TEST PILOT

TEST PILOT

JIMMY COLLINS

FOREWORD

Jimmy Collins used periodically to try to changehis name to Jim Collins, but he never could make itstick. There was something about him that madeeverybody call him Jimmy. He did sign his wonderfularticle in the Saturday Evening Post about divetesting “Jim Collins,” but his friends kidded him somuch about wanting to be a “he-man” that he wentback to Jimmy in his articles for the New York DailyNews.

The article from the Saturday Evening Post,“Return to Earth,” which is printed in this book, isthe most extraordinary flying story I have ever read,and as a newspaper and former magazine editor Ihave read hundreds of them, from The Red Knightof Germany down.

Jimmy wrote his own stuff—every word of it. Notone line has been added to or taken from any of thestories that appeared in the Daily News. If a storyhad any unkindness in it, or reflected on any otherpilot’s ability, Jimmy omitted or changed the nameof the person under reproach.

Jimmy graduated from the army training schoolsof Brooks and Kelly fields, in the same class asColonel Charles A. Lindbergh. Collins and Lindberghwere two of the four selected for the pursuit group,which means they were considered to have the greatestability in their class. Jimmy afterwards becamethe youngest instructor at Kelly Field.

I was privileged to receive some instruction fromJimmy. He was a fine teacher, making you know preciselywhat he wanted and why. He told me promptlythat I lacked coördination. He said, “Every studentlacks coördination, but you lack more of it than anystudent I ever saw.” In driving a car, you can goforward or backward, left or right. An airplane cannotgo backward. It can go forward, right, left, up,down. The coördination that Collins kept talkingabout meant that when, for instance, you were goingup and to the right, you should do it in one perfectarc between the two desired points, not in a waveringline that sometimes bulged and sometimes flatteneditself out.

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