"First of all, my compliments to all involved with this great website, I think it is awesome. However, I didn't want to use this venue to bore you with how I got on the Team, even though I'm sure some of you are probably wondering just how I did make on the Team! I wrote this story about my pilot, Capt. Jim Simons, for the 50th Anniversary book but I got it in late and I'm not sure it was even politically correct enough. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and for some of you, bring back some memories of yester year."
Cheers,
Dennis
BIG JIM, “P.J.” AND ME
During the course of one’s life, it seems you always encounter one or two individuals that are so unique, or so dared to be different, that you’ll never forget the experiences that you shared with them. In my case, it was Jim Simons, Solo Pilot 75-76. A young redheaded country boy from Grass Range, Montana, affectionately known as “Torch” or “Carrot” to his fellow pilots, he was always “Big Jim” to me and Joe Burton, my assistant crew chief.
Although the Solo T-38 presented some unique crewing problems in itself, crewing for Jim Simons brought you a whole host of problems. In spite of all the additional jet maintenance he generated, just being able to fly with him made it all worthwhile. He enjoyed living on the edge. He had little or no ego for being the Solo Pilot as a bachelor. While others drove nice sporty cars, he drove an old Ford Falcon that smoked more than #5 did inverted. He refused to wear his Air Force Academy ring -“didn’t want to be no ring knocker!”
We always flew hot mic and he would talk through his maneuvers with me and he loved to sing while inverted. His favorite lyric- ”standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, seven women on my mind -push-push-push-push!” I think he used that as a timing device.
The ‘75 guys remember his first roll on take-off at Nellis. Solos had always been cleaning it up before the roll, not Jim. As he broke ground, he was into the roll as the gear was just starting to retract--damnedest thing we had ever seen! He was a mathematical genius as well as his own biggest critic, always trying to calculate a more finite maneuver. His higher intelligence would allow him to mess with me occasionally as well, me being a highly uneducated hillbilly from Tennessee. He told me before my first ride with him that he hadn’t figured out on paper yet, the take-off roll with the extra weight of me being in the back seat. He said he didn’t think it would require any adjustments, but if it did he wouldn’t know until we were inverted. That wouldn’t have been so bad had we not been taxiing out when he told me.
After my first set of arrival maneuvers with him, I exited the aircraft bleeding from both groin areas from where the chute clips had dug in from the violence and negative G’s. He said “Oh I forgot to tell you to get some of those pads put on your chute like mine”. Later I also added a support string from my helmet shell to the oxygen mask to keep the mask on my face during heavy doses of sustained positive G’s. Amazingly, it was just like his. Without G suits in those days, he could absolutely wear you out. Outside turns seemed to be his avenue to display how he could take you from negative two and a half Gs to plus seven Gs in a wink of an eye and then proclaim “smooth ain’t I!!”
Next came the “Junior Meter”, a taunt string stretched tight between two pieces of coat hanger screwed into the glare shield. This gave him an artificial horizon to make his point rolls more perfect and enabling him to fly lower inverted with more confidence, as if he needed it. He never once scared me. I always said that he strapped the airplane to his ass and it was Jim Simons from wingtip to wing tip.
Below are a few of the “I remember when” from flying with him:
I remember we would corkscrew up through the bomb burst and as the airspeed would bleed down, he would throw the gear out so he would have full rudder and try to do a hammerhead in the T-38. The little plane that couldn’t didn’t know what to do. Here we are, falling backwards, shuddering violently; Jim’s standing on the rudder, trying to get this thing pointed toward the ground. He never succeeded with the hammerhead. We did, however, probably put some extra wear and tear on the jet and ourselves.
I remember some wing walk and roll touchdowns; the most famous was in the show at Kansas City, where he touched down in a field. During the autograph session, people asked if he really touched the ground, he would say “no but it was awful close!” Afterwards, Joe and I asked him when he knew he wasn’t going to make it, and he said with his hands demonstrating, “Well, just as I was inverted” We laughed, changed the tires, did a hard landing inspection, cleaned the grass and dirt out of the wheel wells and had a beer.
I remember Jim saying we needed a plastic Jesus on the dashboard, like the song says. Well, I was starting to agree, so my wife found one at a religious store and I put it in his cockpit. We carried it all the time. I started hiding it on purpose from him. The object was that I wanted him to find Jesus before every flight. He called Him “P.J.” for short. When he left the Team he took “P.J.” and all the pieces of airplane he had torn off or blew off from his flying. He came by the house on his way out. In the trunk of his old Falcon were numerous pieces of red, white, and blue aircraft parts. Most were gear door pieces that couldn’t withstand the extreme pressure buildup of flying too fast, too low to the ground. He gave me a painting of our jet and plaque with a small piece of severed tail section mounted on it that read; “DENNIS HOOD--CREWING #5 IS NO PIECE OF CAKE--THANKS JUNIOR” signed only with an upside down 5.
I remember making our first run-in for the slow roll at Vance AFB, Ok. We were in the weeds and there was road perpendicular to the end of the runway lined by several utility poles. They had blocked off the road for arrival maneuvers. All of a sudden we went into a violent knife-edge for an instant and then back to normal. He said “Junior, remind me about them guide wires before the show tomorrow.” Well, on show day just before I jumped down the ladder, I smacked him in the back of the helmet as I always did and told him to watch out for the guide wires. Mike Jacobssen and I were watching the show and this highway patrol car came screeching to a halt behind us. The officer called us over in a panic and opened his trunk. He said “this fell off of one of your jets and landed in the road!” There in his trunk was approximately a three-foot piece of a red, white and blue wing tip. Jake and I ran over to Maj. Ray White, who was on the radio and was grading the show. He told us not to bother him that he was busy. We told him he didn’t understand. After getting his undivided attention, he radioed 5, and asked if he was okay, Jim said he would finish the show. That wing tip looked as though you had taken a can opener to it. Another three inches would have gotten it into the wing spar. Jim said he cut it off on the first maneuver and then flew the whole show without it. He said “Well, it flew okay; I just had to crank in a little more trim than normal.” Obviously, we parked him down by the Herky after the show.
I remember us flying inverted low level formation over the beach on the way to Pensacola NAS to smoke the Blue Angels. The Blues had caught us on the ground in South Carolina after a show and did a very low level pass over us and the crowd with their smoke on. It really messed up our jets from the smoke oil. That stuff was hard to clean off. Our Boss, Chris Patterakis, vowed to get them back. I think we flew out of Tyndall AFB, I don’t really remember, but the Boss called Pensacola and asked if the Blues were home and they said yes. Then he asked if their jets were outside and they said yes. He then asked for clearance for a low-level pass to say hello, again they said yes. And then we knew we were in for a ride. We smoked them a lot better than they smoked us. But before all that, we had flown low level all they way down the beach. Jim asked the Boss if he could practice. He rolls inverted and flies wing in formation, rolling right side up occasionally to fill the inverted flight tank. I think that’s why I never got any taller, the man loved to be upside down.
I remember flying an Easter cross formation over the Strip returning to Nellis the Easter of ’75. Jim told me that we were going to do something different today because he knew no senior officers or commanders would be on the ground watching at Nellis on Easter morning. They would be in church. We did our normal inverted run-in for pitch-up, but on down wind Jim rolled inverted and we flew inverted downwind, turned base inverted, put the gear out inverted, and turned final inverted. I told him if he didn’t mind I’d rather not land inverted. He agreed, rolled out, and we landed without incident. I remember going into Randolph AFB, TX. Jim wanted to impress all the student pilots there, so we flew a very low inverted to inverted pass. I mean all I could see in the canopy were the white runway stripes flying by. He was doing real well until we violently turned out as normal, rolling 270 degrees and pulling hard and guess what? There was the tower right in front of us! I really don’t know how close we were to hitting it, but I could see people inside diving for cover! I think Jim and the Boss had to meet with the FAA that day.
I remember flying over Lake Tahoe so low I thought we were in a speedboat. I swear I could almost feel the water lapping at the bottom of the jet. Jim said “Junior; you know what I like about flying over water?” Before I could answer he said “there ain’t no hills in it!”
I could go on and on with these stories but my most memorable ride with Jim was Nov. ‘75, my last flight with him as his crew chief. He had told me we would do something special. I didn’t say anything because I thought most of what he did was special. We were returning to Nellis from Edwards AFB, so we had enough fuel for a full show before landing. All went well through the show and we go up through the bomb burst and he tries his hammerhead stunt again. Although unsuccessful, he did manage to get the gear up before over speeding it. Now, normally this is the time we started looking for #6. We always had a few minutes to kill while the Diamond would do their crossover and then join up, etc. Ray White would always jump our ass and we would dogfight, of course White would always have the advantage because he knew were we would be, but we never knew where he was. That used to really piss Jim off to get picked off. But Jim said no to dog fighting today, that he and I were going to do something that maybe nobody had ever done or tried to do, and that was an outside loop in T-38. I swallowed hard as we proceeded out toward Apex. We rolled inverted and pushed to the vertical, which wasn’t too bad. We did the inverted emmelman in the show anyway. We go over the top right side up with a little float - “Didn’t want no egg shaped loop” and started the backside. As we passed through the vertical I thought I was going to turn wrong side out! Yes, the little plane that couldn’t did. We completed the outside loop and all the engineers had said the wing would come off. That was a most memorable day. We had a motto “Plus 8 Minus 3 Equals 5” and he lived up to it more than not. He over G’d the airplane a lot. We had recorders in the rear cockpit to record the stress on the jet. They were mounted where the rear instrument panel was supposed to be. Just as well, I really didn’t want to see any gauges anyway, might have scared me. I will always remember him.
He wrote me when I was in Saudi when he became the OPS Officer on the USS Independence, quite the accomplishment for an Air Force guy on Navy exchange.
He also wrote me when he got grounded for flying an F4J model inverted below carrier deck “for the boys."
He did not write me, however, when he accidentally shot down another Navy jet during a training exercise. Jim, you were quite the character, always wanting to be perfect. I can just see him flipping those switches like real combat; getting tone and letting it fly!
He died in Texas doing what he loved, aerobatics. We were blessed to have had him on the team. In 1976 we added the second solo. Jim flew lead solo and Lacy Veach was the opposing solo. How lucky we were to have two highly skilled aviators who absolutely put it all on the line every flight. Both were unique and they thrilled us all. I was very fortunate to fly with both of them a lot. How unlucky we are not to have either of them around to relive their stories. Lacy became an astronaut and had two shuttle flights. I went to watch him launch and to land on one of his flights. A picture of health until that cruel and evil disease cancer took him from us as a young man. But you know I bet heaven will never be the same with Jim Simons and Lacy Veach up there. I bet they are teaching angels point rolls, opposing loops, “John Deere turns” and doing it their way. Their families should and must know that we will never let their legacies die.
God bless our Brother Birds.
Dennis Hood aka “Junior”
Crew Chief 1973-77