George J. Marrett is the historian at the Estrella Warbirds Museum in Paso Robles, CA. An amazing individual, he worked for Howard Hughes, has written at least half a dozen books, has test-flown nearly every jet the United States produced since World War II, flew death-defying rescue missions in Vietnam, is building homeless shelters in Paso Robles, and happens to be just about the nicest guy you’re ever going to meet.
My wife and I spent a nice trio of hours talking with him about the museum, about Howard Hughes, and about the many aircraft he’d test-flown. The man is remarkably sharp, and, at 88, still flies. He said he’d keep flying until nobody wanted to fly with him anymore.
So many of the stories he told stuck with me, but there was one in particular that I’m still pondering.
During the Vietnam war, he flew fourth position in a flight of four A-1E Skyraiders – big, propellor-driven fighter planes produced right after the end of World War II. They were slow compared to the jet fighters, but they were robust, and they carried lots of weapons.
His job, along with the other three Skyraiders, was to clear the jungle around a downed American pilot by firing at the Viet Cong soldiers intent on making a capture, so that the Huey helicopters could come in rescue him. The big fighter planes would lumber over the jungle, firing a spray of machine gun bullets at anything that moved towards the downed pilot.
The Viet Cong often fought back. In one flight, George watched the plane in front of him get hit, watched the pilot parachute away, and then actually watched the plane spiral down to crash among the trees.
“It was an amazing sight,” he grinned. He had inadvertently applied the air brakes in his own plane, called Sock It to ‘Em , and was flying too slow to be safe. But it gave him time to watch the crash.
When he returned to base, his crew chief, the guy who takes care of the plane when it’s on the ground, told him he’d been hit.
“You got a couple of bullet holes in the wheel well,” the chief said. “You wanna see ’em?”
George thought about it for a moment, and then said “No. Don’t even tell me that.”
Focus on the success, right? Let’s not recount how close we almost got to failure. His first book, the one about those rescue missions, is called Cheating Death.
That’s a profound way to look at high-risk tasks, isn’t it?
It reminds of the Star Wars line when C-3PO starts to tell Han Solo his chances of success…
“Never quote me the odds!”
Focus on where you’re going, not where you’ve been. I know George may have meant something far more profound that this, but we always apply the things we hear to ourselves, right?
So, when you’re taking a risk, and you hear that voice that starts to doubt the odds of your success, now you have an answer.
“Don’t tell me that. Never quote me the odds.”
You can learn more about the amazing George J. Marrett on Wikipedia and his many books on Amazon. And more about the impressive Estrella Warbirds Museum right here at California Air Museums.
Happy flying.
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