Dear me, I must be a glutton for punishment. Hot on the heels of declaring that “Taildraggers Suck” (not everyone got the tongue-in-cheek humor behind the column’s title or necessarily read any further), I’m about to reach out and grab the third rail of aviation opinion: warbirds. As I recall, Martha Lunken took some serious heat from the warbird community a few years ago after she made some pithy comments at its expense, and former EAA President Rod Hightower stirred up a hornet’s nest in the other direction when he used one of his first columns in Sport Aviation to sing the praises of Nomex. Forget Oshkosh chalets or an autocratic management style, I maintain that Hightower’s downfall began right then and there. Yet here I go skipping down the primrose path. Henceforth I promise to constrain myself to less controversial subjects, like sex, politics and religion.
It seems pretty silly that warbirds generate such discord within the pilot community. These fast, agile and beautiful aircraft are widely admired among aviators; many are perennial fixtures on “favorite aircraft of all time” lists. The majority fought during World War II, the archetypical “just war.” Maintaining and flying these old birds is arguably a real public service, keeping history alive in a tangible form unrivaled by even the most immersive, interactive modern museums. One would think there would be universal acclaim for the men and women “keeping ’em flying” — most of all among pilots.
Like many rifts, I think it mostly comes down to money. These are rare and complex aircraft, and the most desirable types have become insanely expensive to obtain, restore, maintain and operate. Privately owned warbirds are largely the purview of the “1 percent” and thus invite a broad range of responses depending on one’s socioeconomic status and political leanings. Of course, many warbirds are owned by museums or nonprofit organizations, like the Commemorative Air Force (CAF), but the fact that these are valuable, temperamental and high-performance aircraft means that they are only flown by a handful of skilled (and/or well-connected) pilots. The warbird guys all seem to know each other, but few GA pilots have much contact with them. We simply inhabit different corners of aviation. Many warbird operators have more in common with the military, whence most of their pilots came.
For years the sum total of my warbird experience consisted of getting yelled at for touching a P-51 at Oshkosh ’98 (I didn’t), being gruffly shooed away from a busy CEO/T-28 owner’s hangar, and being summarily ignored as a lowly CFI attempting to chat with a few strutting Yak and T-6 crews. I’m sure these aren’t representative encounters, but they didn’t exactly encourage me to go out and seek more contact with warbird types. I was content to admire their pretty, expensive airplanes from afar. I certainly wasn’t inclined to go begging for rides.
Until recently, that is. My initiation came on a hot, bright September afternoon after I belatedly inherited a Dallas overnight for work. As soon as I knew I was coming to town, I called up Hugh Grandstaff. I know Hugh because he married my longtime friend Sylvia Szafarczyk, one of my favorite people around: smart as a whip, given to wanderlust, an accomplished glider pilot and a great lover of all things aviation. After a long and winding road, she’s now flying and instructing in CH-47 Chinooks for the U.S. Army, is currently on her second deployment to Afghanistan, and has been selected to attend the prestigious and rigorous Army Experimental Test Pilot program upon her return. I’ve known Sylvia since her teens and can’t imagine a better match for her than Hugh. A Merchant Marine Academy grad, competitive sailor and flight instructor, Hugh was formerly an officer on the HSV-2 Swift high-speed humanitarian relief ship, but he “swallowed the anchor” a few years back to help his dad, a Southwest Airlines captain, run their burgeoning scrapping business.
Thus did I find myself in a hot, dusty scrap yard in Red Oak, Texas, checking out Hugh’s massive new metal-eating machine as it noisily chomped a mountain of rebar into recyclable bite-size pieces. Pretty badass, I thought, but not quite as much as Hugh’s other toy, the one I really came to see: a North American T-28 Trojan. Actually, not just one Trojan, but two. No, Hugh didn’t win the lottery, nor is he the heir to a fortune. Instead he and Hugh Sr. are members of what has to be one of the most unique flying clubs in the world: the Trojan Phlyers Air Show and Race Team.
The Phlyers team was founded in 1990 by well-known Reno air racer Neil Anderson. Six years and two exhaustive restorations later, it had a trio of flyable T-28s (one of which was later lost to engine failure). The Phlyers currently has eight members, places a strong emphasis on training and proficiency in formation and aerobatic flying, and performs solo and two-ship aerobatic demonstrations at many airshows — yet members are equally welcome to take the airplanes on a $1,000 hamburger run or a sunset cruise. Like all flying clubs, members get most of the benefits of sole ownership at a fraction of the cost — in this case, putting warbird ownership within reach of mere mortals like Hugh.
Satisfied that the rebar-munching monster was in good working order, Hugh and I drove to the Phlyers’ home hangar at the Mid-Way Regional Airport in Midlothian. Two handsome T-28s — one in Air Force livery, the other Marine Corps — stood at attention under a bluebonnet sky. In the briefing room, we met Chip Lamb, the Phlyers’ president and lead pilot for today’s two-ship flight. Chip is a former F-16 jock and a retired American Airlines pilot; he once flew the same McDonnell-Douglas airliner I’m on, and we discussed its many quirks before getting down to the business of the day. The briefing was thorough and followed a set format, covering the expected mission, normal and emergency procedures, radio communications, hand signals and potential threats. Briefing complete, Hugh and Chip donned their flight suits and parachutes; I strapped on a rig over my street clothes, leaving the leg straps undone for the not-inconsiderable climb to the cockpit.
One’s primary impression upon approaching a T-28 is its size and apparent stoutness. The barrel-chested fuselage is essentially built around the 1,425 hp Wright R-1820 radial engine. The T-28 sits high off the ground on tall, beefy tricycle landing gear, and the wings seem disproportionately stubby. At first glance, it looks like a draggy, lumbering and nearly indestructible beast of a primary trainer meant to be wrestled through the sky. This impression was reinforced when I settled into Ship 26’s positively cavernous rear cockpit with its oversize stick and throttle. Hugh gave me a quick briefing on communications and emergency egress, and I set about familiarizing myself with the mishmash of controls and instruments as he strapped in and donned his flight helmet.
Start-up, taxi and run-up were all accomplished in concert with flight lead, as briefed. Hugh waited until Chip broke ground before throttling up for takeoff, the rumbling radial’s din becoming a bone-shaking roar. The brute acceleration was surprising, as was the high rate of climb as Hugh winged over for a well-done rejoin on Ship 27. They immediately began various formation exercises, including breaks and rejoins, crossunders, close trail, and turns in fingertip and echelon formation. Hugh was never a military pilot but has obviously enjoyed excellent training under the Phlyers’ tutelage. At one point, he came in a bit hot on a rejoin, and while I thought it was recoverable, Hugh did the conservative thing and broke off for another try — a decision Chip later praised during the debriefing.
After 20 minutes of formation work, we broke off to do some solo aerobatics over Bardwell Lake. Hugh established the crowd line, show center and minimum floor, and then launched into an eight-minute routine of aileron and hesitation rolls, loops, wingovers, photo passes, Immelmans and Cuban eights. I already had some idea that my initial impression of the T-28 was dead wrong based on Hugh’s small control movements and how easily the airplane gained airspeed even at reduced power settings, but the full extent of my misappraisal wasn’t apparent until Hugh turned over the controls. Far from a lumbering beast to be wrestled around, the T-28 is darn near a fingertip airplane with beautiful control harmony. I had to really limit stick travel during loop entry and recovery to avoid exceeding the Phlyer’s self-imposed 3-G limit.
I was thoroughly enjoying the acro until I did a few zero-G maneuvers, at which point the Texas heat and turbulence nearly caught up with me. I haven’t been sick in an airplane in a long time, but I know when to say uncle and, fortunately, felt much better by the time we landed back at Mid-Way. In all, we were airborne for maybe 50 minutes, but it was the most intense 50 minutes I’ve experienced in a while. “You know, I’d rather go fly an hour in the Trojan than five or six hours in just about anything else,” Hugh commented after the debriefing. He noted that the T-28’s operating costs come to about $500 an hour, and while I wouldn’t call that cheap, it actually seems like a pretty good deal when you consider the capabilities of the airplane and the opportunities to train and develop such a unique skill set. In fact, a few days after our flight, Hugh made his debut as an airshow pilot, putting Ship 26 through its paces for an appreciative crowd at the Corsicana Air Show. That’s something he never would have done if not for the Trojan Phlyers. Next year he’ll be learning two-ship aerobatics.
As for me, I really enjoyed my belated introduction to warbirds, and I have decided I’m not above begging for rides after all and plan to do some serious groveling with my few acquaintances in the warbird community. I’m not sure if this column will help or hurt my chances. Just to be on the safe side, let the record reflect: I never once made fun of Nomex!
