George Jansen

     George
Jansen was the Chief Test Pilot of the Douglas Aircraft Company’s flight test facility at Edwards Air
Force Base (EAFB) from the late 1940s into the 1960s. As a Douglas test pilot, he was my boss – a damned tough
boss to work under for which I’ve always been grateful. When
I was handed a test flight on my A3D and Jansen had signed
the test card, I knew I was good to go. He saw not only the
test to be accomplished from the test pilot’s perspective, but
also knew the history of each aircraft that flew in his stable.
And his stable consisted of ADs, A2Ds, F3Ds, A3Ds, F4Ds, A4Ds, B-66s, C-133s and T-33s. How he accomplished this I could
never understand other than his entire life was devoted to knowing both the test aircraft and the pilot who would fly
the test. As a grunt test pilot I considered George Jansen a magical figure.
     I was an ex-fighter pilot from WWII and I always thought
that Jansen would have been a natural in a fighter cockpit
with his calculating mind that was usually ahead of his tongue.
It was as though he purposely controlled his slow speech to
keep his mind from running away. But he decided early to go multi-engine. Maybe a single-engine fighter was just too
simple for him.
     Prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, Jansen was flying from
what he called "a pea patch" in Willows, Calif., where
he accumulated some 250 hours in small airplanes and a
private pilot’s license. When he applied for the Aviation Cadet program, the U.S. Army Air Corps grabbed him. After cadet
training he ended up in heavy bombers – Boeing B-17s and Consolidated B-24s. 
     Jansen didn’t talk much about his military flying days.
What we do know is that after his flight training he was assigned to the 68th Bomb Squadron of 44th Bomb Group,
known as the "Flying Eight-Balls." The group was
transferred to England in 1942 and on to Africa in mid-1943. Jansen participated in the Polesti Raid on August 1, 1942, for
which he would be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). The group would be transferred back to England in early 1943.
On May 14, 1943, his squadron participated in a 21 ship
follow-on raid on Kiel, Germany. The B-24s were to drop incendiary bombs on the rubble created by a 100-plus B-17 raid. The
group arrived over target with only 19 ships, with 1st Lt. George R. Jansen in command of a B-24D, 41-24009,
"Margaret Ann." The group was attacked by fighters and encountered heavy flak both inbound and outbound. Of the
19 . . . . .