|
Matt flew the flight
On the 4th of July, the city of Phoenix puts on a huge event on the grounds of the state capitol, complete with big name entertainers, vendors selling food, and of course fireworks and every 4th of July, Carl and the Cactus Squadron did a over flight as part of the show. I normally flew with Carl, but one year as we were briefing the flight, Chuck Bivenour, who flew the # 4 position, said he did not have a backseater and who wanted to go on the flight. One of the ground crew said they would go. I got thinking about it and asked to trade with Chuck's passenger as I had not flown in the slot position that much and wanted the experience. A trade was agreed to and at the briefed time, 4 600 horse Pratt & Whitney’s roared into life. The flight consisted of Carl Schmieder in the lead, # 2 was Bob Mitchell #3 was Rick Hosking and # 4 was Chuck and myself. After take off we formed up and headed to the hold point over the fuel farm, about 5 miles from the capitol. Carl put the flight into a diamond formation and started to circle. After 2 circles Chuck asked if I wanted to fly, of course I said yes, but I need to get my sight picture first.
To fly formation you need to have 2 points of reference to line up to give you a fore and aft and a vertical reference, i.e., placing the tail wheel on the far wingtip. Once I got my sight picture, I told Chuck that I had the plane and I got a confirming stick shake. We orbited about 4 more circles before we started our run in. I kept waiting for Chuck to take the plane back, since we were inbound over the largest 4th of July gatherings in the state and we wanted to put on a good show. All of a sudden, I saw Carl’s smoke system turn on, then I could smell our system as it came on, hmmm we must be over the Capitol, after a short time, the smoke was turned off and we started a right turn, when the leveled off, I saw Carl waggle his wings, which is the signal to move to your normal position, I moved out of the slot and over to the right side of the formation, and we were inbound for our next pass. I tucked in tight on Rick’s right wing, when all of sudden, Rick’s smoke came on and he was gone, as he pulled up for the Missing Man Formation.
As we headed north to the Deer valley airport, I opened the space for Rick to rejoin the formation, and once he was in place, I tucked in tight on his wing again. Carl had gotten the airport ATIS information and read it off to us, we were be landing on 25L, and the altitude restrictions were removed, and we would be doing a fan break, left pattern, He then gave Rick the signal to open up and give room for the #2 man, Bob Mitchell to move over to the right side, Rick moved out, as did I, since, where he went, so did I. Carl called 2 miles initial, and that were going to descend and increase the power to get up some extra speed. I saw the nose of Rick’s plane lower and I pushed on the stick and advanced the throttle to stay in position, it was A LOT of throttle, out of the corner of my eye I started seeing cacti and trees going by very close by. As I was on the outside plane in the formation, I kept hoping Carl would remember that the #4 plane was lower, and closer to the ground than anyone else. I heard Carl call smoke on, and then what seemed a second later, he was calling for a fan break, and to break NOW. Carl banked left and pulled hard, Bob did the same, but pulled a little less, and on down the line. I banked and pulled and traded my excess airspeed for altitude, Chuck and I rolled out on downwind in trail with the rest of the flight, smoke was turned off as we rolled wings level, I saw Carl lower his gear, so I did the same, the whole time waiting for Chuck to take over the plane. As we turned onto base, I thought it would be a good time to wake up my front seater and have him land the plane. I called Chuck and said that I really enjoyed flying his plane, but he could have it back as I was not current on landing a T-6 from the back seat.
Chuck said he had the plane and proceeded to land. We went to the end of the runway and turned off and taxied to Chuck’s hangar. Chuck did his savage run to get the oil out of the sump and then pulled the prop back as he killed the mixture. I told Chuck that we had committed aviation and survived, it was a standing joke among us. After we had put the plane away, Chuck and I hopped in the Jeep and headed to the Ready room to Debrief and then party. When we arrived at Carl’s hangar, the party was all ready underway and those who had been on the flight were waiting for the debriefing, meaning, they were waiting for Chuck and myself. Carl always started with the last plane and went forward; He turned to Chuck and asked how the flight went from his position. The answer surprised everyone, he said it was the easiest flight he had ever done, that the only thing he had to do was to turn the smoke on, and then off. Everyone looked at Chuck with a confused look, then Chuck dropped the bombshell, He said that while we were holding over the fuel farm, he had turn the plane over to me, and that I was doing such a good job, he never took it back, and that I had flown the whole flight until we turned base. All eyes were on me, and I said all I did was follow Rick, and copied what he did, until I had to wake Chuck to land the plane.
Oh I did add the Lead was out of position, but the rest of the flight looked good from where I was.
|
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
...we started shuffling out the door and to my amazement the bags survived hitting the slip-stream. However, when his chute opened about 2 seconds later the shock caused both barf bags to break open, covering him in a fine mist of vomit. 
- I bet there are a few variations on this theme!
