Warbirds roadshow: The Planes of Fame Midwest WWII Fighter Tour - the start of a great adventure

Air Classics, Jun 2003 by O'Leary, Michael

The pilots had worked out a route for the flight with the first fuel stop being at Avra Valley, Arizona, another refueling at El Paso, and an overnight at Breckenridge, Texas, to see Nelson Ezell and the gang. The next morning it would be on to Lafayette, Louisiana, with final destination Middlesboro, Kentucky. At Middlesboro, Steve wanted to do some more test flying on the magnificent P-38 restoration Glacier Girl. "I had gotten a bit less than one hour on the aircraft in my two test flights," said Steve "before one of the Allisons started making metal. Bob Cardin and his crew had corrected the problem and I have to fly four more hours to satisfy the Feds." Needless to say, I was really looking forward to seeing Glacier Girl along with the prospect of photographing two Lightnings together. However, it was not to be.

DAY ONE

I arrived early at Chino courtesy of George Hulett who flew us from Van Nuys in his Cessna 210. At this point, Steve was still finishing work on the P-38 while Ray was doing flight planning and Kevin was finishing some last minute work on the Corsair.

After everyone was strapped in and engines started, a thorough run-up produced three thumbs up and we were blasting down the Chino runway. The fighters did a couple of orbits over nearby Lake Matthews so museum photographer Frank Mormillo could get some shots of the formation from the Texan being flown by Mark Foster.

Then, it was time to head east. For this leg, Steve was flying the P-38, Kevin the Corsair, and Ray the P-38. The forecast for weather ahead was not favorable and we climbed to 11,500-ft over the Banning Pass and Palm Springs and it soon became cold - very cold, a feature that was to remain constant throughout the trip.

After traversing miles upon miles of faceless desert, we started to let down to Avra Valley. Joining up in a tight formation, the three fighters roared over the field and broke for landing. There was a welcoming committee gathered around Gary Abrams' beautifully restored Douglas Invader which is based at the field. Once we had the engines shut down, we got to meet Gary and his father, a WWII B-25 and C-46 pilot. "Always wanted to fly the Lightning," he said and in a few minutes Steve had him stuffed into the cramped position behind the pilot's seat and off they went for an airborne tour of the area.

Bill Muszala, one of the original "Chino Kids," now runs ATW Aviation Inc. at the field where he does Warbird maintenance and restoration while also specializing in Sukhoi and Yakovlev acrobatic aircraft. It was good to see Bill and he gave us a tour of his shop and his latest project - a ground-up restoration of an ultra-rare Curtiss O-52 Owl. Once the P-38 was back on the ground, all three fighters were refueled (by Tucson Aeroservice Center which takes very good care of visiting Warbirds) for the next leg of the trip. However, looking east, the sky had gone black and it was obvious we would be staying in Avra Valley for the night. "We only want to fly these aircraft VFR," said Dieckman.