Marine Space Pioneer Returns To Patuxent River

The first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn, touched down at Pax River April 28 to officially commemorate the stand up of the Marine Corps Aviation Association squadron named in his honor.

Glenn orbited the Naval air station on a windshield tour before arriving at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School where he received up close briefs of some of NAVAIR's cutting edge programs.

Glenn, a class 12 Test Pilot Training graduate in July 1954, gracefully greeted a steady stream of people for six solid hours as if some supernatural gravitational force drew them to him. They came to get a glimpse of living history with the unknown hope of possibly meeting the famed astronaut and shake his hand.

With Glenn was his lifelong friend retired Lt. Gen. Tom Miller. The two served side-by-side from Marine officer training, through flight school, combat in the Pacific during World War II, Korea and Test Pilot Training, and are still the best of friends today.

While here, Glenn formally signed the proclamation standing up the MCAA John Glenn Squadron, and received a special gift from noted aviation artist Hank Caruso - a caricature depicting Glenn's most famous flights.

Col. Robert "Gimp" Martinez, Marine Aviation Detachment commanding officer and CO of the MCAA John Glenn Squadron, kicked off the festivities by thanking the many people and sponsor companies who made the evening possible.

John Glenn was not the only honoree that evening. Martinez and 1st Sgt. Jeff Treiber thanked Annie Glenn, childhood sweetheart and wife of the famed Marine Corps aviator, for her more than 60 years of devoted support and service to the Corps and country as they presented her with a bouquet of flowers. Not to be outdone, Glenn stood up and hugged Annie with passion rarely seen. The couple received a standing ovation.

Martinez introduced the guests of honor: retired Marine Gen. Jack "Zorro" Dailey, National Air and Space Museum director and MCAA national commander; Miller; Marine Lt. Gen. Mike Hough, deputy commandant for Marine Corps Aviation; and Rear Adm. Michael Bachmann, NAVAIR vice commander.
Martinez introduced Dailey, the first speaker, and proceeded to tell the story of when Dailey got to fly an SR-71 Blackbird while working with NASA.

"As the story goes, after getting all suited up in his astronaut outfit, he realized he had his reading glasses on but didn't want to tell anybody," Martinez said. "So they put the helmet on, he gets all situated up, he's ready to go, he has his reading glasses tucked all the way down, proceeds to go out to flight, touches the hand of God up in space, flies two or three times the speed of sound and does it the whole time with reading glasses underneath his astronaut outfit."

Dailey thanked the crowd for their support in standing up the new MCAA squadron and said that the only requirement for having an MCAA squadron was to hold an annual reunion so that everyone can get together to remember the good old days.

"Of course, the older you get you remember with more and more clarity things that never actually happened," Dailey said to much laughter. "But it is an important function that takes place in passing on some of these ideas and experiences to those that are following on behind us."

Before introducing Glenn, Dailey pledged that the national MCAA organization would make every effort to support the John Glenn Squadron and see that it is a success.

Glenn addressed MCAA friends and guests gathered in Hangar 110 telling stories about the golden age of aircraft test and evaluation.

Born July 18, 1921 in Cambridge, Ohio, Glenn was commissioned in the Marine Corps in 1943 and after flight training was assigned to Marine Fighter Squadron 155 with which he spent a year flying F-4U fighters in the Marshall Islands during World War II. Since those early days as a young Marine aviator, Glenn accumulated more than 9,000 hours of flying time and has logged more than 218 hours of space travel. In the last nine days of fighting in the Korean War Glenn earned distinction by downing three MiGs in combat along the Yalu River.

After the Korean War Glenn went through Test Pilot Training at Naval Air Test Center Patuxent River. Just five years after graduating he was hand-picked by the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration to be one of the original seven astronauts.

In 1962 Glenn boarded Friendship 7 to become the United States' first man to orbit the Earth. He completed three orbits around Earth before splashing down nearly five hours later.

Glenn's second stint in space was a nine-day mission with STS-95 aboard Shuttle Discovery in 1998 - Glenn was 77.

"I want to put one thing to rest," Glenn said. "It is not true that on my last space flight, in 1998, that NASA would not let me go out on a spacewalk because they were afraid at my age I would wander off someplace."

After a few icebreakers, Glenn continued to talk about the pioneering days of aircraft testing, specifically about his first deployment here with Service Test in 1945 when he and Miller tested the FR1 Ryan Fireball. What they did in Service Test, Glenn said, was to take all the new airplanes and try and put them through their entire combat life. They flew each aircraft around the clock, 24 hours, seven days a week trying to simulate all the high power time, the number of landings, the number of high G turns and other maneuvers in the shortest time possible. Pilots would work in shifts to complete these tasks.

"[The FR1] looked like a regular fighter airplane, a little like an F8F Bearcat or an F6F Hellcat that was standard in World War II, but the FR1 had a difference," Glenn said. "With jets just coming in, the Navy had not yet become convinced that they were going to be able to use jets aboard ship. So they were hedging their bets. And so they commissioned this plane to be built, the Ryan Fireball and there weren't many of them that from the side looked like a regular fighter airplane but back in the tail was a jet engine. It wasn't a very big jet engine. It had about 20 minutes of jet fuel. You took off aboard ship and you were going out and you got into combat then you had this jet engine that would give you a boost for speed and for altitude. That was the theory behind it."

The way Glenn said they used it while with Service Test was a little bit different. They would fly to Dover, Del. where there was a fighter squadron based, fly up next to another airplane, turn their little jet engine on, which the other pilot didn't know was there, and feather the prop.

"These people would almost spin in looking at you with a feathered prop, not knowing it was a jet engine," Glenn said. "So there were some good times back in those days too."
Glenn made his way back to Pax after the Korean War and began testing the new stable of jet aircraft for the Navy and Marine Corps.

"Some of the things that happened during the flying days here were very unusual," Glenn said. "Because those were the days when were taking the first of our super sonic fighter and attack aircraft, and I was in Armament Test back then which is where VX-23 is now right down along the water, and we had planes like the old F7U Cutlass â€" sort of looked like a [praying] mantis, had a big long nose gear to it â€" and then the F8U, the Crusader, I did a lot of work on that one. It was a great time to be here because what we were doing was marrying up the old style armament with the new jet aircraft, and it made for some very unusual incidents in flying."

Glenn described one exciting flight while trying to perform a low altitude/high speed test point with the F8U Crusader. He was to fire a two second burst with the gun during the high speed pass, but after he did the Crusader popped over about 90 degrees. It was controllable but Glenn thought he should check that out, so he slowed down to take a look and it started to roll over again. He corrected, sped up, but the Crusader would roll again every time he slowed down.

"So I thought we should check this before I did anymore firing," Glenn said. "We came back and landed, and we always had the wings folded when we came in on the ramp. From the cockpit of the F8U you could not see the trailing edge of the wing, so it looked all right when you looked back. What we found when I was taxiing in and was folding the wing was some of the crewman on the ground kept pointing. It turned out that about 19 square feet of the wing tip was missing. It was gone."

The Crusader was an instrumented aircraft and they found the cause to be from the four 20 mm cannons. It seems there was a time period at which all four cannons were firing in exact synchronization. It made a big pulse on the airplane. And the rate of fire was exactly the resonant frequency between the guns and wing tip. It just popped the wing tip off, Glenn said.

Glenn went on tell a few more stories, captivating the audience with his amazingly detailed recall of flight tests that occurred 60 years ago.

"Well, anyway, lots of stories, but the important thing about being here today is not to honor me, it's to honor the Corps and the heritage that we share in this Marine Corps," Glenn said. "The air ground team is a team like none other in this world. We have a heritage in the Marine Corps for which there is no equal. The first CO Tom and I ever had out of flight school, in a fighter squadron was a man named Pete Hanes. And Pete said once, that Marine training makes you more afraid of letting your buddies down then you are of getting hurt yourself. That feeling runs not only for the ground forces, but is just as true for the air also in supporting those people on the ground. It's a close cooperation. And if this squadron that you're forming here today can help further that type of heritage that we all share, and that kind of feeling that not only is among those of us whose active military days are done, but if that can be imbued to the younger people coming up, this Marine Corps will always do the job it always has done.

"So if this can help contribute to that," Glenn wrapped up, "then I am very proud to have my name connected with it. Semper Fi."

FMI: www.usmc.mil