Magnificent Desolation_ The Long Journey Home From the Moon - Buzz Aldrin [50]
Our reception in France was much more subdued, though I had to watch out for the Swedish flight attendants my students managed to meet up with. In Germany, a large crowd and a slew of reporters and television cameras greeted us upon our arrival. I answered a few questions, but made it clear that I was visiting with a group of students and would not be granting interviews. This was supposed to be a quiet, educational trip; the last thing I needed back home was my name in the papers.
Overall, the trip was fascinating and we developed a tremendous rapport with our fellow pilots. One major difference was that the Europeans quickly clamored around any and every new plane that landed on their airstrips, hoping for a chance to inspect the plane and possibly even fly it. By contrast, our American test pilots were extremely restricted as to what planes they were allowed to fly.
While in Europe, we were exposed to more than twenty-five new aircraft, and each of our pilots flew seven or more European planes. My group of students and instructors arrived back at Edwards tired but enthusiastic. From an educational standpoint, we all regarded the trip as a tremendous success. We were excited to make our report to our immediate superiors, General Bob White and his staff, who would in turn pass on our recommendations to the top brass in Washington. Basically, our report suggested that we could improve our military pilot training program by doing something similar to what the British did, allowing our test pilots to train on a wide variety of aircraft. Unfortunately, our report advocating a greater variety of training planes came at a time when the Air Force was about to announce a draconian cutback in the number of planes test pilots could fly. It was a self-defeating measure. We were, after all, training test pilots at our school. We weren’t teaching them how to fly planes; we were teaching them how to test planes. How could a good test pilot feel confident to test new types of aircraft, not to mention future spacecraft, if he or she was permitted to fly only a few types of planes over and over again?
It was ludicrous. But the Air Force was insistent on reducing the variety of planes on which pilots trained, thereby making crashes less likely.
When our report suggested using a broader variety of planes, General White’s staff balked. They thought it might draw unwanted attention to the test pilot crashes at Edwards and urged the general to nix the report. I countered with the case of the British, who tested a variety of planes and did more hazardous spins during their training exercises, yet their safety record was similar to our own. General White and his staff didn’t see it that way, and the report was filed away in obscurity.
The disappointment that the Air Force was not even going to submit the report of what we had learned in Europe sapped our students’ and instructors’ morale, and sent me into a personal tailspin. If my own commanding officer did not see merit in my ideas and suggestions, why waste our time and the taxpayers’ money playing silly airplane games? What good was I doing here, anyhow?
Throughout September, after returning to Edwards from Europe, I struggled with my role as commandant. When I went to my office, I looked at the stack of paperwork on my desk and it seemed overwhelming. I could fly fighter jets and I could walk on the moon, but none of my training had prepared me to run a test pilot school. What was I really accomplishing if I couldn’t change anything for the better as commandant of these test pilots? I felt no purpose, and I was having difficulty performing my regular duties. I was distracted, discouraged, and disappointed. I was sinking into despair, and I did not see any