Special to Men's Traveler
The engine jumps to life as I climb into the cockpit, all 600 horses raring to go. The wind from the propeller blows into my face.
As they go through the pre-flight cockpit check with me, I’m trying like crazy to remember all the information they’re giving me - especially the part about bailing out – but I’m not succeeding. They hook me up to four or five heavy harnesses, and show me where the ripcord is on my parachute.
I’m sitting in a sixty-four-year-old fighter plane from World War II, with cockpit instruments that look like they’re out of a Humphrey Bogart movie. And I’m going to fly her…after Dennis Van Swol, the real pilot who’s sitting behind me, gets her into the air. My total previous flight time at the controls of an aircraft: zero.
The yellow aircraft in which I’m sitting is an AT-6, nicknamed “The Texan,” for the Fort Worth plant in which North American Aviation produced thousands of planes for the war effort. This one rolled off the assembly line in January, 1945, about seven months before the end of the war. These planes were used primarily as trainers, because there was room for an instructor and a recruit.
The aircraft earned the nickname of “The Pilot Maker” – because thousands of pilots trained in them before they were shipped overseas. But The Texan also saw some combat in Europe and the Pacific, as well. A few years later they were called into duty again; during the Korean War, AT-6s flew 40,000 missions. My particular plane ended up in the Italian Air Force in the fifties, and then in the Spanish Air Force after that.
It eventually ended up in the hands of North American Top Gun, a St. Augustine, FL outfit that has lovingly restored it – and several others – to mint condition. Its combat days long since past, these days it takes would-be “aces” such as me into a wild-blue-yonder time machine, complete with aerobatics and combat maneuvers (and, if you’ve got a good imagination, German Messerschmitts or Japanese Zeros). And while I’m doing these maneuvers I’ll be filmed – every blink – by a camera that’s staring me right in the face, recording me for the video that I will take home.
As we turn onto the runway, Dennis – a former college professor who gave it up because he loved flying old planes - is making a last-minute check.
“Mixture is rich,” my headphones cackle. “Fuel-air ratio is good. Flaps are set. Pressure looks good...Here we go.”
“The Texan departing on 8 right,” he says to other air traffic on his radio.
As we gather speed, he says through my headphones that he can’t see the runway when we take off or land, because the nose is so high in these old planes. In effect, he takes off and lands “blind,” by touch.
In a moment the ground is falling away, and the big yellow nose with the whirling propeller is pushing up into a sea of blue.
“Pull up the landing gear,” Dennis says, and I dutifully pull the gear back and to the outside, as I had been instructed in my pre-flight briefing.
As we begin dipping and sliding toward the right and then the left, the view becomes incredible.
We head up toward puffy white clouds, and the ride turns bumpy.
“Now I’m going to show you a few basic maneuvers,” Dennis says. With that he goes into a steep climb, and then a dive, and I begin to feel my stomach struggling to keep pace with the rest of me.
Then he turns the craft sideways – 180 degrees – and I’m suddenly in a very weird world. When I look to my left, all I see is the ground. And when I look to my right, all I see is sky.
“Whoa,” I find myself saying with each bump and dip, as a queasy feeling washes over me with each trick. It’s hard to imagine how the pilots did it in combat – with people shooting at them.
Our headphones start to cackle with communications from all sorts of aircraft; North Palm Beach County Airport has no tower, Dennis says, so it’s up to the pilots to stay in touch with each other.
He pushes the plane up steeply to get above the rough air. Then we’re above the clouds, and suddenly it’s smooth.
“Now we’re ready,” he says. “Let’s do a roll.” A roll, he says, is sort of like a sideways somersault.
Suddenly the world goes wacky. Sky becomes land and land becomes sky, and clouds flash by as if on rollerblades. My head is below my body, and my hands are holding onto the canopy…from below it. We’re completely upside-down. Then everything goes crazy again, as we roll over to right ourselves.
Dennis gives me a minute to catch my breath. And now it’s my turn. He gives me a quick run-through on the instruments, the pedals, and the stick.
I hit the right pedal on the floor, forcing the nose down to gather up more speed. The ground swarms up toward me. Then I abruptly bring her into a climb. Listening to Dennis’ calm instructions, I grab the stick and pull it towards the right. And there we go…hurtling over the side at nearly two hundred miles an hour. Again my head is suddenly under the rest of my body, with clouds flying by below me.
“Hold her steady,” he says over the headphones, as I struggle a bit to keep both my equilibrium and my breakfast. Suddenly we’re rightside-up again. I let go of the stick.
Dennis asks how I’m feeling. I’m doing fine, I reply, although I think my stomach is about a thousand yards behind us.
“Congratulations,” he says. “Good roll. Ready to do a loop now?” A loop, it turns out, is a backward somersault.
I turn the nose down to pick up some speed. Then, at Dennis’ instructions, I turn it back up and climb straight up. This, by far, is the beginning of the most thrilling moment of the entire flight. A steep climb is murder on the body, and even more murderous on your mind. Normally, in an airplane, your fixed points are the land below you and the sky above and around you. Even though you’re up in the air, there’s a natural order of things, some physiological steering points. But when you’re in a steep climb, suddenly the land is gone, and you’re totally disoriented. Instead of a balance between land and sky, you’re heading straight up into an overwhelmingly-blue vacuum, with no horizon, no beginning, and no end.
“Now,” Dennis says, “pull the stick toward you.” And as he says it I have the feeling that I’m in for the ride of my life.
I pull the stick toward me. Suddenly I feel as if I’m blasting off. The ground totally disappears as we climb and then begin to flip over backwards. I feel my body pinned back against my seat, and my head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds (actually, in flight talk, I’m experiencing pressure of three “G’s). I’m totally disoriented; I’ve lost any “compass point” in the sky or the land. My stomach feels like it’s going to explode, and I literally cannot hold my head up. I’m having trouble keeping my eyelids open because of the pressure, and also because I have no idea what’s up and what’s down, what’s in front of me and what’s behind. Upside-down images of blue and green and white are whooshing past me. I have no idea what I should be doing with the controls.
At that moment, it’s almost a test; you find yourself fighting for control…of the aircraft as well as yourself.
“What do I do?” I ask Dennis.
“Hold her steady,” he says, “keep the stick where it is.” I fight to keep her steady, not even sure if I’m correctly understanding his instructions.
Finally, I see the ground floating up toward my face as we begin to level off.
“Want to try it again?” he asks.
“Sure,” I lie.
Again I point the nose down into a dive to get up some speed, and then pull back on the stick as I struggle to keep my eyes open from the pressure. Again we shoot up into a blue vacuum. Again we start rolling backwards and over our heads. And again I am upside-down, with colors and textures whooshing past me. It almost seems like too much for the human brain to handle at once.
But when the land rolls back into view below us as we complete our circle, the feeling is one of incredible exhilaration (especially after your stomach catches back up with you).
As our radio cackles with transmissions from other aircraft in the area, Dennis says that it’s time to begin our descent.
We go into a sideways roll – 180 degrees – and, as we pass through a cloud bank, we see a rainbow. I turn the controls back over to Dennis.
We’re descending rapidly, Dennis says, and then checks to make sure I can pop my ears, so the pressure in them doesn’t build up.
“North County Texan on its approach,” he tells nearby traffic.
As we get over the runway, Dennis says that he’s “landing by Braille”; again, because planes in those days were constructed with the nose way up, he can’t see the runway. We’ll just sit back and wait for the bump, he says.
We hit the runway. And as we slow down, passing original Beechcrafts (with wooden propellers) and Gulfstreams and Pipers, I think of the pilot, fifty-seven years ago, who sat in the seat where I’m sitting now.
If - just once - you want to immerse yourself in a legend, sign on for a “tour” in this living piece of history. There aren’t many times in life where you can feel the blood rushing downward to your head.
If you’re looking for a pure adrenaline rush, you can’t do better.
WANNA DO IT?
North American Top Gun has several A-6’s that have been lovingly restored, and that travel around the country, stopping at local airfields for a week or two.
They have a variety of programs from which you can choose, ranging from fifteen minutes to an hour. In addition, you can also take a short course in flying these craft. You can take flights on which you’ll concentrate on aerial acrobatics, or you can opt for actual aerial combat with another fighter. Options include sitting in the front cockpit and also a take-home video.
NATG’s “Texans” are wonderfully-maintained, and as shiny as if they just rolled off the assembly line in Fort Worth. Their pilots are well-trained and are very good (and calm) instructors.
Contact North American Top Gun at (386) 325-1682, (888) 5-FLY-WW-2, (800) 257-1636; or at www.natg.com.
And then get ready to “roll.”
About Steve Winston
Steve Winston has written or contributed to thirteen books, and has written hundreds of articles for major media all over the world. In pursuit of “The Story,” he’s been shot at in Northern Ireland, been a cowboy in Arizona, jumped into an alligator pit in the Everglades, flown World War II fighter planes, climbed 15,000-foot mountains in North America and Europe, and trekked on glaciers in Alaska. Steve Winston can be reached at steve@winstoncommunications.com
Please visit his Web site at: Winston Communications
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