As a boy, John Cashman went out on a limb for his love of flying. "I jumped out of trees while holding wings, little wings that didn't work," he recalls in his Seattle office. "After my father gave me a WWII cargo parachute that was about 16 feet in diameter, I'd jump out of trees with it as well. Also I'd put it on my bicycle and get pulled down the street and I'd put it out into the wind when on ice skates and go across the pond."
Cashman, now 51, is the chief project pilot for the celebrated new "21st Century Jet" the Boeing 777. He grew up in Evanston, Illinois, where his father was a professor of physics at Northwestern University. His father arranged free flying lessons for himself in exchange for his work on airplane design, and his tales of flying inspired his son to pursue aviation as a hobby with an enthusiasm that turned it into a career.
Young Cashman was drawing, building, flying and crashing model airplanes all the time. The Glenview Naval Station was near his home, and every few years the station sponsored a national model airplane convention in which he competed.
Cashman's first flight was in 1957 as a passenger aboard an Eastern Airlines "Constellation" a prop airplane. He flew from Chicago to Orlando. "It was wonderful. I had a lot of expectations and I was not disappointed. But what I really wanted was to be in the front end. I wanted to fly the plane." It was another six years before he got the opportunity.
"The first time I ever flew myself was at Michigan in 1963 in a Piper Super Cub. I flew at Ann Arbor Airport, which at that time was Ann Arbor Aero Service. It was the home of the University of Michigan Flying Club, of which I was president for two years. I volunteered to be president to get free flying time. We gave demo flights and I got to meet a lot of girls that way." Cashman's wife, Mary Jo, was one of the girls he took flying.
While studying at Michigan, Cashman worked closely with Prof. Edgar J. Lesher, now professor emeritus of aerospace engineering. "He taught flight test and airplane design---that part of the program is what I enjoyed doing. It is a more hands-on type activity than one requiring in-depth knowledge in a specialized field. Another professor who influenced me a lot was not in aerospace. He was Newt Loken, the gymnastics coach."
Cashman, who is a stocky 5' 7", was on the Michigan gymnastics team. "As I've gotten older I've come to appreciate a lot of the things I learned by being around Loken. He was the kind of person who inspired people to do their best and to press on even when things are not going well." Cashman's forte, which he began on his high school team, was aerobatics. "It was close to flying, and it was quite a good background to have as a pilot because you get used to orienting yourself in any position."
"His work on the high bar must have helped him as a pilot," quipped Cashman's former U-M men's gymnastics coach Loken. "John was sincere, conscientious and self-directed. We had a string of six Big Ten titles from '61 to '66, and he made a contribution to them."
Cashman had hoped to learn flying through the Air Force ROTC. His eyesight, however, was not 20/20; he could get in as a navigator, not as a pilot. He left the ROTC in his sophomore year, believing himself doomed never to be able to fly professionally for the airlines or military.
In 1966, Cashman took his aerospace degree to the Boeing Corporation in Seattle. Plenty of aerospace jobs were available ("It was only a few years after the Russians launched their space satellite"), and he chose Boeing over seven other firms because its brochures showed the area's mountains and bodies of water "and didn't show the raindrops."
For much of his first seven years he concentrated on airplane performance and became lead engineer in aerodynamics for "military derivatives" commercial aircraft that have been modified for use by the military. He also worked on the team that analyzed data from accidents involving Boeing's first passenger jet, the 707. "I was also teaching flying every day, and on weekends I would build up my own flying time, mainly because I liked it." Then he saw another engineer gain a flight engineer positionthe third seat in the cockpit after the pilot and the copilotand he learned that Boeing was allowing employees to fly whose vision was correctable to 20/20.
Encouraged by these developments, Cashman set out to fulfill his dream. "In the early morning before work I began doing ground school. I did all the ground school for the 727 and took the flight engineer written exam. About that time [1974] a position opened up in Experimental Flight Test, which is the unit that does engineering flying for Boeing. They wanted two flight engineers who were pilots with at least an instrument rating that allowed them to fly in clouds. Two of us were hired. The other guy is now my boss. He's the director of flight test."
With 1,700 hours of flight time, Cashman was then trained on the 747. He occasionally filled in for the copilot. For several years he worked simultaneously as a copilot, a flight engineer and an instructor. He soon also began piloting light aircraft on unpopular late and weekend shifts to increase his flying time. In 1979, he finally shifted permanently into piloting.
Seven years later, Cashman became an engineering test pilot. He was assigned to the 767/747 program from 1986 to 1989 and then became chief project pilot for the 767. As airlines seemed to desire a larger capacity version of the 767, Cashman became chief pilot for the 767X program, which became the 777 program--"an all new airplane." In 1991 Cashman left the 767 program to dedicate himself to the 777.
Last November Cashman spent several weeks as a traveling salesman. Instead of carrying his wares, he flew it. He flew a 777 to the Middle East to demonstrate it to prospective buyers. His first stop was to be Israel, but two hours into flight his crew of salesmen pilots received word of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Rabin. They returned to Seattle before continuing two days later to Jordan, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
Cashman's hearty confidence and contented aura is that of a man who has lived for and fulfilled his most cherished dreams. In part lucky, he was also self-driven. "Once I started flying at Boeing I knew what I wanted. I wanted to be an engineering test pilot. I wasn't always clear on how to get there or if I would get there. But the main thing is I always tried to be prepared. I always tried to have the qualifications well before the point at which I'd need them."
"When you're in this business, what might be a frightening event to someone not in this business might be business as usual. We fly on one engine or occasionally an engine gives us trouble. We're use to this kind of thing, whereas an airline pilot might never have had an engine failure in his life. We operate non-normally a great deal of the time. Part of the mind-set of being a test pilot is to be ready to rapidly adapt to a changing situation. It's the ability to rapidly reprioritize." Cashman says it would be harder today to achieve what he did given the same background. "It was a unique period, a unique time, and when a few doors opened I went running through." Most test pilots these days are recruited out of military test pilot schools.
Cashman has amassed over 9,000 flight hours in his career. While he has lost colleagues and friends in flight tests, he has never personally experienced a serious mishap while flying. Nor does he fear for his safety. "You really don't have time to dwell on the worries and risks. You plan action to get yourself out of trouble and you approach things in a very disciplined way. The key is planning and staying ahead of things, anticipating things. If you worry all the time, you are in the wrong business. Everyone always laughs when I say this, but I feel more at risk driving to work, I really do."
Kincheloe Award
Last November, Cashman received the Society of Experimental Test Pilots' Iven C. Kincheloe Award, the most prestigious honor awarded to test pilots. Previous award recipients include the Mercury astronauts, several Apollo moon mission crewmen, and many space shuttle and military pilots.
The Kincheloe award recognizes pilots who have made outstanding contributions to developmental flight testing in an individual aerospace program.
Paperless Design of the 777
The Boeing 777 is the first jetliner to be 100 percent "pre-assembled" on computer. The millions of parts that make up the 777 were designed and then fitted to one another on computer by using three-dimensional solids technology.
No full-scale mock-up of the 777 was required. Moreover, the 777 program exceeded its goal of reducing change, error and rework by 50 percent. "It does take a lot of money but the trade-off is it's much easierin terms of cost, the level of frustration, and keeping on scheduleto try and design the airplane right the first time and to find the problems before you freeze the design," Cashman says.
Peter Matthews '87 is an Ann Arbor-based photojournalist.
. . . March 1996
