A Profusion of Thrills
By Lane Wallace
November 2008
 "This turn's going to be tricky," Luke says as he surveys the 90-degree angle onto Runway 18/36 at Oshkosh.
I glance around the Mustang speedster convertible we've borrowed from Roush Racing for this particular job. There is a roll bar, but it's also still a convertible.
"Just don't roll it," I say.
Luke shoots me a look. His left arm, ensconced in the casually rolled-up sleeve of a military flight suit, is draped over the steering wheel as he checks the frequency on the boat-anchor-sized "portable" military radio between us with his other hand. He's wearing sunglasses, so I can't actually see his eyes. But I get the gist, which is something along the lines of not trying to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs.
"I'm just saying ...," I say with a laugh.
Luke turns his attention back to the radio, which is being annoying silent, considering we're supposedly on the tower frequency. I glance at my watch. Well, at least we still have 15 minutes to straighten it out before we're "on." Except, as I glance past Luke, I see a suspiciously long-winged black silhouette approaching the field.
"Ummm, Luke?" I ask, pointing.
He glances up. "Shoot!" he says. "That's them!"
"But they're 20 minutes early!"
"I know," he answers sharply. "But that's them!"
"What are we going to do?" I ask. It's not an idle question. The whole reason we're sitting here at the end of the runway, in a sports-car racing convertible with a military radio on board, is that the approaching U-2 spy plane, one of the longest-serving aircraft in USAF history, is also one of the most challenging to land. Its two sets of wheels -- one set of main wheels and a tailwheel -- are arranged in a tandem configuration, making the U-2 a very difficult airplane to land and keep straight on a runway. And because of the long wings and radar nose, as soon as the pilot begins to raise the nose in the flare, he can no longer see any part of the runway.
So to land the U-2, a second pilot has to drive "chase" behind it on the runway, conveying its alignment and altitude above the runway over a radio to the pilot landing the plane. The approach speed of the U-2 is about 100 mph, and the chase car has to wait until the plane passes by to pull out on the runway, leading to a pretty tire-screeching acceleration to catch up. Hence the concern about the 90-degree turn angle of the taxiway at Oshkosh. But if our radio is inop, it won't matter. The U-2 pilot will be landing completely blind.
Luke doesn't answer my question, because he's already leaped out of the car and dashed over to the truck beside us, which is carrying three additional crew members and "pogo" wheels to place under the U-2's wings as soon as it stops, so it can taxi without scraping its wingtips along the pavement. This is not a simple operation, bringing a U-2 back to Earth again.
Seconds later, he's back with a handheld radio. "Okay," he says as he throws the car into gear, eyes fixed on the fast-approaching U-2 to our left, "it's gonna get fast, it's gonna get loud, and it's gonna get exciting!" The black shadow of the U-2 sweeps over us and Luke hits the accelerator, screeching around the corner and into a tight slot position on the U-2's tail. The plane touches down, tailwheel first, and the pilot starts the wrestling match required to keep the plane from swerving off the runway. It's pretty impressive, especially when it's all playing out only a few feet away from me. I flew a tailwheel airplane for years, but the famed U-2 "Dragon Lady" -- so named because of its difficult landing characteristics -- clearly requires a whole different level of tailwheel flying skill.
The U-2 rolls to a stop, and we pull around the wing to where we can see the pilots. Most U-2s are single-seat airplanes, but this is a training version, so it has a second, raised cockpit for an instructor. The cockpit windows are small, but they're still big enough for me to see the space helmets the pilots are wearing. Space helmets. Wow. How cool is that? I just chased a plane down the Oshkosh runway that's returning from such a high altitude above the Earth that its pilots have to wear space suits!
That alone is something you wouldn't see every day of the week. But what makes this particular week, and this particular fly-in, so supercalifragilisticexpialidociously amazing and unique is that this is only ONE of the thrills I've been able to experience in the past few days.
Three days earlier, I found myself strapping into a T-28 owned by Dr. Ralph Glasser, who moonlights as the lead solo acro pilot in the Trojan Horsemen six-ship T-28 airshow team. I was headed with Ralph and his wingman, Walt Fricke, out to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, to join up with the main T-28 group for a formation arrival into Oshkosh that afternoon.
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