National Air Tour was a Success

Flight Journal, Feb 2004 by Auliard, Gilles

DOZENS OF RARE, VINTAGE AIRPLANES on the National Air Tour (NAT) have just finished a chapter in aviation history. The aircraft and more than 80 volunteer pilots and crew from 20 states and Canada, returned to Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on September 24, 2003, after completing a 4,000-mile journey that was originally planned for the 1932 National Air Tour.

Edsel B. Ford, honorary chairperson for the National Air Tour 2003, and Erik Lindbergh, pilot and grandson of Charles Lindbergh, were at the departure ceremony. Edsel B. Ford waved the starter flag just as his grandfather did for the 1925 National Air Tour. Erik Lindbergh departed with the Tour to fly the first leg to Lansing Municipal Airport near Chicago. His grandfather planned to attend the departure of the 1928 Tour, but he had to force-land in a potato patch 50 miles outside Detroit.

Despite brief encounters with the weather associated with two storm fronts and hurricane Isabel, the Tour traveled to more than two dozen cities, where spectators spoke with the Tour pilots and were given an upclose look at the airplanes. Along the route, pilots met relatives of the original tour pilots, including: several nieces and a sister of 1929 Tour winner John Livingston; pilots who once flew some of the aircraft on this year's tour; and a man, who as a child, had waved a flashlight at an airmail aircraft passing over his house at night. That aircraft, a Stinson Tri-Motor, was ship number 29 on the 2003 Tour.

NAT aircraft had been scheduled to fly to the Wright Brothers' National Memorial site near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, but the pilots elected to spend an extra 24 hours in the Atlanta region at Falcon Field while they waited for the weather to clear and for the strength and course of the hurricane to be assessed. A temporary flight restriction (TFR) had been issued over the memorial site. On September 20, the TFR was lifted, and pilots and crews eagerly climbed aboard their aircraft to fly around the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

For more information, visit the National Air Tour website at www.nationalairtour.com.

-Gilles Auliard