost seventy years. Fulton was then sent to Roswell, New Mexico, 123 00:06:57.720 --> 00:07:01.519 where the three hundred and twentieth Troop Carriers Squadron was based. 124 00:07:01.959 --> 00:07:05.680 After winning a slaught as copilot on Douglas Sea fifty fours, 125 00:07:05.959 --> 00:07:09.240 Fulton played a supporting role in Operation Crossroads, on a 126 00:07:09.319 --> 00:07:12.720 topic weapons project for which an armada of captured and 127 00:07:12.759 --> 00:07:16.120 surplus warships had been assembled in a lagoon of the 128 00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:19.199 Bikini Atol in the Marshall Islands. The first test, on 129 00:07:19.279 --> 00:07:21.920 July the first, nineteen forty six, would detonate a fat 130 00:07:21.959 --> 00:07:25.240 Man plutonium bomb a few hundred feet above the lagoon 131 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:28.160 to see what a twenty kiloton air burst woul due 132 00:07:28.160 --> 00:07:31.720 to the ships and tethered animals below. A few weeks later, 133 00:07:31.759 --> 00:07:35.519 a second bomb would be detonated under water. For Fulton, 134 00:07:35.720 --> 00:07:39.920 Crossroads meant long hauls from Roswell to Quadulien, the largest 135 00:07:39.920 --> 00:07:43.439 of the Marshall Islands, ferrying the accouterments of nuclear warfare, 136 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:46.079 but the flight that stands out for him took place 137 00:07:46.519 --> 00:07:49.040 the day after the first bomb test, when he flew 138 00:07:49.040 --> 00:07:52.000 a Sea fifty four carrying scientists and Air Force brass 139 00:07:52.360 --> 00:07:55.079 out to see what the bomb had done. Flying over 140 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:58.120 the lagoon at about two hundred feet, Fulton toward the 141 00:07:58.120 --> 00:08:01.360 affected area. It hadn't occurred, damn that the flight might 142 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:04.680 expose him and his passengers to harmful levels of radiation, 143 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:08.399 but his attention was fully on the fleet of ruined warships. 144 00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:11.680 In June nineteen forty eight and what became the opening 145 00:08:11.720 --> 00:08:15.319 political salvo in the Cold War, the Soviets plockaded road, 146 00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:19.120 rail and river access to the Allied controlled sectors of Berlin, 147 00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:23.439 then a divided city. As the Allies mounted an impossibly 148 00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:28.160 difficult release effort, the Berlin Airlift, Western aircrews with transport 149 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:32.799 experience were suddenly very much in demand. Our tribute to 150 00:08:32.840 --> 00:08:36.600 the greatest test pilot you've never heard of, fitz Fulton continues. 151 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:41.440 During Central Europe's formidable winter, Allied aircraft operated into and 152 00:08:41.559 --> 00:08:46.080 out of Reeinmann, Tempelhoff and Wiesbaden only a few minutes apart, 153 00:08:46.279 --> 00:08:51.639 undeterred by severe icing conditions, low ceilings and zero visibility sometimes, 154 00:08:51.639 --> 00:08:56.039 Fulton remembers, you didn't know you'd landed until you felt 155 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:59.039 the tires on the runway. It built up my confidence, 156 00:08:59.080 --> 00:09:02.799 he says. I've always considered myself a pretty strong instrument pilot, 157 00:09:03.159 --> 00:09:07.000 but weather was a big problem. When the air left ended, 158 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.840 Fulton headed back to the United States, this time to 159 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:13.519 Egglin Air Force BACE in Florida, where B twenty nine's 160 00:09:13.519 --> 00:09:16.440 were testing new instruments. But the heat and humidity of 161 00:09:16.519 --> 00:09:20.679 Florida's Panhandle proved more than Ginger Fulton's lungs could tolerate 162 00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:25.080 her asthma attacks got so bad, Fulton and Irma feared 163 00:09:25.080 --> 00:09:28.960 that they might lose their little girl. A sympathetic commanding 164 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:32.039 officer stepped in, and Fulton was offered a slot in 165 00:09:32.120 --> 00:09:36.120 southern California at what would soon be called Edward's Air 166 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:39.399 Force Bace. He didn't know about much what was going 167 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:42.879 on out there, but he was certain that the change 168 00:09:42.879 --> 00:09:45.720 in climate would help his daughter. Fulton took the transfer. 169 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:49.679 After settling in California's high desert, Ginger's health quickly improved. 170 00:09:50.360 --> 00:09:54.080 Once get rated, Fulton began expanding his repertoire in the 171 00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:57.159 early nineteen fifties, borrowing an airplane was as easy as 172 00:09:57.200 --> 00:09:59.600 borrowing a jeep from the motor pool. And when he 173 00:09:59.639 --> 00:10:02.720 wasn't a the controls of a test aircraft, Fulton sat 174 00:10:02.759 --> 00:10:06.200 in as copilot or flew the Chase aircraft. Much of 175 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:10.120 test piloting is the repetitive, rather humdrum stuff that makes 176 00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:14.399 its way into manuals as Performance Parameters and airplanes maxima 177 00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:17.759 and minimum. Of course, nobody became a test pilot to 178 00:10:17.799 --> 00:10:21.120 generate data. They joined for the moments. One of those 179 00:10:21.159 --> 00:10:23.600 moments was a night flight that Fulton made in a 180 00:10:23.639 --> 00:10:26.440 Lockheed F ninety four A which, as he turned back 181 00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:29.799 to Edward's Air Force Bace, lost all electrical power, rendering 182 00:10:29.840 --> 00:10:34.240 the aircraft's flaps, lights, and some critical instruments inoperable. Unable 183 00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:37.200 to set up a normal night landing, Fulton improvised. He 184 00:10:37.279 --> 00:10:40.120 stole the airplane, which gave him the known air speed, 185 00:10:40.440 --> 00:10:44.120 and from there worked out a let down approach. Asked 186 00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:47.120 today if that flight, or any flight, constituted a really 187 00:10:47.120 --> 00:10:51.039 bad moment for him, he says, to me, troubles were opportunities. 188 00:10:51.559 --> 00:10:53.600 The best pilot in the world can get in trouble. 189 00:10:53.759 --> 00:10:56.480 I'm not a defeatist. I like to work on problems 190 00:10:56.639 --> 00:10:59.679 that are solvable. Early two weeks into his term as 191 00:10:59.679 --> 00:11:01.840 a student than than the Test Pilot School at Edwards, 192 00:11:02.080 --> 00:11:05.039 Fulton learned he was headed for Korea, where the conflict 193 00:11:05.080 --> 00:11:08.039 was entering its second year. Unlike some of the older 194 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:11.600 test pilots, he had never flown in combat. On September 195 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:14.240 the eighteenth, nineteen fifty one, he arrived at K eight, 196 00:11:14.720 --> 00:11:18.039 the air base at Coonsan, South Korea. A day later, 197 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:21.600 he began combat missions in the Douglas B twenty six Invader. 198 00:11:22.480 --> 00:11:25.200 His commander at Edwards had promised Fulton he would try 199 00:11:25.240 --> 00:11:28.159 to retrieve him when he finished his fifty five missions 200 00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:31.159 in Korea, and the promise was kept. By May of 201 00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:34.080 nineteen fifty two, Fulton was back in the Test Pilot school, 202 00:11:34.519 --> 00:11:38.200 which he completed that November. Not quite twenty seven years old, 203 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:42.159 the unflappable, soft spoken Air Force captain resumed his career 204 00:11:42.279 --> 00:11:45.720 as a test pilot of all work. He was soon 205 00:11:45.759 --> 00:11:49.080 shuttling between Edwards and the Convet plant in Fort Worth, 206 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:53.159 Texas to test fly the company's Mammoth B thirty six bomber. 207 00:11:53.639 --> 00:11:55.480 While learning was rapid. He wrote of the bomber in 208 00:11:55.519 --> 00:11:58.600 his autobiography, Father of the mother Planes. It had to 209 00:11:58.639 --> 00:12:01.759 be because the B thirty six was a high maintenance airplane. 210 00:12:01.960 --> 00:12:04.679 We seldom completed the flight without having to shut down 211 00:12:04.759 --> 00:12:08.639 one or more engines. With rear mounted propellers, engine oil 212 00:12:08.679 --> 00:12:11.519 leaking an eye altitude would freeze and hit the props 213 00:12:12.159 --> 00:12:15.639 and then be thrown into the fuselage, sometimes even penetrating 214 00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:18.919 the airplane's skin. After that, he came back to Edwards 215 00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:22.159 for a bomb drop test from B thirty six and 216 00:12:22.279 --> 00:12:25.279 test of what now sounds like a hair brain scheme, 217 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:29.840 a B thirty six carrying an RF eighty four f thunderflash, 218 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:33.799 which would be deployed from and recovered on a retractable 219 00:12:33.840 --> 00:12:38.240 trapeze like device extended from the bomber's belly. The project 220 00:12:38.279 --> 00:12:41.279 was the first of many encounters Fulton would have with 221 00:12:41.440 --> 00:12:46.279 big ships carrying small ones. He also began testing a 222 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:49.799 new family of light jet bombers, among them the Glen L. 223 00:12:49.840 --> 00:12:54.000 Martin Company's XB fifty one. One of Fulton's closest friend's 224 00:12:54.039 --> 00:12:56.799 Air Force Major Neil Lathrop, was killed during a low 225 00:12:56.840 --> 00:13:00.960 altitude role in the Experimental Aircraft Fulton flying a B 226 00:13:01.039 --> 00:13:04.120 twenty nine bomb drop test that they saw the coil 227 00:13:04.200 --> 00:13:06.879 of black smoke rising from the dry Lake. It was 228 00:13:06.919 --> 00:13:09.639 the first time Fulton lost a good friend to a 229 00:13:09.639 --> 00:13:13.279 new airplane. It would not be his last. The Air 230 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:15.919 Force had also become interested in the Royal Air Force's 231 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:19.919 English Electric Canberra, A twin jet which Martin was bringing 232 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:22.039 out in the United States is the B forty seven. 233 00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:25.759 Fulton was assigned to the test flights. On one B 234 00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:28.360 fifty seven flight, as he came out of a loop, 235 00:13:28.399 --> 00:13:31.039 he discovered that the control wheel had decoupled from the 236 00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:35.279 flight control system. Pushing the wheel full forward had no 237 00:13:35.320 --> 00:13:38.960 effect on the airplane. When things go wrong, some pilots 238 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:41.879 yell on the radio. That's not my style, says fits. 239 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:44.960 You have procedures. If you have a problem, then you 240 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:49.519 call in and they offer suggestions. When Fulton reported the problem, 241 00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:52.960 the consensus on the ground was that he should bail out, 242 00:13:53.200 --> 00:13:55.279 but he thought that if he used the elevator trim 243 00:13:55.320 --> 00:13:58.080 for pitch control, he might be able to save the airplane. 244 00:13:58.360 --> 00:14:01.039 He managed a fast, straight in landing on the dry Lake, 245 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:04.960 for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. The 246 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:07.679 B forty seven would become his favorite airplane for traveling 247 00:14:08.159 --> 00:14:11.080 and for several years he flew it in air shows. 248 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:14.120 The XB fifty two in the YB fifty two, the 249 00:14:14.159 --> 00:14:18.519 first prototypes of Boeing's latest century in the Strategic Bomber Sweepstakes, 250 00:14:18.720 --> 00:14:21.879 were ready for testing in nineteen fifty three, and Fulton 251 00:14:21.960 --> 00:14:25.399 was assigned to the project, which operated out of Moses Lake, Washington. 252 00:14:25.799 --> 00:14:27.559 Most of the time he flew the F eighty six, 253 00:14:27.639 --> 00:14:30.759 a pace airplane, to calibrate the new aircraft's speed and 254 00:14:30.840 --> 00:14:35.200 altitude readings, or the chase aircraft in the F eighty 255 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:38.200 six wasn't needed, he flew on the bomber. Before long 256 00:14:38.440 --> 00:14:41.960 he was checked out in the XB fifty two itself. 257 00:14:42.360 --> 00:14:44.960 The experience with the B fifty two prototype would serve 258 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:48.440 Fulton well in the years to come. Through the nineteen sixties, 259 00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:50.519 the NB fifty was the airplane he flew with an 260 00:14:50.679 --> 00:14:54.200 X fifteen or an experimental lifting body tucked under the 261 00:14:54.240 --> 00:14:58.120 bomber's starboard wing. He flew the mother ship for ninety 262 00:14:58.159 --> 00:15:00.799 two of the one hundred and ninety A nine X 263 00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:03.960 fifteen launches. In all, he was the pilot for some 264 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:07.960 one hundred and fifty launches of the manned aircraft. The 265 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:10.200 first stage of the X plants had begun at Edwards 266 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:13.159 in the nineteen forties, when the Air Force and what 267 00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:17.399 is now NASA began exploring the terra incognito of transsonic 268 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:22.000 and supersonic flight. B twenty nine's and their descendants B 269 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:26.159 fifties took off with small rocket powered aircraft on their bellies. 270 00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:30.120 After release, the xplane pilot lit the engine for minutes, 271 00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:33.679 and these long powered flights would continue it eventually well 272 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:37.159 beyond mack I. Then, on empty, the little ship, equipped 273 00:15:37.159 --> 00:15:40.879 with skids, would glide to a dry lake landing. Fulton 274 00:15:40.919 --> 00:15:43.679 was a natural choice for piloting the motherships. He flew 275 00:15:43.720 --> 00:15:47.480 as copilot on the first two X one drops and 276 00:15:47.559 --> 00:15:51.360 as pilot on all his subsequent mother plane flights. He 277 00:15:51.399 --> 00:15:53.720 flew the B twenty nines for the slightly larger and 278 00:15:53.759 --> 00:15:57.279 more powerful X one A and B, and the Douglas 279 00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:01.159 D five fifty eight two skyrocket. Fulton flew at B 280 00:16:01.279 --> 00:16:04.759 fifty for the Bell X two, a hotter swept wing 281 00:16:04.840 --> 00:16:08.240 variant of the X one, in September nineteen fifty six. 282 00:16:08.399 --> 00:16:12.240 The new design made Fulton's colleague mel apt the first 283 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:15.759 man to fly faster than Mock three. It was App's 284 00:16:15.759 --> 00:16:19.039 first flight in a rocket powered airplane and his lass 285 00:16:19.559 --> 00:16:22.639 tumbling out of control in a supersonic turn. The X 286 00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:25.200 two killed him and was a sad day for all 287 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:28.480 of us. Rode Fulton, and that the same high speed 288 00:16:28.519 --> 00:16:32.240 instability later showed up on other new high performance airplanes. 289 00:16:33.120 --> 00:16:35.960 The late nineteen forties was also the error of the 290 00:16:36.039 --> 00:16:38.720 right stuff, the term coined by the author Tom Wolf 291 00:16:38.799 --> 00:16:42.919 to describe the amalgam of courage, cockiness, patriotism, airmanship, and 292 00:16:43.120 --> 00:16:47.519 rowdiness required to be a test pilot. Fulton, although endowed 293 00:16:47.519 --> 00:16:50.879 with everything but the routy part. He drinks no alcohol, 294 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:54.080 coffee or tea, was not really conscious that he was 295 00:16:54.120 --> 00:16:58.200 going to become another of aviation's golden ages. I didn't 296 00:16:58.240 --> 00:17:01.320 recognize it until later, he says. As far as the 297 00:17:01.399 --> 00:17:04.200 right stuff, everybody talked about it, says Fulton. When the 298 00:17:04.240 --> 00:17:06.640 film was released in nineteen eighty three, he saw the 299 00:17:06.640 --> 00:17:09.400 movie at the Base theater. It was good entertainment, he says, 300 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:13.079 everybody laugh. The women didn't like it, says Irma, because 301 00:17:13.119 --> 00:17:15.799 it made us look a little stupid. Fulton had another 302 00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:18.839 motive for keeping clear of the cowboys side of test piloting. 303 00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:22.519 I was so appreciative of getting the fly airplanes to me, 304 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:26.720 it was don't tilt the boat. By the mid nineteen fifties, 305 00:17:26.759 --> 00:17:30.920 aircraft designers had turned toward the triangular delta wing, which, 306 00:17:30.920 --> 00:17:34.440 while presenting some challenges at lower speeds, offered to transform 307 00:17:34.599 --> 00:17:38.000 the dreaded sound barrier from a wall into a membrane 308 00:17:38.200 --> 00:17:41.119 through which the aircraft could pass with barely a ripple. 309 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:45.079 In the United States, Converair was leading the trend. Overseas, 310 00:17:45.119 --> 00:17:48.359 the delta wing had made its way onto Britain's Avro 311 00:17:48.559 --> 00:17:53.160 Vulcan and the Vickers Valiant bombers, and the Anglo French Concord. 312 00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:56.839 Fulton was sent to Boscombe Downs, the British counterpart to 313 00:17:56.920 --> 00:18:00.119 Edwards to learn from Britain's experience. He flew both the 314 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:03.920 Valiant and the Vulcan, and later the Concord. Accustomed to 315 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:08.079 the almost weatherless Edward sky. He was somewhat amused by 316 00:18:08.119 --> 00:18:10.680 the British test pilot's willingness to fly in any weather. 317 00:18:11.240 --> 00:18:13.680 His hosts explained that if they couldn't fly their test 318 00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:16.640 in English weather, they couldn't fly their tests at all. 319 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:20.000 The quick trips to see Britain's delta wing bombers were 320 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:23.519 in fact a prelude to Fulton's next assignment. Down in 321 00:18:23.599 --> 00:18:26.440 fort Worth, convey was building the Bee fifty eight Hustler, 322 00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:29.799 a four engine delta wing bomber with the speed and 323 00:18:29.880 --> 00:18:34.000 high altitude performance of a supersonic fighter. Under the fuselage, 324 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.559 it would carry a nuclear payload in a large streamlined pod. 325 00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:41.240 After it dropped its bomb and discarded the pod, it 326 00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:44.160 would come home McLean. The Bee fifty eight had its 327 00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:46.799 course for one thing. There was a large amount of 328 00:18:46.799 --> 00:18:50.319 fuel to be wrangled. You go supersonic, you have to 329 00:18:50.319 --> 00:18:53.519 move the fuel aft, Fulton explains, and when you slow down, 330 00:18:53.799 --> 00:18:56.319 if you don't move the fuel forward, you go unstable. 331 00:18:56.359 --> 00:19:00.000 You spin. Some would say that they were real bad moments, 332 00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:03.400 he says, but these were test pilots standing in line 333 00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:06.400 just to fly the Bee fifty eight. Visiting General was 334 00:19:06.400 --> 00:19:08.640 the first Air Force pilot to fly the Bee fifty eight, 335 00:19:08.839 --> 00:19:13.279 and Fulton was the second. Despite its idiosyncrasies, the Hustler 336 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:16.960 would become Fulton's all time favorite. It was super fast 337 00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:19.640 for its time, He says. I was project pilot and 338 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:23.759 helped shape the airplane. And there was something else you said. 339 00:19:24.440 --> 00:19:27.640 I'd never considered myself a true fighter Piloty explains, but 340 00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:31.680 I do enjoy flying airplanes with only one seat. Eventually, 341 00:19:31.759 --> 00:19:34.559 Fulton became the project pilot for the Bee fifty eight 342 00:19:34.599 --> 00:19:39.000 at Edwards. His responsibilities included evaluating the hustler's behavior when 343 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:42.119 near maximum gross waite an engine was lost on takeoff. 344 00:19:42.599 --> 00:19:46.480 The test involved accelerating to the decision speed and cutting 345 00:19:46.480 --> 00:19:50.200 one of the outboard engines at or above that speed. 346 00:19:50.240 --> 00:19:53.680 The pilot must continue the takeoff no matter what. On 347 00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:56.799 one such test, Fulton had cut an outboard engine just 348 00:19:56.839 --> 00:19:59.640 before taking off at one hundred and ninety knots that's 349 00:19:59.640 --> 00:20:02.279 around two hundred and eighteen miles per hour. When the 350 00:20:02.319 --> 00:20:05.599 right main gear's tires, all light of them, began to disintegrate. 351 00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:09.559 Fulton felt nothing in the controls, but noticed rubber fragments 352 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:13.519 spewing out on his right. He continued to take off, however, 353 00:20:13.839 --> 00:20:16.599 and after a lookout and look over by fellow test 354 00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:19.240 pilots and an F one hundred, turned the hobble B 355 00:20:19.400 --> 00:20:22.839 fifty eight toward home. Landed at one hundred knots. He 356 00:20:22.920 --> 00:20:25.759 remembers not the usual one hundred and fifty pulled up 357 00:20:25.759 --> 00:20:28.680 the nose, pulled it up slow, set it down and 358 00:20:28.759 --> 00:20:32.759 dropped the nose wheels for steering. In September nineteen sixty two, 359 00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:35.319 Fulton flew up B fifty eight with a payload of 360 00:20:35.359 --> 00:20:39.400 five thousand kilograms slightly more than eleven thousand pounds to 361 00:20:39.559 --> 00:20:43.200 eighty five thousand, three hundred and sixty four feet, setting 362 00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:46.920 world records for both two thousand and five thousand kilogram payloads. 363 00:20:47.480 --> 00:20:49.680 For those flights and his other work with the B 364 00:20:49.799 --> 00:20:54.160 fifty eight, he received the International Harman Trophy, aiming him 365 00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:58.680 and I quote, the world's outstanding aviator for nineteen sixty 366 00:20:58.680 --> 00:21:02.079 two end of quote. President Lyndon Johnson awarded him the 367 00:21:02.079 --> 00:21:05.440 trophy at the White House in September nineteen sixty four. 368 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:08.720 In his book, Fulton writes, during the ceremony, I was 369 00:21:08.759 --> 00:21:11.480 standing right behind the President and could read his notes. 370 00:21:11.720 --> 00:21:14.640 It was all over so quickly. The Harmon trophy is 371 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:16.960 big and heavy, but I carried it back to the 372 00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:20.640 hotel and onto our appliant for the trip back to California. 373 00:21:21.160 --> 00:21:23.519 That same month saw the first flight of North American 374 00:21:23.559 --> 00:21:28.000 Aviation's XB seventy Valkyrie prototype, a MOCK three plus strategic 375 00:21:28.039 --> 00:21:31.680 bomber intended as a successor to the B fifty two, 376 00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:35.119 Fulton flew Chase in a B fifty eight while he 377 00:21:35.200 --> 00:21:37.880 and several colleagues spent a couple of years learning about 378 00:21:37.880 --> 00:21:41.119 the radical new bomber An airplane. He said that would 379 00:21:41.160 --> 00:21:43.359 be close runner up to the B fifty eight in 380 00:21:43.440 --> 00:21:48.200 his admiration. Fulton had by then come to an important 381 00:21:48.200 --> 00:21:52.000 decision regarding his career. Offered a posting to the prestigious 382 00:21:52.079 --> 00:21:54.799 Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, 383 00:21:55.119 --> 00:21:58.359 he declined, fearing it would put him behind a desk. 384 00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:01.920 In April of nineteen sixty six, he filed his retirement 385 00:22:02.039 --> 00:22:05.519 request affected at the end of June. Meanwhile, he continued 386 00:22:05.559 --> 00:22:09.599 flying the Valkyrie. On June eighth of nineteen sixty six, 387 00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:12.559 Fulton was scheduled to fly the XB seventy in a 388 00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:16.480 test run. They would segue into a calendar photoshoot for 389 00:22:16.599 --> 00:22:21.039 General Electric showing a close formation of GE powered aircraft 390 00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:24.680 and F four B T thirty eight, F one O 391 00:22:24.799 --> 00:22:29.359 four n F five and the number two XB seventy prototype. 392 00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:32.039 But word came that a pilot was needed for an 393 00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:35.960 X fifteen drop from the NB fifty two, and Fulton 394 00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:40.319 was reassigned. The X fifteen drop was subsequently canceled, but 395 00:22:40.400 --> 00:22:42.400 it was too late to change the pilot roster for 396 00:22:42.440 --> 00:22:46.039 the XB seventy. Major Carl Cross would pilot the XB 397 00:22:46.119 --> 00:22:50.400 seventy with al White as copilot. The Valkyrie completed its 398 00:22:50.440 --> 00:22:54.000 test program and settled into a photo session for some 399 00:22:54.079 --> 00:22:56.759 forty minutes. All went well, but then the F one 400 00:22:56.839 --> 00:23:00.240 o four drifted in toward the bomber, drawn perhap apps 401 00:23:00.279 --> 00:23:03.960