05/31/2006. Remarks by Pat Loop: "Norman Loop began working for Lockheed building instrument panels and installing various instruments required for each customer. In later years he was foreman of instrumentation in Lockheed's Engineering Flight Test Section, which led to many interesting experiences.

For instance, during the early testing of the P-38 they discovered that the high speed of the aircraft produced serious buffeting problems. To solve these problems strain guages and other instrumentation was installed in test aircraft. One day while preparing one of the planes for testing, Milo Burcham, Lockheed's test pilot, asked Norman if he would like to go along and, of course, he agreed. He squeezed himself into the very cramped position behind the pilot, hunched over with his head nearly on Burcham's shoulder. I suspect the flight went well because Norman didn't say much about it.

The big excitement came when Burcham prepared to land and discovered the nose gear would not lock down into position, and it would not retract either. So Burcham retracted the main gear and belly-landed the plane in the grass along side the main runway. When the plane stopped sliding, Burcham had the canope open and said "Come on Norm, let's get the hell out of here." Norman though he would never be able to climb out because of being in that cramped position for so long. He couldn't even raise his head. Burcham told Norman "Maybe it would help a lot if you would take off your headset or unplug it"."