Hey! Airforce!

 Those of you following “Steve Canyon” in the drex files funny pages, may have recalled an authoritative Air Force voice speak up. We were all impressed with Johann Barley-Mitchell. “Canyon” Producer John Ellis knows Johann better than anyone.

 

When I met my dear friend Johann Mitchell at the 1976 “August Party” Star Trek Convention at the University of Maryland…I had just moved to the Washington DC area to seek work as a commercial artist…I had no idea that several close friends of mine had already met her. When she and I showed up to meet them several weeks later, they shouted out in unison IT’S THE MOTORCYCLE GIRL! From the accompanying photo (taken about the time I met her) you can get an idea why. Yes that was her motorcycle. She also had an MGB-GT that she let me drive once in a while. Johann turned out to be probably the most fearless woman I’ve ever known…strike that, fearless PERSON I’ve ever known…and to quote Doug Drexler “a trailblazer”.  She taught me much of what I needed to become a functioning professional commercial artist (noting that I was previously an art student of C.C.Beck and Helen Drake, but that’s another story).  Beautiful, talented and with an infectious laugh, Johann has done more excellent AND interesting things than any of you know…including her time in the US Air Force…but Doug is going to try to remedy that:

(Left) After basic, Johann was reassigned the Charleston AFB, S.C. (Right) In Charleston, she discovered the base’s Aero Club, which changed her life in more ways than one. The photographer, Ralph Mitchell, would eventually ask Johann to marry him.

I decided I wanted to see the world, and wanted to do it in relative safety, so I joined the Air Force, an endeavor that was held up for a while due to my recruiter looking at my test scores, and sending them back because he was sure a girl couldn’t possibly get those scores. All my scores were high enough to pass, and you only have to pass two parts to get into the military, but my lowest score was administrative, and my high scores (almost perfect and perfect) were in mechanical, electronic and general (spatial relationships, etc.).

 When we got to the part of basic training where they decided what they were going to have each person do. I did manage to find out from the person who was trying to place me that they needed draftsmen desperately, but he kept telling me that I couldn’t be a draftsman because I would have to go to Fort Belvoir for training, and they didn’t (at that time) have facilities for women. I kept telling him that I didn’t need training because I was already a draftsman. Eventually, I convinced him to let me take a by-passed-specialist test, which I passed with a perfect score. I think that it’s possible I was the first woman ever to be assigned as a draftsman in the US military.

Collier’s Gro-Quick Moon Seed

When I was little, this is the stuff they lined my cage with.

I can’t think of a better time to share these with you than the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. These are selected original pages from 1953’s Collier’s Magazine, left to me by my wonderful friend Leonard Suligowski. What a treasure. Some of you may remember me talking about Collier’s in previous articles. It’s where luminaries like Von Braun, Muller, Ley, Freeman, and Bonestell, to name but a few, planted the seeds that grew all the way to the Moon. Historians credit Collier’s with convincing the American public that a trip to the moon was not only possible, but destined. Incredible art, incredible ideas, incredible dreams… incredible.

As usual it only takes a click to see these images in glorious detail.

(Above) Landing on the moon. Ten minutes before touchdown, rocket motors are switched on to slow the ships’ high speed fall caused by the moon’s gravity. Vehicles are maneuvering 550 miles above landing area known as Sinus Roris (Dewey Bay), dark plain above cargo ship in lower left.

Of additional interest -

http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/disneys-man-in-space-series/

From The Earth To The Moon VFX

(Above) The Saturn V miniature on the stand up in Palmdale.

Our buddy John Ellis, the FX Unit Still Photographer on “From the Earth To the Moon”, has generously provided us with an awesome behind the scenes look at the shows remarkable VFX in production. Wow!  Thanks John! Don’t forget to check out John’s masterful restoration of “Steve Canyon” on DVD: http://stevecanyondvd.blogspot.com/

(Below) The LLRV, the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, affectionately nicknamed “The Flying Bedstead” by the astronauts. Neil Armstrong was nearly killed when the LLRV went out of control and crashed.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

Snopes reports that this letter may not have been written by Chuck Yeager. If he doesn’t want to take credit for it, I will.

From: Chuck Yeager <chucky9@usa.net

<http://us.mc364.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=chucky9@usa.net> >
Sent: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 1:02 pm
Subject: Memorial Service: you’re invited.
  
We’re hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.
I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell “Shifty” Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy 
Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st 
Airborne Infantry. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the 
History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 
episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn’t 
know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having 
trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was 
at the right gate, and noticed the “Screaming Eagle,” the symbol of 
the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

The Return of Steve Canyon!

Who’s the best pilot you ever saw? You’re lookin’ at ‘em! Dean Fredericks as Milton Caniff’s famed newspaper strip U.S. Air Force troubleshooter, Stevenson B. Canyon. Today I go gaga over the return of this vintage 1958 television masterpiece, the most expensive television show of it’s day.

A few months back, I ran this story : In 1970, while assigned to the71st FIS at Maelstrom AFB, Montana, a pilot ejected during an inflight emergency.  The flyer somehow got himself into a flat spin — considered generally unrecoverable in an F-106 — and he did what the flight handbook said to do — get out of it, i.e. eject. After the pilot did just that, 58-0787 recovered itself from this “unrecoverable” situation.  In a vain attempt to break the spin, the pilot had lowered half flaps, rolled in takeoff trim, and throttled the engine back to an approach power setting. After the ejection, the aircraft recovered from the spin on its own, and established a wings level low rate descent under reduced power to the ground.  Ground effect broke its rate of descent, and it settled into a near-perfect gentle belly landing in a farmer’s snow-covered cornfield. http://drexfiles.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/sent-to-the-cornfield/

That really grabbed a lot of us by the imagination, and I think that it was Jim Busby who said it reminded him of an old “Steve Canyon” episode. That kind of sent a thunderbolt through me, because it’s rare someone brings “Steve Canyon” up in conversation. Naturally it would be Jim. ”Steve Canyon” left a big impression on me when I was a kid. It ran on both ABC and NBC between the years 1958 and 1961. I had the helmet, and the toy jet fighter console. I LOVED that show, and had not seen it  since 1962. We enthused a bit. I was pretty sure that my love was mostly nostalgic.

Well as fate would have it, guess who is reading the drex files? John Ellis of the Milton Caniff Estate, whose passion and madness is to see “Steve Canyon” restored. John got busy and produced three volumes of Steve Canyon beautifully transferred from the original 35mm prints. They are positively stunning. One of televisions original adventure shows, unseen for like 48 years. The next thing I know, I’m slappin’ that DVD home… I gotta tell ‘ya, I was pretty sure it was gonna’ be kid stuff… and holy mackeral! It ain’t! I was blown away. The stories are teriffic, including one written by Ray Bradbury.

Steve Canyon was like a live recruiting poster for the USAF, and the series literally had an open checkbook as far as the Air Force was concerned. The hardware in this show is astonishing. None of the aircraft or their cockpits are sets. They’ve got the real thing workin’ for them. The Air Force even flew scene specific missions for the show. No stinkin’ models or CG here! ; )

(Below) Steve at the controls of a B-29 Superfortress, No aircraft sets for this show. The Air Force made sure they had whatever they wanted.

But it get’s better, “Steve Canyon” is crawling with Star Trek alumnus before they were Star Trek alumnus… circa 1959. Look…

Deforest Kelly.

Sent To The Cornfield!

F-106A (S/N 58-0787) shows it’s un-piloted landing path in a snow-covered Montana field after landing itself after its pilot Capt Gary Faust ejected.

Hey gang, this amazing story came across my desk, and I had to share it with you…

In 1970, while assigned to the71st FIS at Maelstrom AFB, Montana, its pilot ejected during an inflight emergency.  The pilot somehow got himself into a flat spin — considered generally unrecoverable in an F-106 — and he did what the flight handbook said to do — get out of it, i.e. eject. After the pilot did just that, 58-0787 recovered itself from this “unrecoverable” situation.  In a vain attempt to break the spin, the pilot had lowered half flaps, rolled in takeoff trim, and throttled the engine back to an approach power setting. After the ejection, the aircraft recovered from the spin on its own, and established a wings level low rate descent under reduced power to the ground.  Ground effect broke its rate of descent, and it settled into a near-perfect gentle belly landing in a farmer’s snow-covered cornfield.

When the local sheriff came upon the scene, the engine was still running.  The aircraft was situated on a slight incline, and was creeping forward slowly under the thrust of its still-running engine, as
the snow compressed to ice under it.  Concerned about where it might be headed, the sheriff didn’t think he could wait for the recovery team to get there from Malstrom which was about 50 miles away; so he got himself connected to the aircraft’s squadron for engine shut down instructions before he entered the cockpit to secure the engine.

The photos show pretty much what the sheriff beheld on that fateful day.

A depot team from McClellan AFB recovered the aircraft and it was eventually returned to service.  When the 71st FIS was disbanded in 1971, 58-0787, now famously known as the “Cornfield Bomber”, was transferred to the 49th FIS, where it finished out its operational service life. Pilots of the 49th FIS would occasionally run into ex-71st FIS guys at William Tell and rag them unmercifully about the “emergency” so dire that the plane landed itself.

58-0787 is now on permanent display in its 49th FIS markings at the USAF Museum at Wright Patterson AFB, where its story is told in the exhibit. While the 49th FIS Eagle jocks are reportedly glad to see their squadron immortalized in this way for millions to see, they would prefer to see it made more clear that it was the 71st, and not one of theirs, who jumped out of this perfectly good aircraft.

Pretty gutsy sheriff, if you ask me!