In aviation, a pilot checklist is an essential tool used to ensure flight safety, legal compliance, and airworthiness of the craft to be flown. The checklist exists thanks to a man named Ployer Peter Hill. Or, as South Carolina’s Carol McLaren knew him, “Uncle Ployer.”
Hill was a test pilot in the early part of the 20th Century. During his 18-year career, he piloted nearly 60 of the Army Air Corps' newest aircraft. His final mission ended with a crash on October 30, 1935. Hill survived only a few hours afterward, but during those last precious moments, he was able to help relay the sequence of events that caused the Boeing Model 299 he was piloting to come spiraling down that day in Dayton, Ohio’s Wright Field: the control surface gust lock had not been released.
In 2024, McLaren joined her daughter, Barbara Berry, at StoryCorps, to share early childhood memories of her Uncle Ployer, and how his personal sacrifice is commemorated each time a pilot prepares for flight.
TRANSCRIPT:
Berry: What's your earliest memory about Uncle Ployer?
McLaren: My earliest memory, and my practically my only memory of him personally, is when he came to visit. He was in the Air Corps, and that was a big deal. He was in his uniform. They didn't wear their uniforms off base, but he was going back to his base, so he had his uniform on. And I was sitting with he and his wife eating breakfast, but I was sitting under the table, and they were at the table. (laughs)
Berry: So, you remember his knee-tall boots?
McLaren: They called them “puttees” in those days. And I thought it was very dashing. I thought I'd never seen anything like this before.
Berry: And what did he do in the Army Air Corps?
McLaren: Well, what you did in the Army Air Corps was everything. You'd be a cameraman for two years, you'd be a pilot always, and you'd be various things, because the Air Corps was not very big or prominent in the 1930s.
Berry: What subsequently happened to him?
McLaren: Well, he went back to Mitchell Field and then he was sent to Wright-Patterson in Dayton, Ohio, where he was a test pilot. And he tested the B-17 bomber, the famous B-17 of World War II. Of course, he didn't know that. As a matter of fact, it crashed. They said it was due to errors by the pilot. They had so many things to do. And a checklist was later recommended by the Boeing man. And these saved the plane. Boeing wanted to give up the whole thing and he said, “No, no, no, we've spent too much good time and money on this. And it's a great plane. They just have to learn how to do four things rather than one. And they have to be done in a certain order. So, we need a checklist.” And that solved the problem. Every pilot has a checklist today. But he did not. He just went by what he thought.
Berry: And who did he fly with?
McLaren: He flew with a very famous man of World War II, Jimmy Doolittle. Well, you can imagine when World War II started and we were having terrible troubles. There was a headline in the newspaper that said, “Jimmy Doolittle Bombs Tokyo.” I was 10, or almost 10. But Uncle Ployer, in the meantime, had been killed testing the B-17 bomber. And they founded Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah and named it for him.
