While at Brookley AFB I would occasionally join pilot friends on test or other flights. One day Joe Scheile, a test pilot, took me up in a T-33, a training jet built on a modified F-80 fighter with 2 seats and 2 sets of controls. It was a thrill I will never forget! Jet fighters were still quite new. We took off from Brookley and headed west toward the Mississippi River near to where Joe was raised in McComb, MS. After buzzing Main Street (this as still OK in 1952), with people pouring out of stores to look and wave, Joe turned the plane over to me. I had been an airplane fan and model builder since early youth and knew exactly what to do. It was a dream come true! The rudder pedals and control stick responded ever so smoothly as we swept around the sky….until Joe turned off the hydraulic boost. After that it took all I had to move the stick. Joe finally had mercy on me and took the controls back - with hydraulic boost activated - and flew us back to Brookley. It was a memorable day in my life and still is.
rigdoncurrie
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