United States Navy
Upon completion of pilot training Lovell served at sea flying F2H Banshee night fighters. In January 1958, he entered a six-month test pilot training course at the Naval Air Test Center (now the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School) at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland (also known as Pax River), along with Charles (Peter) Conrad and Wally Schirra. Lovell graduated first in his class.
Later that year, Lovell, Conrad and Schirra became three of 110 military test pilots selected as potential astronaut candidates for Project Mercury. Schirra went on to become one of the Mercury Seven, but Lovell and Conrad failed to make the cut for medical reasons: Lovell because of a temporarily high bilirubin count in his blood; and Conrad for refusing to take the second round of invasive medical tests. Lovell continued for four years at Pax River, using the call sign "Shaky", a nickname given him by Conrad.
Read more about this topic: Jim Lovell
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states and/or navy:
“Places where he might live and die and never hear of the United States, which make such a noise in the world,—never hear of America, so called from the name of a European gentleman.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“With steady eye on the real issue, let us reinaugurate the good old “central ideas” of the Republic. We can do it. The human heart is with us—God is with us. We shall again be able not to declare, that “all States as States, are equal,” nor yet that “all citizens as citizens are equal,” but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that “all men are created equal.””
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“We all know the Navy is never wrong, but in this case it was a little weak on being right.”
—Wendell Mayes, U.S. screenwriter. Otto Preminger. CINCPAC II (Henry Fonda)