The Chief of Staff can Fly as Long as He Wants

As the chief of the USAFA soaring branch 1978-1980, I had many requests to fly VIPs in our gliders. Jackie Cochran, Colorado governor Richard Lamb, and Reza Pahlavi (son of the shah of Iran) are a few I remember. But the one “dollar ride” that turned out to be a bit more than we expected happened early one Saturday morning, November 1979. As a part of the Air Force’s annual Corona Conference, General Lew Allen, the Air Force’s 10th Chief of Staff, arrived at the Academy airfield for an early morning glider flight. The plan was a tow to ten thousand feet MSL (about 3K feet AGL), a few turns over the cadet area and then back to the airfield in what we called “dead air.”
In the photo, I’m helping the general strap into our Schwietzer SGS-232 (glider instructor pilot CIC Jim Smotherman, class of 1980 is in the back seat) as I brief him on the morning flight. I remember telling him it would be a short flight as the air was cold and calm. The flight should last about 15 minutes. After taking off tethered to the tow airplane, Smotherman released over the stadium at 10K and radioed back that they were heading for the cadet area as planned. I was waiting at the midfield launch point in the soaring van with several members of the general’s staff for their return and landing (we launched the gliders at the midfield point on the paved airstrip and recovered them in the first 1500 feet of grassy landing area next to the runway). After about 10 minutes, I expected to hear Smotherman call downwind. Silence. At the 15 minute point, I called him and asking for a position report. He said they were making a turn over Monument (a small town north of the Academy) and heading south. “The secondary wave is really strong this morning and we are at 12000 feet, climbing, doing about 120 knots”. Surprise, surprise—the Chief of Staff had ordered the jet stream to drop down to the Rampart Range for an hour! It was now past 0730 and the BG standing next to me told me to tell Smotherman to land ASAP because the Chief had a 0800 Corona meeting. “Remind the General he has an 0800 meeting” was my call to Smotherman. Silence. At 0745 Smotherman called to say they were near Pike’s Peak trying to stay below 13K and turning back toward the Academy. What a morning for soaring on the front range. General Allen and CIC Smotherman were having a glider flight many glider pilots rarely experience. Back at the airfield, his staff was visibly agitated. “Tell him to land immediately” the BG barked. Not me. I wasn’t going to direct the Chief of Staff to do anything. It was close to 0800 when Smotherman called downwind and I spotted the SGS-232 against the Ramparts heading north for the south landing. Typically, the glider lands in the grassy area near the airfield boundary and rolls up to the midfield point so the ground crew can pull the glider back on the paved surface for a quick tow plane hook-up and launch for another flight. Not this time. As the 232 leveled off over the grassy area, it was evident he was not going to stop in the normal landing area. When the glider passed by me at the midfield point, he was still about 10 feet off the ground and I’ll always have the image of Jim Smotherman in the back seat looking at me with both hands in the air, shoulders shrugging, indicating the General had control and was making the landing as they whistled past. The glider hit the ground in the south end landing area, dirt and grass flying. He came to a quick stop about 100 feet from a ditch and paved access road. I jumped into the van, and quickly drove over to where they stopped. Several staff cars followed. The canopy was open, General Allen had a big grin as he unstrapped. “Great flight! Most fun I’ve had in years”, he said as he shook my hand. I immediately pushed down on the nose of the glider to keep it on the ground because I didn’t want him to see the smashed in nose or the broken nose skid. He thanked Smotherman, shook my hand once more, and he was off to his Corona meeting. An hour earlier, I had told him it would be a quick flight. Dead air. Instead, General Lew Allen, the USAF Chief of Staff, on a cold November Saturday morning, had won the soaring lottery. The landing, however, not so good. The SGS-232 was in the shop for 6 weeks.

Vern McGraw, ‘68