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March 9, 2007, John Driver passed away. He was one of the Tuskegee Airman, trained as a bomber pilot-- I think. Fortunately, the war ended before he was could be shipped overseas. Whether he was drafted or enlisted , he answered the call of his country.
And now the rest of the story.... His widow asked for a flyby at the funeral.
A request went out for planes and pilots. (In my opinion, the most fitting flyby would be 4 red-tail P-51's , with no. 3 doing the pull up. Of course, these days that would be nearly impossible and if not quite expensive. ) Anyway, turns out the available aircraft were 3 Piper Cubs. Bob, owner of 2 Cubs, needed a pilot and asked me if I would fly one. (Would a grizzly like to eat a salmon?)
The three of us (Bob, Tim, and I) practiced for the event. We practiced formation flying, discussed how to break-up the formation if there was an emergency and when entering the landing pattern. We did this for two days.
Timing our fly by so that it could be integrated into the funeral service.
On the big day, we flew just like we trained. We were told to make our flyover at 1:35 pm. Things don't work like that. We arrived ahead of time.
And began an orbit 3 miles away. There was one man on the ground with a hand-held radio. He advised that they haven't even started parking the cars. Bob said, " let's land [at the airstrip nearby]" Since I was fly lead, mainly because I had the slower airplane, I said that we should stay in the air and maintain communication. (I forgot about using a cell phone). We circled for 25 minutes. I was having fun, the other 2 were about to bust.
Finally got the call and proceeded inbound. Made 'missing diamond' flyby, not the pull-up style, and then turned in formation to the west. Guy on ground calls, "good job". Anyway, we land at the airstrip. Bob's friend arrives; she had videotaped the funeral service. She said there was an almost embarassingly long wait between the end of the service and when we flew over.
We did our part right,the ground controller made the call too late. (we were set for a 3 minute lead).
A few days later, Bob has lunch with the widow. She is a very distguished woman. She told Bob, " I managed to keep my composure all through the service until those little planes flew over, then I lost it".
My reply, " Mission accomplished". Funerals are for the living. Not matter what we do on earth, we can't hinder or help those that have passed on.
(By the way, I'm posting this so late becasue I didn't join WIX until late April , by that time the event was 'lost' in the daily rush of life until just recently I was reminded of it.)
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