Hanging up his pilot's helmet: Ken Higgins looks back over 40 years testing Boeing's commercial aircraft

Hanging up his pilot's helmet: Ken Higgins looks back over 40 years testing Boeing's commercial aircraft

Yesterday Ken Higgins formally hung up his flying helmet as boss of Boeing's extensive flight test operations after more than 40 years with the company.



Staring out from his office window overlooking Boeing Field (pictured above) he admits it is tough to be leaving, particularly with the 787, 747LCF, 777F and 747-8 coming up, but then he will be able to devote more time to flying the homebuilt Glasair III co-owned with Brian Wygle, flight test engineer on the maiden flight of the 747.

Rising through the ranks since joining the company in 1966 as a flight test engineer, Higgins is retiring as vice president of flight operations and validation for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, a role he has had for a full decade. He was on the flight deck for the first flights of the 737-400, -500 and 747-400, and made the first flight of the 737-700 with Mike Hewitt and 777-200 with John Cashman.

Looking back however, his favourite experience was the 757 test effort on which he flew the second aircraft with John Armstrong. \"When you get involved in something from the start, and get into the guts of design - from that standpoint the 757 was the most exciting. My responsibility was to help design the two crew cockpit. I remember we had 64kb of memory in the caution and warning system - a little less than you have in the average calculator today I suppose.\"
The 757 was exciting for all sorts of reasons. On the fourth flight of the No.3 test aircraft the crew performed an in-flight engine shutdown and relight which sent an unexpected power spike through the aircraft's all-new digital equipment. \"It knocked out the anti-skid brakes and the system that monitored that. So the anti-skid had not only failed, but we didn't know about it,\" says Higgins.

To add to the day's difficulties the trailing edge flap transmission froze up so the flaps would not come down. \"So I added speed to compensate and made the approach at 170kt [315km/h], and as soon as I touched down I hit the brakes and all four main tyres on each leg just stopped. We went down the runway and the bottom of the tyres were ground down to the axles with sparks and fire everywhere.\" Higgins recalls the laconic \"sir, you are on fire\" call from the control tower at Boeing Field.

Unfortunately it was also 5pm and the height of the evening rush hour on the adjacent 5 freeway. The TV news helicopters all made a beeline for Boeing Field as the stranded 757 sat ignominiously and unmovable on its hemispherical wheels. \"It was all very public,\" laughs Higgins.

Another not so public, but equally harrowing moment in the 757 came at a little over 1,000ft above the jagged peaks of the Cascade mountain range where Higgins was searching for the perfect icing test conditions in a winter storm. \"We had flaps 30 with the gear down, but at the same time both engines suddenly began vibrating and went over the red line. The aircraft began to shake and engines made a funny noise like a vacuum. About then the test engineer came running up and said 'stay right here…this is perfect!'\"

Inoring the test engineer Higgins tried to apply more power and climb away, \"but the engines made an even worse noise.\" Nursing the aircraft gingerly away from the mountains and back to Seattle, the landing was made on only one engine. Afterwards the crew discovered bent and battered fan blades and \"the rub strip pretty well gone from the ice.\" The anti-icing system was revised as a result and \"we had to put a heated spinner on the engine - which went back to the test stand and worked just fine.\"

Another time, flying in the 757 with test pilot Buzz Nelson, Higgins discovered the controls were jammed. \"We'd been on autopilot and got to 5,000ft and found we couldn't move the controls.\" It turned out the aircraft had been washed just before flight, and water had collected in a narrow slot where it froze into a lump during the climb. It was yet another unusual discovery made during a Higgins sortie. \"Something always happened when I was on the aircraft. The engineers loved me, particularly as they'd designed everything against things happening with a probability of 10 (to the power of 9). They gave me a T-shirt which said 'Ken Higgins 10-9'.\"

Overall Higgins says much has changed in the world of flight test. \"They mostly just went and did it then. Through to the mid-80s when we did a demo flight for the airline customer we'd put them in the left seat and demonstrate the aircraft's full capability. We'd show them all the corners of the envelope - stalls, turns, the lot. Now that doesn't happen like that.\"


Higgins has, he proudly remarks, \"been beyond vertical in all the aircraft we currently have except the 747. Of course we do that to make sure if there's a problem we can fix it.\" Although not wishing to replicate the legendary Tex Johnson roll in the Dash 80 prototype - a manuoever which briefly became a deadly 'graduation exercise' for some airlines - Higgins says \"I never pulled through, but I have been completely vertical and you'd be surprised at how quickly it can happen!\"

Golden days for Higgins include flying the 747 in formation with a 727, 737 and 707 in a flypast over Boeing Field to salute the retirement of outgoing Boeing president Bill Allen in 1972 (piictured above), and of flying back VFR at low altitude from Moses Lake test site through the passes of the Cascade range to Seattle.

And now what? Apart from flying the Glasair, \"I will do more boating, and work more on my other hobby which is old cars. I also make wine - though I don't intend to become a wino!\" Happy landings Mr Higgins.