Calvin P. Rudd, East Mill Creeky, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, June 7, 2001: Saving the Legacy tape nos. 253 & 254

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ALVI P. R DD J 7 2 1 CAL: Y s. We had old P-39 aircraft. They were combat aircraft they d brought back. I don't know what you know about a P-39. It was a great aircraft in a lot of ways. But w needed to learn how to fly it and we had poorly trained mechanics. We didn't have mechanics that knew what they were doing. I came out of a "hydraulic" aircraft, a radial­engine hydraulic aircraft (an aircraft with control surfaces that are moved by hydraulic actuators and an engine where air-cooled cylinders are arranged radially around a central hub.). A P-39 is an electrical aircraft (an aircraft with control surfaces moved by electric motors, an early version of the "fly-by-wire" technology used in modem planes). It had an in-line engine (a liquid-cooled engine with all the cylinders within arranged in a row), necessitating a liquid cooling system, and it had a tricycle (landing) gear. It was just as different as could be. [Editor 's note: P-39s had an unusual mid-engine design that moved the whole center of gravity of the plane towards the rear compared with most other single engine planes that had the weight of the engine in the nose. This shift in center of gravity made the plane want to fly level and made it relatively difficult to hold in a dive. The weight distribution also required the plane to have a tricycle landing gear, the first in a plane of its type. Soviet pilots discovered that P-39s had an occasional tendency to enter a flat spin when loaded too heavily to the rear. These spins were often fatal since the plane was used at lower altitudes.] So we went to ground school and they taught us in the classroom and then one day we just walked out to the flight line and an Air Corps pilot said to me, "Get in. Sit there." And then he started pointing out the clocks, you know, the gauges and stuff, and said, "Okay this is so-and-so," and the like. Then he said to me, "Now you just sit there until your nerve gives out and either shove everything forward or get out and come back, go to the walking Army." Those were the 21