P40 Model

Once again, the New Garden Festival of Flight was a big success with big crowds and two thrill-packed days of exhibits and exhibitions. This P-40 was just one of many vintage war aircraft on display.

The two-day air show offered many aerial displays such as aerobatics from wing-walker Jane Wicker, stunt-flying by Matt Chapman in a CAP 580, the flight of the C-54 Spirit of Freedom, and demonstrations from the Commemorative Air Force (CAF) including those of the P-40 Warhawk and the P-51D Mustang.

“The CAF was originally formed in 1957 by two WWII bomber pilots who purchased some old planes from the war,” said Stan Musick, CAF pilot of the P-51. Dedicated to the preservation of WWII-era aircraft, the CAF endeavours to acquire and maintain their aircraft in an operational state in order to provide the public with firsthand knowledge of the capabilities and the history of these vintage war planes. The largely volunteer-staffed organization has roughly 130-functional WWII aircraft from both the Allied and Axis sides.

Vintage aircraft were not the only ones to be present at the festival, however: an Air Force B-2 stealth bomber made a flyby during the festival on Saturday, providing the crowd with a look at the current generation of military airpower.

This year’s festival also drew a wide variety of patrons, including some veterans. “I used to be a B-25 pilot in the South Pacific during World War II,” Joseph Miller said, dressed in his original Army Air Corps uniform. The York, PA native is the owner of an L-3B Grasshopper housed at New Garden and travels “all over the country” to air shows. “I think these events are important for the general public, and especially the younger generations, to learn about the Second World War,” he said.

Source: The Unionville Times

Minot pilot Warren Pietsch, three other pilots from North Dakota and one from Iowa will make a trip next week in World War II aircraft which hasn’t been attempted in these planes for 70 years.

The planes and pilots with the Texas Flying Legends Museum are going to St. Maarten, an island in the northeast Caribbean about 186 miles east of Puerto Rico, where they’ll take part in the 25th anniversary of the St. Barths Bucket Regatta.

Pilots and the planes making the trip are:

- Warren Pietsch, of Minot, flying the “Aleutian Tiger,” a P-40K Warhawk.

- Bob Odegaard, of Kindred, flying “Whistling Death,” a Goodyear FG-1D Corsair.

- Casey Odegaard, of Kindred, flying “Dakota Kid II,” a P-51D Mustang.

- Dr. Henry Reichert, of Bismarck, and Doug Rozendaal, of Clear Lake, Iowa, flying “Betty’s Dream,” a B-25J.

“When the opportunity was presented to perform at the Bucket Regatta in 2011, we were very excited to make this mission a reality,” said Chris Griffith, of Scarborough, Maine, president of the flying museum. The museum is based out of Ellington Field in Houston.

“However, to accomplish the trip to St. Barths and back, we would have to cross more water than had ever been attempted since World War II in these planes. Combined with the necessary licenses required to make such a trip even possible, we had to pull all our resources together to make this happen,” Griffith said.

He said the 70-year-old aircraft will fly 1,100 nautical miles from Houston to St. Maarten for the three-day race, and then back to Houston.

Pietsch said this is a very significant trip and that he has never done something like this before.

“All four airplanes will travel together as a formation,” he said.

He said the P-40, which he will be flying, has the shortest range at about 400 miles.

“We will be making two stops between Houston and Fort Lauderdale (1,100 miles) and three stops between Fort Lauderdale and St. Maarten (1,200 miles). We will be stopping in Great Exuma, Bahamas-Providenciales, Turks and Caicos-Aguadilla, Puerto Rico and then St. Maarten,” he said.

He said the trip will take about 14 hours of flying each way.

During the regatta, the planes will take off from Arrindell Aviation Services, their base of operations in St. Maarten, to perform a formation fly-by every morning over St. Barths. Every afternoon they will also perform a 20-minute air show over Shell Beach, St. Barths, after each day’s race.

The pilots, along with their planes, also will be at Arrindell Aviation each afternoon to meet the public.

Planes with the Texas Flying Legends Museum are flown from Texas to North Dakota each spring, to Maine each summer and back to Texas in the fall.

The museum also has one of only two flying Japanese Zeros left in the world and “Little Horse,” a P-51D stable-mate of Dakota Kid II.

The four planes in the St. Maarten trip and possibly two other planes will be on display at the Dakota Territory Air Museum in Minot when it opens May 14. The planes will remain there for about two months.

-minotdailynews.com