Flight Nine-Oh : First Military Jet Pilot in U. S. Returns to the Skies on His 90th Birthday

Lt. Gen. Laurence C. (Bill) Craigie, the nation’s first military jet pilot, climbed out of the cockpit of a World War II B-25 bomber Sunday, grinned a 90-year-old grin and announced the start of an unusual tradition.

It was his birthday, and Craigie had just celebrated his nine decades on Earth by leading four vintage P-51 Mustang fighter planes in a formation flyby over March Air Force Base. He had to settle for co-pilot status--after two heart attacks, he no longer holds a pilot’s license. But the man who befriended Orville Wright said the experience was so thrilling that he plans to repeat it.

“Every 90 years we’re going to do this,” he told a small group of friends and family as he stepped onto the Tarmac. “You’re all invited in 2082. I’ll make all the arrangements with St. Peter.”

A friend called out: “I didn’t know you were on good terms with St. Peter!”

“I am,” Craigie shot back, “or else I wouldn’t be here!”

Indeed, as a pioneer aviator and veteran air commander during two wars, Craigie has had more than one close call. In 1927, just three years after he got his wings, he joined--involuntarily, like all its members--the Caterpillar Club, an informal organization of fliers who had to abandon their disabled aircraft and “take to the silk,” parachuting to safety.

During the 1930s and ‘40s, he was among the engineers who helped to change air travel, substituting sheet metal for wood and monoplanes for biplanes. Intimately involved in the development of the turbojet engine, he was the first military man to fly America’s first jet plane, the Bell XP-59, in 1942.

By the time he retired in 1955, Craigie had been among the first to experiment with many new types of aircraft. He had served as a policy-maker as well, sitting on the truce team at the end of the Korean War.

“One thing you can say if you’re 90 years old is that all aviation--from the Wright brothers to the space shuttle--has happened in your lifetime,” Craigie said Sunday, glancing fondly at Victoria, his wife of 66 years. “Isn’t it wonderful that it could all happen in one lifetime?”

Craigie’s birthday gave his friends an excuse to celebrate that lifetime, to retell their favorite stories and marvel at how much had changed during the master pilot’s career.

For 13 years, Craigie was stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where he got to know Wright, the first man ever to fly under power.

When Wright got his first look at a jet airplane in flight, Craigie was standing at his side. “You could see the look of wonder on his face,” Craigie said.

Craigie was the first military man to fly in a radio-controlled aircraft, which took off, flew and landed without him ever touching the controls.

Then, as World War II heated up, Craigie became the Allied air commander at Corsica, the island from which the invasion of southern France was launched in August, 1944. Later, for 18 months during the Korean War, he was vice commander of the Far East air forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Bradley Grose, an amateur historian and friend of Craigie’s, said the flier’s record had prompted him to arrange Sunday’s party, to “keep the American spirit living.”

“There’s a lot of younger folks today who don’t know anything about what happened 50 years ago,” said Grose, who was born six years after Craigie retired. “We’ve got to pay attention to American history.”

Attending the party were several generals--13 stars’ worth, by Craigie’s count--many of them his neighbors at the Air Force Village retirement community west of the base. His daughter, Gale, had flown in from Colorado, and his son, Jack, brought his family from Los Angeles.

But the guests of honor were the vintage aircraft and their owners, private businessmen and airplane hobbyists who had jumped at the chance to fly a mission with one of the great pilots.

The P-51 Mustangs--”Damn Yankee,” “Miss Fit,” “Miracle Maker” and “Healer”--flew into Riverside County from Rialto and Van Nuys. Mike Pupich--a Los Angeles businessman who flew his B-25, “Heavenly Body,” in from Burbank--was honored to have Craigie in his cockpit.

“He’s just unbelievable. He and George Burns are going to live forever,” Pupich said before takeoff. Pupich said Craigie was determined that his birthday flight would at least momentarily distract his neighbors on Super Bowl Sunday.

“He said: ‘We’ve got to make two low passes. The first one gets their attention. The second one gets them outside,’ ” Pupich said.

The planes rendezvoused at 11:30 a.m., hovering at 8,000 feet over Lake Hughes. With the four Mustangs tight on the B-25’s wings, they flew over Craigie’s neighbors first (“There was quite a gang outside,” Craigie reported happily), and then swooped over the base runway, near where his guests stood, looking upward.

Then, at a luncheon at the officers’ club, Craigie reminded his guests again to mark their calendars. St. Peter, he said, “is supposed to have a very good airstrip.”