Naval Air Basic Training Command
Naval Air Station
Pensacola, Florida
Whiting Field in Milton, Florida was our next stop. There we flew the magnificent SNJ pictured below with me beside one at the Pensacola Naval Aviation Museum. My first flight on July 6th was filled with surprises. My instructor was Navy Lieutenant Kamrad who was an easy going guy, but not on a first name basis. After getting in the front seat he gave my lap belt, shoulder harness and helmet chin strap extra tugs to ensure everything was tight. It was, but after his efforts I could hardly breath. I guess he thought I was prepared to do all the radio transmissions but I must have been asleep in that lecture. When he told me to call for taxi instructions I looked up at the tower and said "Tower, this is Lieutenant Brown down here and I want permission to taxi." He took over quickly!
My first solo flight on August 18th was uneventful. I recall tooling along the highway running into Pensacola and flying at about the same speed as the cars were traveling. It was the first time I was credited in my log book with any landings; I made 5 on that flight. They always had instructors on duty when solos were out so that they could talk us down safely if necessary.
From Whiting I was transferred in October to Saufley Field where we learned to fly in formation and at night. Our flight won the title of Tactics Champs and got to fly to Jackson, MS to spend the night and party with the gals that came to the airport to meet us. I am 4th from the right in the picture below.
Formation flying was dangerous back then and there were numerous accidents and deaths. I recall one night when a French student landed on top of an aircraft on the runway and killing both pilots. A year or so before I arrived at Saufley, four instructors switched places with students and took the chase instructor on the flight of his life. Click on the picture below to listen to the radio transmissions of that flight. The quality is quite good, and hilarious.
On one of my liberty weekends to Columbia I traded the Plymouth for a 1953 Jaguar XK120! Why not? I had been drawing $110 a month flight pay and was promoted to first lieutenant on December 5th. That added another $50 a month to my salary. The Jag cost $2,595 and they gave me $1,495 for the Plymouth. It seemed to be the right thing to do so I did it! Man, talk about living in high cotton!! The picture below was taken some time later in Hawaii. The beauty beside me turned out to be my bride just a few months later. She still is!!!
Gunnery training was next at Barin Field. What a shock I had when an instructor in another plane yelled for me to get my RPM set correctly. That was the first time I had known about matching propellers to determine RPM of another aircraft. I thought the guy had gotten so close he could see my tachometer! Next on the agenda was carrier training. After nearly a month and 82 carrier practice landings on land we flew to the USS Monterey on January 27, 1955 and made 6 landings and takeoffs. Now that was an experience!!
Instrument training was the last stop of primary training and the end of flying the SNJ. The last hop was in Bureau Number 90590 for a total of 1.5 hours and it was a night hop to boot. During Primary I had logged a total of 190.7 hours, 96.3 of which were first pilot. Instrument time was a whopping 10.7 hours and I had flown 12.7 hours at night. I had survived 82 practice carrier landings, 6 more on the carrier and 205 other landings. It was nice not having had a single incident mar my record.
I departed Pensacola on 3 March 1955 and went
back to Columbia for a week before heading to Corpus Christi, Texas for
Advanced Training and some more exciting times.
END OF CHAPTER ON PRIMARY FLIGHT TRAINING,
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