Fulton's Skyhook

摘要

October 1962: I'm a brand-new graduate of the Navy Test Pilot School at Pax River―the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland―40 miles down the Chesapeake Bay from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis from which I graduated in 1957. I hardly can believe I'm here; I'll fly the newest Navy aircraft and perform amazing aerial feats. I'll push the envelope in the true "right stuff" tradition of those before me: Clark Cable, Errol Flynn―and the real ones such as Scott Crossfield and Chuck Yeager. The Center had three test divisions. Class standing or "exigencies of the service" dictated where you went. The school identified only the outstanding student in each class; the rest of us only knew that we weren't the outstanding student.