One of the places we got to go from our home base near Waco, Texas (James Connally Air Force Base) was Williams AFB, just outside Phoenix, Arizona. Every Monday and Friday one of our then-new Convair T-29 flying classrooms would head west to Arizona. That was a regular courier flight, intended to rendezvous with a similar T-29 flying east from Mather AFB, near Sacramento, California. There at Williams AFB we'd exchange official mail pouches and occasionally some people from the Air Training Command. Both Connally and Mather AFB's were part of the Air Training Command and some headquarters folks would ride the courier to attend meetings and such.
Anyway, I got to make those "Willie" trips a few times. The first one was really a treat and I was very pleased and excited. I've never been to Arizona. I was anxious to see the desert, the palms and citrus trees reported to grow everywhere. They even had grapefruit trees in front of the Williams AFB flightline operations building, I was told. I just had to see that for myself, for this New England-raised young man had never seen an orange or grapefruit tree.
The flight across west Texas and New Mexico was interesting, especially when viewed on my radar scope. The El Capitan mountains north of El Paso and the Rockies through New Mexico were quite different from the flat central Texas country I'd practically memorized on my regular and frequent flights from Waco. It was good to see some new and different terrain. And looking out the airplane windows down onto that landscape was quite an impressive sight. We were at only 15,000 feet and got a good view, under that clear western sky. Flying time to the Phoenix area and our destination of Williams AFB was about three hours.
It was late September and near mid-day when we landed. After parking the airplane, just a few steps across the ramp from Base Operations, we climbed down onto the tarmac and were amazed by what we felt and saw. Instantly we felt the 100-degree heat of the "Valley of the Sun" and I was very surprised. But it was a dry heat and quite unlike what we knew in central Texas. Amazingly we didn't feel sweaty or terribly uncomfortable, as we did on those summertime 100-degree days in Waco.
And I got to see the famous citrus trees, right there beside the flightline in front of the Operations building. That was something. I was impressed, but then many things impressed me in those days. Both sides of the walkway leading to the Operations building were lined with fruit-bearing citrus, oranges and grapefruit. Neato!
On some of my later "Willie" flights I learned that there were clever ways the pilots would manage to stay over night, to take advantage of the attractions in nearby Phoenix. That famous resort area (back in the pre-growth 50's) was a magnet for visitors even then, so creative airplane drivers came up with a variety of ways to have to stay the night, rather than routinely returning to Waco the same day.
One way they managed to avoid leaving was to claim that the torque meter monitoring the performance of the R-2800 reciprocating engines was bad. It didn't seem right, according to the pilots. That meant that a flight would be delayed, at least long enough for a Williams AFB mechanic to check out the instrument and engine. It just wouldn't do to attempt the return flight with bad torque readings.
"No sir, not safe at all," they claimed.
Those pilots knew that the aircraft engine mechanics at Williams were not really all that familiar with the R-2800 engines we had. They spent their time mostly on the small pilot training planes used at that Arizona base. The T-29 was a big bird to those folks, a strange animal with systems and equipment not routinely maintained there. So a claim by a pilot that a torque meter was bad was something they had to figure out.
After a couple hours the ground crews and mechanics declared that they couldn't find anything wrong. The airplane looked okay to them and, according to the maintenance handbooks, was safe to fly.
"Okay," agreed the pilots. "Thanks a lot fellows. I guess we can head back now."
"But wait," cautioned the co-pilot. "We can't legally fly back now. It's been nearly eight hours since we began the day. We'll violate regulations if we fly now without adequate crew rest."
"Right you are," agreed the pilot. "I guess we'll just have to stay over night, get some rest and head back tomorrow."
None of the crew, the navigation instructors, the students or even the Crew Chief offered any argument with that.
"By golly, that's too bad. Guess we'll just have to spend the night in Phoenix."
Grins all around reflected their deep disappointment.
"I'd better send Connally a teletype (TWX, pronounced "twix") message explaining our situation and advising them we'll be home tomorrow," announced our pilot. So in he headed to the Operation Desk to send the message. Back then in the early 50's we didn't have eMail, hot line telephones or such. Teletype messages were considered high tech communications.
Soon we were loaded, all ten of us, onto blue Air Force buses and headed for a Phoenix motel. We'd have to stay in town because Williams AFB didn't have room at the Visiting officers Quarters (VOQ). Oh the disappointment of having to stay in town, rather than the on-base barracks.
We drove west from Williams AFB, on through Mesa and then tiny little Tempe, Arizona. Back then Tempe was barely a city, more of a town on the outskirts of Phoenix. We drove past Tempe Normal School, a small college just a block or two from Tempe's main street. It seemed like a nice teacher's college, though pretty small.
Little did I know that a dozen years later I would be sent by the Air Force to attend that same school. Only by then it was known as Arizona State University and had become a large school destined to be better known, both for its academic programs and its athletics. In fact, by the mid-60's the Air Force would have nearly 300 folks assigned there attending both graduate and undergraduate programs.
Oh yes, we had great times in Phoenix. The "action" in those days was along Van Buren and Central Avenues. There were motels, bars, restaurants and night clubs aplenty to tempt a group of hot shot fly boys from Texas. Great fun indeed.