Today was International Learn to Fly Day. One of the flight schools held an open house so there were a few more folks wandering around than normal. I was out working on our Mooney when I decided to take a little walk with a friend. We discovered a P-51 Mustang at the Pacific Coast Air Museum. This one is called Red Dog XII. It is regularly flown by Chuck Yeager and it's owned by a friend of his. I even found his signature on the tail of Red Dog. But the best part of the day was hearing what I thought was the voice of a friend of mine, Darren Hopkins, who was soloing a Cessna 172. After he landed I went around the hangar and caught him pulling into the flight school. I took his movie camera and filmed his instructor cutting the tail off his shirt. This is a tradition for pilots who solo. It goes back to the days when student pilots sat in front of their instructors. In order to signal the students in the noisy open-cockpit planes, the instructor would tug on the shirttail. After they soloed, the instructor cut off the shirttail as a sign they were good enough to not need those signals any more. For the next few weeks, the back of Darren's shirt will be on display at North Coast Aviation. Three other pilots near my hangar saw the back of Darren's shirt missing and knew what he had just accomplished and congratulated him. And he did it on Learn to Fly Day.
I am always reminding myself to bring my nice camera pack to the airport every time I visit. I usually forget. So I end up with a lot of poor quality iPhone photos to “prove” what I saw. In our hangar we have a solar powered scanner set-up that lets us in on most everything that happens before it happens. I’ve been witness to three accidents, one dead-stick landing, several amazing military landings, a large number of war bird sightings and VIP arrivals. For such a small class D airport we seem to get plenty of action.
Our Mooney is undergoing an annual so we’re busy taking off panels and other things under the watchful eye of our mechanic. Friday afternoon was another of those days spent at the airport listening to the tower and working on the plane. And, of course, I forgot my camera at home.
The first event was two Apache attack gunships arriving from Camp Pendleton. They made a couple low passes and landed on the ramp. Two officers each readied their ships for an overnight stay and left the airport.
Over the scanner I hear Santa Rosa tower talking to a “Fortress.” A couple minutes later I hear the amazing unmistakable sound of four radial engines and then see a beautiful Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress low in the pattern slowly making its way to the ground. It did a couple of low passes and then made a series of touch-and-go landings. I called my daughter and begged her to bring me my camera.
After about four landing cycles I heard another familiar sound. It was a Rolls Royce attached to Lady Jo, a local P-51 Mustang that lives at our field along with a couple others. As she rolled out of the hanger I knew I was in for a rare treat. There are not many of either of these planes still flying.
The Fortress took off and headed toward the south. Following about 3 minutes behind was Lady Jo. A few minutes later they both flew back and the Fortress made a few landings with Lady Jo doing low fly-bys. I stood at the end of my row of hangars and enjoyed the show along with a few other hanger owners fortunate enough to have field access.
Unfortunately, by the time my daughter showed up with my camera, Lady Jo went back to her hangar. My iPhone photos were horrible so I never got a shot of them together. I did get a few shots with my good camera but the sun was setting so I was shooting into the light making photography rather difficult.
One of my favorite parts of the afternoon was listening to our tower speak to the Fortress and the Mustang together. Several of the landing pilots of a more common name brand (Cessna, Mooney, Piper) commented on what an amazing site it was to see those old birds in the pattern.
For those who knew what they’re looking at it was an amazing afternoon. And for the person who called the tower with a noise complaint, you should not have moved next to the airport if you didn’t want to hear noise. Santa Rosa’s airport was activated in 1942. Your housing development was built only 15 years ago. And those planes you heard overhead helped to win the greatest war this country has ever fought. It won’t be much longer and they will all be so old and tired that they will only be found in museums. And those of us who choose to live near the airport and love the sounds of history will remember the last time we heard one of those old birds overhead. We will struggle to describe it. But we will never forget it.
