Captain John Miller: Test Pilot of the Autogiro and the Grumman J2F Duck

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Their efforts paid off, albeit sparingly. Miller recalled that he leaned over President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s shoulder as he signed a bill into law providing $63,000 for the rooftop mail operation. It wasn’t much money even then. In fact, it was a very modest amount.

Miller’s reward was unemployment. The Kellett company did not wish to be an operator; it was strictly a manufacturer licensed to develop the wingless autogiro. Fortunately, Miller’s lobbying skills bailed him out again. In early 1939, he convinced Captain Eddie Rickenbacker, then president of Eastern Airlines (and a decorated World War I flying ace), to take over the autogiro mail operation for publicity purposes.

Miller was at the controls on the morning of July 6, 1939, for the first flight. We had a one-year contract to fly the mail from the rooftop of the Philadelphia Post Office to Camden Airport in Philadelphia (and later, Philadelphia International Airport), Miller said. I guaranteed Captain Rickenbacker that I would make at least 75 percent of the scheduled flights. The operation was flawless, performed with a perfect safety record. Miller exercised an option in his contract to stay with Eastern at the completion of the one-year mail contract.

At the outbreak of World War II, Igor Sikorsky successfully hovered his newly developed VS-300 helicopter, a development that led the military to drop the autogiro. Miller, meanwhile, was still flying full time for Eastern and, on his days off, operating Miller’s Machine Works from his basement. Applying his engineering skills, Miller manufactured small parts for the Columbia Aircraft Corporation, located near his home on Long Island.

They say history repeats itself, and in late 1941 the president of Columbia Aircraft asked Miller to lead the test-flight program for another strange-looking hybrid–the Grumman J2F Duck, originally developed by aviation pioneer Grover Loening. Part airplane, part boat, the Duck was as agile in the air as it was comfortable in the water. The Navy Department had requested Grumman to free its facilities for the manufacture of vitally needed F6F Hellcat fighters, and to transfer the production of 330 J2F-6 Ducks to Columbia Aircraft.

The amphibious Duck not only was capable of taking off and touching down on land or water but also was sturdy enough to be used with an arresting gear for aircraft carrier landings. Its wheels and struts retracted upward by means of chains and sprockets into a single huge float faired directly into the lower fuselage.

The Duck was powered by a 1050-hp supercharged, 9-cylinder radial engine. Miller recalled that although engine failures during flight testing were infrequent, they always seemed to occur at the worst possible time. One such incident occurred as Miller was flying 16,000 feet above Long Island, above a solid cloud overcast. Reaching down into the cockpit, Miller switched the fuel flow from the auxiliary tank. The engine suddenly died.

With a 400-foot ceiling, Miller was forced to make a dead-stick instrument approach through the cloud cover. Miraculously, he was able to land safely at Floyd Bennett Field, a former naval base in Brooklyn.

Columbia’s contract was canceled at the end of the war. That placed the Duck, and subsequently Miller’s test-piloting career, on the brink of extinction. However, four Ducks can be seen today in museums across the country. In addition, two planes Miller flew during his commercial career are now displayed in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

They’ve got a Boeing 247D that I flew with United, and a DC-3 that I captained when I was with Eastern, Miller pointed out with his customary dry wit. I figure when I croak, they’ll freeze-dry me and put me in one of them. It’ll have to be in the DC-3 because I didn’t save my United Airlines uniform.

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