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Timeless Adventure

A Warbird's Eye-View of AirVenture.

Location, as any real estate agent will tell you, is everything.

For years, I’d watched the warbird formations fly over the field at Oshkosh without any great sense of awe. That’s not to say it wasn’t cool to see diamond after diamond of T-6, T-28 or T-34 trainers fly overhead. But the sight never made me go “wow” the way a B-2 flyby or F-22 maneuverability demonstration did.

Until now. Because now I’m experiencing a warbird fly-over from a slightly different location — namely, the back seat of Ken Karas’ 1,425 hp North American T-28 Trojan, smack dab in the middle of one of those formation flights. A 16-ship formation flight. And “wow” is suddenly a woefully inadequate piece of vocabulary to describe the experience.

One of the best aspects of the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture gathering in Oshkosh is that it brings together such divergent types of aircraft. Everything from the flimsiest ultralight to the heaviest military cargo plane can be found somewhere on the ramp or grass. All the types and categories of aircraft share a common bond and association as members of the EAA community. But as with most diverse communities, the individual types and groups also retain a very strong sense of their root identity. And to get any real sense of that identity requires spending a little time on location — or in formation, as the case may be — with those who call that particular piece of AirVenture “home.”

Warbirds, or civilian-owned aircraft that had a military role at some point in history, have been a part of EAA ever since the mid-1960s. Walt Olrich, who founded a kind of “mutual maintenance group” called Warbirds of America for owner/operators of former military aircraft in the late 1950s, was sent to serve in Southeast Asia. So another member of the group asked EAA President Paul Poberezny, who owned a P-51 Mustang, if he would take the warbird organization under the EAA’s wing in Olrich’s absence. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, warbirds comprise one of the two largest membership groups in the EAA (the other being Vintage aircraft), according to current Warbirds of America President Rick Siegfried.

But what makes someone buy and fly a Warbird as opposed to an antique, homebuilt, or any other kind of airplane? A love of history might explain a piece of it, but any number of planes offer a compelling link with the past.

“We’re here to try to honor the people who came before us, and show these airplanes to let everybody know the history behind them,” explained former WoA president Bill Harrison.

Okay, but that still doesn’t quite explain it, I’m thinking as I strap into Karas’ T-28 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, as we prepare to depart for Oshkosh with our 15 flight partners. On a cue passed down the line from the other Trojan pilots, Karas fires up the T-28’s Wright radial engine, smoke and noise stuttering back from its nine cylinders as it rumbles into life, in concert with 15 other throaty radial engines. “Okay,” I think. “That’s cool.” On another cue, we taxi out to the runway like a line of 737s at La Guardia airport. Except 737s don’t all close their canopies at precisely the same moment, on cue. Suddenly I begin to feel like a member of the Air Force Thunderbirds or the Navy’s Blue Angels flight team. Even though it’s a far cry from the type of flying I normally do, I note with a faint wisp of surprise that there’s something very seductive about this level of precision and coordination.

We roll out onto the runway in pairs, each duo putting the throttle forward as the wheels of the pair ahead leave the runway. As Ken goes to full power, I’m pressed back — hard — into my seat, and I remember anew the appeal of pure, unadulterated horsepower. That definitely rates a “wow.”

But all those elements pale with the sensation of flying close formation with 15 other identical aircraft. It’s part surreal, part scary, part amazing and part pure adrenaline rush, all wrapped up in one. I’ve never been so close to so many pieces of aluminum in flight before, all rising and falling together in the afternoon thermals. I can read the data plate under the tail of the T-28 next to us, count the rivets in at least three or four others, and see the expressions on the faces of half a dozen pilots … in half a dozen separate airplanes, all heart-stoppingly close to my elbows. If any of us mess up … I decide not to contemplate that possibility too hard. But I will never again take lightly the effort, training, skill or concentration involved in executing those mass fly-over formations safely.

By the time we land at Oshkosh and shut down … on cue, cut mixture on my signal … 3 … 2 … 1 … now … I think I have a fuller understanding of why pilots are drawn to these airplanes. There’s the history, yes. And the pride in the role the planes played on a world stage. But there’s also a kind of horsepower and precision challenge available in this world that even my beloved Cessna 120 could never match. Not to mention the chance to play a Walter Mitty life-size game of GI Joe, with a dash of pride in performance, execution and accomplishment thrown in for good measure.

Why do pilots buy a warbird? “Well,” says Siegfried, who’s owned a T-6 for 16 years, “there’s a guy out there selling ‘brand-new’ T-6s for about the cost of a new, four-seat Cessna.” Siegfried doesn’t finish the thought, but his eyes have a glint in them as he chuckles. “And, you know,” he says after a pause, “a T-6 sure is a whole lot of fun.”

As for why pilots go to the trouble and expense of bringing all those warbirds to AirVenture (more than 400 were in attendance this year), one only needs to walk down the neatly arranged rows of gleaming Mustangs, T-6s, Bird Dogs, CJ-6s … and yes, T-28s … at the edges of the day. It’s not just the size of the gathering, or the opportunities for group flights those numbers provide, although that’s certainly part of the appeal. It’s because at most airports, a T-28 will be the only one of its kind. But here, in this place all airplanes can call home, the pilot of that same T-28 (or Cessna 120, or RV-6, or Trike, or any other slightly uncommon airplane) can have an extended family reunion. With a community of others who not only see and appreciate the unique and timeless beauty of each particular airplane, but who also offer a wordless reminder that we all were, are and always will be … part of something bigger than ourselves.

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