I had no shortage of enemies in flight test, and one of them (I never learned who) discovered that I had never completed the stability and control course at test pilot school. That is, the school was in two parts. I finished the first part, then went on to fly the X-1, skipping the second part, stability and control school, a six-month course. Without a diploma from stability and control school I could not be certified to do flight testing. Well, it was ridiculous. I had more stability and control experience than any of my would-be instructors. Performance tested how high and fast an airplane could fly; stability and control tested all of its handling characteristics by performing spins, stalls, high angles of attack. A fighter was a moving gun platform, and to be accurate in firing its weapons, it had to be a stable platform. I had literally hundreds of hours of stability and control work behind me when I was forced back to school. General Boyd's hands were tied; regulations were regulations. I was sabotaged, but it was ironic having the Air Force's big test pilot hero back in test pilot school, hitting the books.
The school was on base. The instructors made damned sure it wouldn't be easy for me. Their attitude was right out in the open: they would love to flunk me. The word got back to me that they had actually laughed at the possibility, wondering what the Air Force brass would do about it when they denied me a diploma. In class, the instructors smirked every time they called on me, as if to say, "Okay, hot shot, let's see how you handle this one." They just dumped on me. The word was out that I could be tripped up academically, so they loaded me down with extra assignments, and if I didn't complete every last equation or problem, I staved after class until I did. If I were a minute late to class, they put me on report. I knew they wanted me to explode, so they could really nail me and maybe ruin my career. So, I did what I was told and counted to three or four hundred. But I always remembered those nasty sons of bitches. If they were harassing me because of a cocky attitude or because I wasn't doing my work, I would respect that. But this was spite. I put a little red flag next to the name of each one of those guys, and I nailed them the first chance I got. That's exactly what I did, and ruthlessly, too.
I was scared they were going to flunk me no matter how hard I worked. Ridley tried to help bY tutoring me; I remember sitting up half the night, night after night, struggling through complicated problems. I felt trapped, and I could smell disaster at the end of the line. No diploma for this jock. But then an amazing thing happened. General Boyd grabbed me out of school and took me with him to France. Wham team. One day I was in class, the next I was on his wing in a fighter crossing the Atlantic. The school's commandant was a bird colonel. He raised hell, saying I couldn't miss three weeks of school and expect to graduate. General Boyd's authority extended over the school, and he told me to pack my bags. The French government invited him over to evaluate their first generation of jet fighters and bombers, because we had much more experience in high-speed aircraft. The old man chose me to go with him. He said, "I know how disappointed you'll be leaving school to go fly, but I thought I'd take you, anyway."
God, it was wonderful, although we worked our butts off. We went first to French Air Force headquarters in Paris to get briefed, then flew down to Marseilles to their flight test center. Although he was a general officer, he always flipped a coin with me to see who got to fly first. And if he won, you could bet your tail he would put that airplane right on the end of the runway, landing as pretty as any pilot could ever do. He was so expert at evaluating airplanes that he could fly once and write up a complete flight test report. The general wanted to go to work very early when the air was smooth, but the French engineers drifted in around nine in the morning, broke out the wine and cheese. The old man wiped that out fast. I flew the Mystere up to Paris and made the first sonic boom over that city in a steep dive. We had a lot of problems, but we worked well together. The old man was like me: stick him in an airplane and his day was made.
The French wanted our advice about their prototypes and which ones to put into production. The Chief of Staff assigned this mission to me, and I, in turn, selected Chuck to go with me. We took turns chasing each other in an F-86, while one or the other of us flew the prototype. We worked hard and under very trying conditions. This was truly the unknown, flying in foreign aircraft we were unfamiliar with, hoping the French engineers really had made themselves understood while speaking to us in imprecise English. We really missed having a Jack Ridley along-our own engineering backup to help us get through these tests on new equipment. We started by flying the MD 450 Dassault Ouragan and ended by flying the MD 452 Mystere jet fighter. In between, we flew their bomber and cargo plane prototypes. I recall taking off in their four-engine jet transport. Chuck was in the copilot's seat, and I had just put my wheels up when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to see a little man in a striped coat with a tray of champagne. I turned to Chuck and burst out laughing. "Oh my God," I said, "that's all I need on my first flight in this thing."
Chuck, of course, took up their fighters and did everything in the world that could be done to them. The French engineers just shook their heads. He spun them, dived them, stalled them-everything. As usual, he just impressed the hell out of me with his ability to perform under pressure and his understanding of the systems aboard. It was partly innate and partly self-taught, but whatever the reason, he had more than the equivalent of an engineering degree, many times over. After ten minutes, he flew those unfamiliar airplanes as if he owned them. His quick mastery over complicated equipment was just amazing.
On the way back from France we stopped off in Madrid. At dinner, I said, "General Boyd-" but he interrupted. "Chuck, we're after-hours now. Call me 'Al.'" I said, "General Boyd, the two of us can be stuck together on a desert island for the next ten years, but you'll still be 'General Boyd.' " I could no more call my own dad "Hal" than call General Boyd by his first name. I think if I had ever tried to call him Al, my mouth would not have known how to get it out.
When we returned to Edwards, the old man marched on the test pilot school. The commandant told him, "General, there's no way we can pass Yeager. He's missed too much work." The old man handed him the stability and control reports I had prepared on the XF-92 and the French jets. "Study that," he said, "you might learn something. Yeager knows more about stability and control than you can teach him." The commandant said that might be, but rules were rules, and I couldn't get a certification diploma without completing my course work. And without the certificate, my test pilot days were over. General Boyd turned red, then purple. He slammed his fists down on the table and his voice shook that room. "Goddamn it, I'm in charge of this school. You will pass".
And that's how I got my diploma.
FLYING IN THE GOLDEN AGE