Portale
It was the spring of 1944.
I had just picked up a new Bell P-63A Kingcobra fighter at the Buffalo, New York, factory.
I had to deliver this plane to the Russians at Fairbanks, Alaska.
My aircraft was one of the first half-dozen off the assembly line and was a completely, new fighter, a great improvement over the P-39 Airacobra.
I filed my flight plan;
my first stop would be Madison, Wisconsin, for fuel.
I would fly over Toledo, South Bend and Chicago, refuel at Madison, continue on to Fargo, North Dakota, and stay that night.
Next day, I would fly non-stop to Great Falls, Montana, where the aircraft would be winterized, ultimately continuing on to Fairbanks.
The flight plan was too tempting.
I'd spent many months away from home ferrying all types of aircraft;
I decided to stop in Toledo for half an hour to visit my parents and relatives.
This was not official at all, and if anything happened to the aircraft at Toledo, I would be in very deep trouble.
I landed at Toledo and let everyone see the aircraft.
My father wanted to sit in the cockpit to see what it was like.
I helped him in, got him seated, and gave him a little cockpit check, explaining the instruments and levers.
While he was in the cockpit, I ran into the little airline terminal building for a quick trip to the potty.
I came out and got ready to leave, and said my goodbyes to everyone.
I fired up, taxied out and prepared to take off on Runway 22.
I knew the airport very well, since I began my private flight training there as a 16-year-old kid in 1938.
After doing my cockpit checks, I lined up for takeoff.
For the first few hundred feet, you have to use a lot of right rudder until the rudder takes over on the takeoff roll.
I suddenly found myself going to the left very quickly in spite of using full right rudder.
Before I could correct, I went off the runway and into the grass, bouncing around all over the area.
After getting the aircraft stopped, I sat there and tried to figure out what was wrong.
So I taxied back to the runway and tried another takeoff.
Same thing happened.
After four takeoff tries, I was dumb-founded:
Why can't I hold it straight down the runway on takeoff?
Why is it veering off to the left so quickly?
I was really sweating by now;
what would I do if I couldn't take off?
What has suddenly happened to the aircraft to make it do this?
I was scared of what would happen to me, because stopping in Toledo was against the rules.
It seemed like my number was up.
I finally gathered my senses together and tried to figure out what was wrong.
I climbed out of the aircraft as it sat there on the runway with the engine idling, and took a quick look at the rudder;
I thought it might have come loose.
But everything looked normal.
I climbed back in the cockpit, and once again tried to think it out before I made another takeoff attempt.
I raised my head toward the sky, looking through the glass canopy overhead, maybe in prayer.
Then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit me.
I noticed in the little rearview mirror that the rudder was cocked to the left, when it should have been in the middle or neutral.
I rechecked my rudder pedals and found that even if I pushed the right pedal all the way in to the right, the rudder only went over to the right a little bit.
I quickly figured out that my father had hit the rudder adjustment stop on the outside of the rudder pedal, and thus the rudder pedal had just moved forward all the way.
When I got in and neutralized the rudder pedals, the rudder cocked to the left almost all the way it could travel.
I quickly readjusted the right rudder pedal;
I could now see that the rudder was in the middle, and I took off without any more problems.
This taught me several lessons:
to remember my Murphy's Law, which says that things will always go wrong at the worst possible time;
to always adjust my seat or rudder pedals before start-up;
and to be sure the aircraft is locked before I leave the ramp.
