At Chanute they subjected me to a battery of tests to assess my physical coordination, the so-called "Stanine Tests" used backin the early 50's. Some of the tests seem a little comical from the perspective of these days in the 90's, but they were then deemed important measures of who should be selected to go to pilot training.
One test involved holding a pencil-sized stick over a dime-sized silver spot atop a revolving phonograph record. The object was to keep the stick directly over the turning target. That was supposed to reflect hand-to-eye coordination, I guess.
A more interesting test involved an apparatus that looked like a very simple flight simulator. The subject (me) sat in a chair, grasping with one hand a device similar to an aircraft flight control stick, while keeping both feet on separate foot pedals. In front of the subject was a panel of lights in an anchor-like pattern. Parallel rows of light bulbs appeared in front of the subject.
One set of lights was yellow and the other red. On the vertical row of lights just one of about a dozen bulbs would light up. The same occurred on the horizontal row of lights and the upward-arcing row at the bottom. Each set of test patterns consisted thus of one bulb being illuminated on each of the three rows.
The subject would move the stick fore and aft to position a red light directly adjacent to the yellow lighted bulb. Then the stick would be moved left or right to match the red light to the yellow bulb on the horizontal row. Finally, the foot pedals would have to be moved to match the red light with the yellow one on the final array. And just as soon as the subject successfully matched all three red lights with the yellow ones presented, the pattern would change.
The reaction of the subject to each of these matching exercises was timed. Quicker was better in matching each set presented by manipulation of the stick and rudder. All of this simulated the problem of maneuvering an airplane according to what the instrument panel might dictate in a real airplane. The test included perhaps four or five dozen matching problems.
I completed the qualification tests before 10:00 A.M., but my ride back to Ohio would not arrive at Chanute until 5:00 P.M.. So I had most of that afternoon to kill. It turned out to be great fun and a total surprise.
At Base Operations, the center of activity near the flightline, I was approached by a Master Sergeant who asked me if I'd like to go for a ride with him. I noticed that he wore a set of pilot's wings bearing a star and wreath upon his chest. He was a Command Pilot, someone with considerable flight experience.
It took me but a milli-second to respond, "Yes, sir .. I sure do."
Three of us walked out of Base Operations and across the ramp to an AT-11 airplane. That bird was a variant of the D-18 Beechcraft which featured a glass nose and the equipment for bombardier training. The plane was a close cousin to the C-45 transport which brought me to Chanute. My pilot and co-pilot slipped into the left and right seats in the cockpit. I was invited to go up to the seat in the aircraft nose, up front witha picture window view of the world ahead.
We took off and flew around northern Illinois for about two hours. Most of the time we were pretty low, under 5000 feet and the weather was perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed that ride and the fabulous view. The part that I remember most vividly was the approach and landing back on the Chanute runway. That's quite a view from the nose of an AT-11.
After landing I thanked my newfound friend and spent the remainder of my wait for the ride back to Ohio with a grin across my face from ear to ear. It was a day I never forgot.
Oh yes, I was later accepted into the Aviation Cadet program and sent off to pilot training in Texas. It was after arriving for initial training that the medics caught my poor eyesight problem. But instead of sending me back to Ohio and my former assignment in the air traffic control business, they transferred me to the navigator school which I finished 18 months later.