Presentation Date: September 27, 2001
Col. Joseph F. Joe Cotton USAF
Fighter Pilot and Bomber Pilot of B-17 "Mickey Finn". Subject of book "Aircraft Down", by Dr. Philip Caine, about B-17 "Mickey Finn" shot down over Greek Island of Corfu and their successful 5-month evasion and escape! Cotton is best known for his work as the chief Air Force Pilot assigned to the U.S. Air Force/NASA XB-70 Flight Research Program at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
Cotton left his father's farm and joined the Army Air Corps as a flying cadet
in 1942, retired form the U.S. Air Force in 1968 as a veteran test pilot, and
went on to become a test pilot with United Airlines, bringing his total flying
time to 16,000 hours in more than 80 types of aircraft.
When his B-17 was shot down over Greece on his first wartime mission, he
spent four months evading German capture before being rescued and returning to
the United States in 1944.
He began his flight test career flying the Bell RP-63A, the "flying pinball
machine," being developed as a flying target for bomber crew gunnery practice.
He performed cold weather and systems tests on a variety of aircraft at Eglin
and Ladd Fields before attending the Empire Test Pilot School in Farnborough,
England, in 1952.
Cotton was chief of bomber test at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio,
while testing in all weather including the Arctic. He was pilot and later test
director of the B-58 "Hustler" flight research and development program at
Carswell Air Force Base, Texas.
In 1962, as Air Force chief test pilot, he flew the first flight of the XB-70
at Edwards Air Force Base. He flew the XB-70A No. 2 at Mach 3.08 at 72,800 feet
April 12, 1966, in the highlight of his 62 flights in the XB-70. In the words of this former Hoosier farmboy, "Flying the XB-70 at 2,000 miles per hour was like racing a Greyhound bus at Indianapolis at 200 miles per hour." He remained with the project through the last flight of the development test and evaluation
program.
Born in Rushville, Ind., in 1922, Cotton credits his achievements to two of
the rewards of his flight test career: the opportunity to work and the
encouragement of his family, his leaders and fellow airmen.
Named 1966 Pilot of the Year by the International Order of Characters, cotton
has been awarded a Legion of Merit, Air Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal
and the Aerospace Walk of Honor.
Life - - Through, Perspex and Propwash
How
aviation experiences have taught test pilot Col. Joe Cotton about life
Joe Cotton's flying career spanned forty years, in the cockpits of eighty types of aircraft, ranging from Tiger Moths to the B-58 "Hustler" and XB-70 Valkyrie supersonic bombers.
A key test pilot for so many years at Edwards Air Force Base, Joe belongs to that special fraternity of Scott Crossfield, Bud Anderson, Chuck Yeager, Pete Knight and Joe Walker. And as a member of that fraternity, Cotton's image and name are etched on the "Right Stuff" Walk of Fame in Lancaster. Speaking at the September meeting of the Golden Gate Wing, Cotton offered an extraordinary look into how his experiences in the sky over those years have affected his life, and his philosophy of living.
The test pilot / philosopher began life in the farming town of Rushville, Indiana - - about thirty miles southeast of Indianapolis. As Joe puts it, "we lived so far out in the country you had to go back towards town to go hunting." Joe says he left home looking for excitement, and "that's what I got."
Cotton says his path to becoming a pilot during World war Two was blocked by his handicap. He lacked educational requirements (a college degree) needed to become a cadet, and then failed the entrance exam two times. He had considered heading north as many other young men then were doing, to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. Instead, he went to St. Louis, passed the test and got started on his training. Cotton earned his Air Force wings in June 1943, as a fighter pilot. But due to an abundance of fighter pilots at that point in the war, Joe was asked if he would co-pilot a bomber. His decision to make that change took Cotton to North Africa, where he co-piloted a B-17 nicknamed the Mickey Finn. He was a first time crew member on a crew that had already done 31 missions.
On Cotton's ill-fated first mission, Mickey Finn was shot down over the Greek island of Corfu. None of the crew members were injured, and for five months they all successfully evaded capture, finally escaping the island on an Italian sub chaser they captured. The amazing story is chronicled in Philip Caine's book "Aircraft Down . Back in the States, Cotton got what he calls the best break in his life. With too few hours flying the B-17, he couldn't become a B-17 instructor. Joe says he was allowed to join the new "Pinball machine" program, "where you had RP-63s painted orange and armor plated and you shoot real bullets at 'em, frangibles." (The bullets were plastic, and when when they struck the P-63, they'd light up lights on the aircraft, indicating the hits.)
That experience gave Joe insight as to what research and development was all about. He also began thinking about what returning to the life of a farmer back in Indiana would be all about, and decided that didn't hold the kind of future joe wanted. He penned a letter to Indiana Senator Homer Capehart, requesting he be allowed to stay in the Air Force. Of Cotton's end run to land a role in the peacetime Air Force, some squadron members said, "you'll be court-martialed. And I didn't know much about court-martialing, but it had a bad connotation. So I thought, if I'm going to be court-martialed, I'm going to write somebody important - - Dear President Truman - - no secretary, no nothing. Just handwritten."
The letter Cotton got back was from a General Jackson, and it led to Joe being the second squadron member to get a regular commission. "If we live in a free country, let's exercise that freedom. And why don't we get that through to the kids." Cotton says he has regrets about his flying career - - that he never went aboard an aircraft carrier; that he never flew a P-38; that he never completed a military mission. Add to that list Joe's regrets he never flew an F-86 or the SR-71. But he adds, "I did fly the Tiger Moth and the DC-10. Did you know the F-86, Tiger Moth and DC-10 all have one thing in common - - automatic (leading edge) slats. You'd never believe it, but what goes around comes around."
"I'm not an engineer. The most engineering I ever learned, was working in a sorghum factory, as to how things work. I'd have loved to have been a graduate engineer from Purdue, but I wasn't, and I'm not. I'm not an ace and I've never been a CEO. And I might say, with due respect to some of you who are airline people, I wouldn't be a Colonel if it hadn't been for airline people who were making a lot more money than Air Force people. And they promoted people so they could pay 'em more so they wouldn't get out. I was never more than a squadron commander, so my rank should be Major."
When it comes to perspective on Cotton's career as a test pilot, he recalls something he once read about a pioneer of powered flight.
"He was still recovering from a bad burn. And he was exhausted from theburden of working all night, without his best friend. And he was in a strange landwhere he was surrounded by strange language. He was being observed by agroup of prominent skeptics. And he was about to fly an aircraft that had never beenflown before, with a control system that was lousy. He'd never flown this two-seater. His total powered flight time was less than one hour and twenty minutes,stretched over five years. He had only about 20 minutes of flight time over the pasttwo and a half years. His last flight was two months before, and ended in a severecrash in which he nearly escaped death. This was a guy trying to sell an airplane toFrance. His name was Wilbur..."
"Since I read that, I'm nothing but a maintenance verification pilot, not a test pilot. Can you imagine what these people went through?"
In the next edition of Proptalk, we'll continue with Joe Cotton's career as a test pilot at Edwards Air Force base and on new members of the fleet for United Airlines. Meanwhile, we offer comments from Joe on life and its challenges, as he has come to understand and overcome them.
Joe Cotton holds a deep respect for friends, defining each of them as a person "you admire and respect and think of frequently." Will Rogers was such a friend, and Joe says he would have loved to have met Rogers. "Anybody that could say such things as, if pro is the opposite of con, and pro stands for progress - - now we know how Congress got their name."
Cotton is a keen fan not only of Will Rogers, but also of notion that the mind will enable a person to do whatever they truly want to do. Cotton didn't learn that in school. He learned it through John Houseman, the actor who was made famous in the movie "The Paper Chase", who told his incoming students their skulls were 'full of mush. And you're going to teach yourselves the law and I'm going to train your mind. And if you're lucky you'll go out of here thinking like lawyers.'
Cotton pondered the phrase "train your mind," recalling, the enlightenment that gave him about the way he learned in school. "I was always told they were trying to get me through the Freshman class so I wouldn't be in there next year."
From Grace Hopper, the first woman Admiral in the US Navy, Cotton learned, "If I had life to live over again, and I looked at a situation, I'd go right ahead and do it. Because it takes less time to apologize than to get an okay in the first place."
On humor - - Cotton points to George Burns who crossed the river at 100 years of age and Bob Hope who's 98 years old - - and says you want to keep on laughing. "Laughter releases endorphins, and has a healing power."
Part Two - - Col. Joe Cotton, Air Force Test Pilot
"My heroes are the people who stormed the beaches... and I liked flying because I didn't have the courage to storm the beaches.
Joe Cotton still vividly recalls the early mornings on the cool, dry desert floor at Edwards Air Force Base. But mostly for the teamwork which he was a part of in making so many test flights. For example, putting the sleek, black X-15 through its paces.
"It's real early, 4:30 or 5:00. And all around that airplane you hear all kinds of problems. Up-range weather doesn't look too good. There's a C-130 they can't get off, and we've got a chase plane that doesn't look too good.
"And nobody get stirred up. But you just see a lot of bodies underneath that mother ship. You look down there, and you don't know whether they're contractor or NASA or Air Force. They're just all people, pulling as a team, together.
"Wow. When I lay down and try to go to sleep - - that is the most wonderful thing in the world. Teamwork, people pulling together. Very little friction created by people working together. And that's one of the very great memories I have of working at Edwards in my time."
Cotton recalled his first flight on the XB-70 Valkyrie supersonic bomber, September 21, 1964 and the risks he and his crew faced. "Things didn't work right. The gear wouldn't come up. We had to shut down an engine. We were planning, contract-wise, to go supersonic on that flight. Ridiculous. Didn't make any difference. Don't get your dander up, the airplane knows it's not going supersonic. So they didn't get the incentive. It's very simple, just get down safely. "It caught fire on landing. We caught fire twice. As a result, the (space) shuttle doesn't catch fire now. If you look at the landing gear problems on the -70 in detail, the tip-toe landing gear and a lot of stuff, you say I don't believe it."
"And I often think with the Hustler, the B-58 - - the wheels rolled up at 4000 rpm. And when a tire came unglued, so would the rim, and go up and puncture the fuel cell and you've got fire just like on the Concorde. That's research and development. That's what it's all about. It's finding out that new ideas don't work."
On another test flight, reaching the speed of Mach 3 brought new challenges, as a ten foot by 18 inch strip of skin from one the B-70's wings peeled off. When asked if Joe knew that had happened during the flight, Joe's response was, "Would you know it if an elephant woke up in bed with you?"
Joe used to talk a lot with Lockheed test pilot Tony Levier. Only Cotton knew him as Anthony Puck, from Duluth, Minnesota. Cotton says the new name sounded more like a test pilot. One morning over breakfast at the Essex House in Lancaster, Cotton says he told Levier, "Tony, that first flight in the P-80s scared me to death. And Tony said, 'Why in God's name would that P-80 scare you?' Cotton says he responded, "First of all when you start it there was no pop, pop, pop, pop business going on. And at night, especially there's basically no fire flaming out left and right. And when you taxi, you didn't have to 'S' (turn). And when you got ready to go you didn't have to close the cowl flaps, you didn't have to have to lock the tail wheel. There's so many things you didn't have on a checklist, and when you're rolling down there you're scared to death, it's so simple."
Among the many, many aircraft Cotton has flown in his lifetime, the B-17 holds a special place, due to what he calls the bomber's 'forgiveness.' "I think the B-17, as far as stability is concerned... Stability is the desire of the airplane to return to wherever it was. The B-17 went one step further. It didn't want to leave where it was at . And that, when you were on final approach and the visibility is about quarter of a mile and and it's snowing or what have you. And you're on final approach to the southern tip of Corfu and you've only got one engine goin', that's the kind of thing you want to go in with."Joe also holds high praise for the B-52, which was the mother ship for many of the "X-craft" flying at Edwards AFB. Yet there were other planes which, in his later years, Cotton has realized made him a better pilot.
"I'd say the Warhawk, the P-40, scared me a lot because I didn't have my wings yet. And I thought you ought to have your wings before you could handle a tiger cat like that. Because I'd never seen so much poor visibility and so much torque in my life." The P-40 was among the fighters Cotton flew in World War Two, along with P-47s and P-51s, the Spitfire and Hurricane. He was very familiar with the P-40's powerplant, the Allison 1710, because before the war, Joe had worked on them and helped build them in Indianapolis before joining the Army Air Corps. He describes the P-40 as a handful to get off the ground, "I'm telling you that character wanted to go to Rinehart's (a department store?) and they had a rudder on there that was about half as big as it should be. And visibility, boy oh boy. "There have been a few airplanes in my career that made you a better pilot. They either made you or you were dead. I thought the Sea Fury and Bearcat were in that category. I had some experience in airplanes like the P-40 before that and so that helped. "The B-47 made me a better pilot... "
The published performance characteristics of the B-47, said Cotton, show if the aircraft weighed 100,000 pounds and was flying at 50,000 feet, its cruise Mach number would be .75 Mach (the speed of sound, at sea level). If the aircraft slowed down a bit to .73 Mach it would enter slow speed buffet. At .77 Mach the aircraft would enter high speed buffet. "And in the -47, you had to have a special discipline for the approach speed for your gross weight. And if you were a sloppy jockey, you could choose which end of the runway you wanted to burn on." Words play a very important role in Joe Cotton's life.
Perspective on his career as a test pilot has come to Cotton from many places. For instance, from a conversation with an older woman in Rushville's coffee shop. She told Joe, "My grandson soloed all by himself." Cotton realizes, "That sounds like a humorous redundancy." But he continues, "She turned a switch on that turned on a bulb in my head and I said, 'that's it. That's what it's all about is that solo flight. And I don't care whether you're in a J-3 Cub, a Taylorcraft, an Aeronca or whatever. Because when you solo, and you walk away from that, you say I guess I didn't kill myself like they thought I would. Your self-confidence is elevated quite a bit. And there's not a guy who pulled away from a Taylorcraft who wasn't looking at a Luscombe. And it gives you something to look forward to. Now what more in life to start out when you're young, than self-confidence and something to look forward to. The solo flight."
On the topic of challenges in life Joe has this thought - - "I had broken my leg when I played basketball my senior year (of high school), and I think maybe I had a heart murmur. But since I couldn't play basketball, I think my heart healed. So that break was a break. I came back from combat but didn't have much (flight) time, so I got assigned to a research and development program. That was a big break. Maybe you start to wonder whether you should be so down about the things that seem to be working against you at the time."
Joe says that if he had it to do all over again, he'd have been a sailor and gotten himself a tattoo. Now he says, "every morning I look in the mirror I think of that. The doctor says, ' what's wrong, Joe.' And I say I looked in the mirror the other day and I cried. And the doctor said, 'Well your eyes are okay.' "But I think of Douglas Mac Arthur and what he said, "Old soldiers never die, they just fade away." And if I had a tattoo, that would be the only thing about me that's not fading away. So I regret that." Joe wears an American flag on his lapel, a pin given him by Roscoe Turner (another fellow Hoosier), just a few weeks before the aviation legend passed away.
"I'm just admitting the things that I've missed, and just starting to get smart, after I passed 75. At the turn of the century, around 1900, a man's life expectancy was 47. At the turn of this last century, it's now 74, and I'm nearly 80. Wow, Somebody's doing something right, and I ought to show my gratitude. So wisen-up a little bit, man. Get with it..."
Joe says he struggled with studies, and even when it came to flying, he wasn't a natural, but had to work hard to be a good pilot. Cotton says the whole magic of life is, "making the right choices." From his experiences, from all corners of his life, Joe has collected an abundance of favorite witticisms -
- * "There's absolutely nothing a wonderful as remembering a person's name."* "It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice."
* "I'm sorry for the things I've said, and I'm sorry for the things I've done. But I've never been sorry for being kind."
Joe says he has no regrets about his wife, Rema, to whom he's now been married 57 years. He says they "have learned how to put up with one another". Cotton admits part of that success comes from occasionally walking out to the garage instead of talking back, saying something to Rema he might later regret. Experience taught him that lesson. "I tore into her one time, I really did. And I didn't see her for two or three days. And then on the fourth day I did get a glance over, out of this right eye..."
Also on the family front, Joe recognized a pearl of wisdom when hearing a comment about his oldest grandson, a 17 year old who he says lives with them. "He's a senior, and he goes to school from 8:30 in the morning to 11:30. Man alive, you ever hear of such hours as that. And one of his leading subjects in skateboarding. I wonder how that's preparing him to be part of a 'greater generation' ." "And then I stopped to think. I skipped school to go work in a sorghum factory. I didn't take skateboarding, but I did ride motorcycles. Maybe, there's some hope for Daniel. Cotton says he was on a trip with some friends, and when Joe discussed his concerns for his grandson, they said, "Joe, just keep in mind - - It's only the second inning."
Again, that's perspective, or as Cotton calls it "powerful stuff." It's a statement of optimism and hope. Of the word contrast , Joe says he hopes it has as much meaning to everyone when they reach 80 years of age as it has to him in his life. Because contrasts tell important lessons about life... On Monday night, September 10, 2001, Bobby Bonds hitting 70 home runs was important. Tuesday, (after the terrorist bombings of the World trade Center) it wasn't.
Cotton also counts among his dear friends Robinson Risner, who spent seven and a half years as a prisoner of war in the 'Hanoi Hilton' during the Vietnam War. Joe says he first spoke with 'Robby' about his book, The Passing of the Night affected him. "Put it in your suitcase if you go to the hospital and you're feeling bad. Risner's book will take care of it." Cotton says it helps Don Rodewald, who became a paraplegic in a 1954 airplane crash.
"He flew his own single engine airplane around the world thirty years later, in 1984. He lives in Paradise Valley, just outside Travis. I became acquainted with Robinson Risner, getting the book for Rodewald to read. Because he (Rodewald) has decubitous ulcers, bed sores. And when he gets real low, he picks up Risner's book. And talking to Risner one day, I said, 'Robby, let's talk about the advantages of getting older.' And he said Joe, 'Besides understanding and patience and what have you, my appreciation is unbelievably high.'
"The light didn't come on my head then. But Roberto Begnini turned it on... He stood up and walked on the back of the chairs to get his Oscar. And he got up on the stage and thanked his parents for introducing him to poverty. And then the light came on. "The distance from the lows to the highs in our life are the measure of our appreciation when we get older... "Maybe. See, I'm 80 and I don't know that much for sure. But that's the way I assess it.Why should I hustle and worry a lot about if young Daniel my grandson? Why should I go and help him all the time and pull him up out of the mire and what I call 'Down in the Valley' ? Let him work it out himself. I don't want to deny him the appreciation when he becomes 80!
Cotton says he measures his life by the lows and depression on the farm in Indiana, and the lows of being in the mountains of Greece with his downed B-17 crew. "We were without three of the four Fs that sustain you - - family, friends, food and freedom. We were without three of those. But the ten of us were friends, and friends can sustain you."
In light of the September 11th terrorist attacks, Joe says we still have three of those sustainers, having just had a little freedom taken away. "We ought to be able to max the course on this one." A friend of Joe's volunteered a simple statement that means a great deal to the retired test pilot. "She said that she could cope with the heat of Washington, the rain of Seattle, the cold of the arctic and the heat of the desert, following her husband around, because she had heard an aunt say that you should learn how to blossom, no matter where you're planted."
"The contrast between Mach 3 at 70,000 feet and a few days later standing in the rubble of the crash of that airplane on the desert floor, and you've lost two dear friends... man there's a great contrast there. "And you want to know what caused that accident? We probably will never know exactly. But it's pretty obvious that Joe's airplane got in contact with the -70... And if you what to know who approved it first, you're lookin' at him."
Cotton explained that an executive at General Electric called to get approval for a formation flight of GE-powered aircraft for a publicity photo. It would take place after a test mission had been flown. Similar approval had been given on another test flight for an airplane made by North American Aviation. Approvals for the GE photo flight also came from further up the Air Force test hierarchy, but Joe has always been mindful of his personal decision.
"I said yes. I've regretted it ever since. I think of Joe Walker and Carl Cross practically every day of my life. But you know what that does for me? That gives me a freedom that you can't get any other way. The truth shall set you free. It's gotta be the truth, but you gain freedom as a result. And I hope young people who hear that never forget it."--