Mongoose V

The long holding pattern over Lake Winnebago turned into an hour, and still there was no word from OSH tower as to when we would be allowed to land. Guys began to complain about running low on fuel. Mongoose ordered a fuel check. Each of the 12 aircraft reported how much time he had left till “Bingo.”

“Bingo” is the call you make when you are down to enough fuel to fly to your airport and land with 30 minutes left. But in our case, we didn’t know yet whether our airport was the one we could see 10 miles away (Oshkosh) or some other airport a greater distance away. Prudence dictated that our Bingo call be based on another airport.

A discussion developed between a few aircraft on where to go. In the briefing Mongoose had said that Fond du Lac (FLD), 20 miles south was the best alternate. FLD was an over-flow airfield for Oshkosh. 

But now we realized that with OSH being closed, many more aircraft inbound to OSH would divert to FLD. Thus FLD might be saturated. A 12-plane formation showing up there with no notice to the tower could produce a nasty situation. 

Appleton airport and Sheboygan were suggested, and Appleton was settled upon as the Bingo airfield. Mongoose had the seriously hectic job of mitigating this radio discussion, while leading the formation, while monitoring OSH tower with his other radio.

Aircraft were in different fuel states. Some had taken off with less than full tanks. Some planes had more fuel capacity than others. Mongoose identified the guys who were in the most serious trouble and those who had at least 30 minutes before Bingo. Then one guy said, “I’ve got five minutes to Bingo!” Mongoose told him the tower was about to open the airfield again. He called for all of us to switch to OSH tower frequency.

All 12 of us checked in on tower frequency. The tower controller was talking to some vehicles on the ground and some other aircraft. He told Mongoose that we could land in five minutes. Mongoose told the flight leaders to go into echelon and prepare for a 360 degree overhead pattern. The tower controller said, “NO! NO OVERHEADS, PERIOD! WE ARE TOO BUSY FOR THAT!”

Mongoose said, “Okay, but that’s the quickest way we can get these planes on the ground.”

The tower said, “I don’t care how you do it, but no overheads!”

This was highly unusual, as overheads are commonly used for arriving warbirds at AirVenture. Now Mongoose had a serious problem on his hands. There is no efficient and reasonably safe way to spread 12 planes out in a long string so as to land one at a time, and do it in radio silence and without pre-briefing it.

Mongoose began issuing instructions to us as to what he wanted us to do. The tower controller turned even more irate. “RED STAR FLIGHT I NEED THIS FREQUENCY. QUIT TALKING ON IT!”

Mongoose was ‘once a fighter pilot’ (as the saying goes) and these were fightin’ words. I could imagine his face flashing through shades of rubicund. He stepped up his voice. “TOWER, I’VE GOT TO CONFIGURE MY FLIGHT FOR SINGLE SHIP STRAIGHT-IN APPROACHES. THERE ARE NO HAND SIGNALS FOR THAT!’

Tower: “I DON’T CARE HOW YOU DO IT, JUST DON’T BOTHER ME RIGHT NOW! YOU’RE ALL CLEARED TO LAND RUNWAY 27.”

Mongoose wisely backed-down and issued one quick order. "Take spacing for straight-ins." We all knew what he meant, but many details were necessarily left out. We would have to use our own judgement.

Somehow the flight managed to string its self out and turn toward the airport. The second group of six was still in front of us, so I got a good view of Mongoose in front of me and the six in front of him. Since we never briefed this possibility (And why? Who could have anticipated that the tower would not cooperate?) our intervals ranged from a couple hundred feet to a quarter mile. It was a FUBAR affair if I’ve ever seen one.

With our leader in the middle instead of out front where he should be and wanted to be, we must have looked like a ragged bunch coming in at so many different intervals. And, without pre-briefed guidance, guys flew at different airspeeds and began throwing out their gear at all different points along the approach. This of course created even more problems as portions of the line inevitably bunched-up. 

Some started S-Turning to keep their spacing from getting too close. S-Turning is a good way to increase your spacing between you and an airplane in front of you, but it can create a dangerous situation because you tend to get slow, your bank angle increases, and thus so does your stall speed. This is why S-Turns are prohibited on the normal arrival route into AirVenture.  

We had no choice but to do it, and the tower didn’t care—he probably was too busy with whatever else was demanding his attention. (Runways 35 left and right were still closed due to the accident.)

I put my gear down and checked for three green and pressure. I looked ahead and checked Mongoose’s gear. It was down. Then I looked at the guy in front of him, who was nearing the runway.

His was up.

Recall from the previous post, this was the guy who got too far out, lost sight and broke out. We thought he had crashed into the water. I was about to press my mic button to warn him when I heard Mongoose warn him.

When a guy is about to land gear up, you don’t take that extra second or two to remember his call sign, you just yell the first warning that comes to your mind, and you yell it loud. “CHECK GEAR! CHECK GEAR! CHECK GEAR!” Mongoose yelled. Of course everybody in the flight instinctively checked their gear, including the guy who needed to hear it. It was then that I saw him commit his third mistake of the day. Instead of powering up and going around—as he should have—he put his gear down very close to the runway, from my perspective, and landed.

We all got down safely and taxied back to our spots. I shut down and looked over at Mongoose. He looked back and shook his head like a resigned tutor over a hopeless pupil.

Back at the warbird tent the debriefing was heated and long. Accusations flew. Fingers pointed. A guy sitting behind me told me, “Why did you throw your gear out so soon? I almost ran up your ass!”

I turned to him. “To keep from running up the ass of the guy in front of me!”

Mongoose told everybody to calm down. He pointed at the guy who almost landed gear-up and grinned. “Dude, you owe me big!”

Embarrassed, the guy tried to smile. “You’re right, Rich. I’ll buy you beer the rest of your life.”

Then Mongoose turned somber and reviewed the proper break-out procedure when you lose sight. That was Mongoose’s way. He always criticized with constructive instruction. He never condemned or scolded.

Finally, the debriefing cooled down and ended. I rejoined my friends from my old pilot training class, who were standing at the door of the tent and listening. I spent the rest of the day with them walking around the grounds, looking at planes and watching the airshows. We did a lot of ruminating about old times. We would stop at a plane, tell an old story, laugh and go on.

Despite the botched formation I enjoyed myself that day as much as any in my life. And it was only Day 1 at Oshkosh.

 

Taxi out and run-up

Mongoose IV

I realize that writing a story in installments, as I’m doing, loses readers when I wait so long between posts. Apologies and promises to be more prompt. Here’s the continuation of Mongoose.

Twelve pilots took their seats for the briefing. Most of them had back-seat riders sitting in. Backseaters are not allowed in official airshow events, but since the show did not formally begin until 1pm we were allowed to take them. Mongoose would lead the flight on the annual veteran’s hospital memorial fly-over. He broke the group into two flights of six aircraft. He would lead at the point of the first six. I was number two on his wing. Alabama Girl’s owner, Mike, would go in my back seat. My friend Dave from Tucson would ride with Mongoose. The briefing lasted half an hour and then we went to mount up.

As I was strapping in, something happened that was damned near a déjà vu experience for me. A golf cart bearing a couple of AirVenture workers stopped and they yelled up to me. “Stand down. The airport is closed. We’ve had a crash.” I looked around and saw the other pilots dismounting.

I immediately remembered that day years ago at an airshow near Birmingham. We were mounting up for the opening fly-over—eight ships, with Mongoose leading. I was about to put on my helmet when I happened to look to my right just in time to see a departing Bonanza roll abruptly left and nose into the ground. I yelled to Mongoose who was mounting up that I had just seen a crash. We all dismounted and took our van to the air boss’ stage. He verified what I saw.

The Bonanza was one of several planes that had been flying passengers on short hops all morning. The passengers paid a small fee that went to a charity. The Bonanza pilot was trying to get in one last flight before the airshow started. Later, we learned he ran out of fuel. He kept his nose too high, his airspeed bled quickly and he stalled. He and his passengers—a dad and a youngster—were killed. The wife and mother saw it all.

The vision of the Bonanza going down has joined a sinister repertoire in my memories that replay from time to time, and I suppose I will never be rid of them. I was glad I didn’t see the crash at Oshkosh. A “Breezy” had crashed on runway 36R. Later we would learn it was fatal for its pilot, who inexplicably lost control while landing. This seems to be a common scenario at AirVenture. Pilots get so distracted by the world showcase airshow and all its glitter and busyness and forget to control their airspeed.

If you’ve seen a Breezy you know that there is no protection

Breezy

for the pilot in an impact because there is no cockpit. I once flew one. I was sitting far out on the front end of a long boom with only a few instruments clustered in front of me. The engine is a “pusher” mounted aft of the tandem seats. Even though I was strapped in, I was so scared to bank the plane I tended to skid it around turns with rudder. That very plane crashed a couple of years later killing its owner.

An hour later Oshkosh’s east-west parallel runways opened. 36R remained closed for the accident investigation. We mounted up. Taxiing out, we took the 12 Yaks and Nanchangs down “fighter row” with jets of many ages and makes parked just a few feet on either side of our wingtips. I thought a brake failure here would do some expensive damage to those parked jets. I watched my air pressure very closely.

We took off into a gloriously blue sky, joined up and headed northwest to the VA hospital complex. We made two passes over it with smoke. In the briefing we were told to look good because the fly-overs would be telecast throughout the hospital. After the fly-overs there would be no time for further play because the delay was pushing us against airshow time. Mongoose headed for home plate. Ten miles out we switched to tower frequency and got more bad news. Oshkosh airport was once again closed.

The tower was not clear in telling us why. Whether it had to do with the previous accident or a new one, we didn’t know, but I suspected something new had happened. Mongoose took us overhead the field and out over Lake Winnebago to wait out the closure.

The wait was too long. We burned deeply into our fuel circling the lake. Guys got tired and butt-sore. We were all in loose formation to minimize the fatigue. Mongoose called the tower about every ten minutes to get an update. Each time the tower told us he had no information. Each time the conversation between Mongoose and the tower got testier. It was clear that the frustration in both our leader and the tower was building.

After a few circuits my flight—the one Mongoose was leading—lapped the flight behind us and settled in behind them. Most of us had spread out a few hundred feet, but one guy in the flight out front was out about a quarter mile. This irked me because I had to constantly keep turning my head away from my leader in order to keep the roamer in sight. A guy who strayed that far out is liable to do anything—he bears watching.

As time and our fuel burned on I became more peeved at that guy and even at his flight leader for not ordering him back in. I tried to remember who he was. He might be that new guy who showed up. He was relatively young, and the questions he asked in the briefing revealed his newness to formation operations. Suddenly Mike yelled, from the back seat, “WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING?”

I looked back toward the guy. His plane was in a steep bank away from the formation diving toward the water. I saw him get smaller and smaller, then disappear. Someone else in the formation told the front six leader that his number six had gone down.

A few long seconds later number Six came up on the radio, flustered. He had lost sight of the flight and broken out. We all knew he lost sight because he was too damned far out. Furthermore his breakout procedures were non-standard and dangerous. His flight lead coached him back in and told him to stay closer.

I took in a deep breath, shifted uncomfortably in my seat and told Mike, “I think we are in for a very interesting and hot de-briefing.”

But before our wheels touched terra firma—wherever that might be—more fit would hit the proverbial shan. Stay tuned.

Me in front and Mike in back of Alabama Girl, smoking up the Wisconsin skyscape.

Photo taken by Dave in Mongoose's back seat over the VA hospital.

 

Mongoose III

Mongoose and I breakfasted at the college cafeteria, which was full of pilots and airshow attendees, then caught the shuttle to the field. I had an hour to kill before the briefing so I called some old buddies who I knew were floating around somewhere. Five guys from my pilot training class at Vance AFB (Class 73-06) were among the growing crowd of tens of thousands of people.

If you are familiar with the terminology, you know when I

graduated from flight training: 1973. The “73” in 73-06 was the year of graduation and the “06” was the sixth class to be graduated that year. The only time I felt old is when I flew on airline trips with guys whose class numbers were something like 06-06.

Mongoose scurried off to the briefing tent, since he was the honcho that day, and soon I was joined up with the old buds.

 

Pete, a retired career USAF officer with many years flying C-130s and C-141s, now ran an aviation technology school. He was the groomsman at my wedding. Then there was Mike. He did one tour as a tanker driver and went to Northwest Airlines, then retired as a Delta 747 captain. He was a loquacious extrovert, a soloist in his church choir and the kind of guy who could be happy anywhere, anytime. Later that night at Kelly's Bar, Mike, reacting to some crazy story being told, suddenly sprang up from the table and burst into song and dance, drawing applause from across the whole establishment.  

Another friend, John, flew C-130s and served 25 years active and reserve. He was retired from the FAA where he was assigned to oversee United Airlines—my airline. I remember once he came aboard the DC-10 I was flying as a first officer to give a no-notice check ride. He took one look at me, waved his hand and said, “Oh hell! I’m scared to get on this plane. I’m gone!” And he did—he recused himself. While in training John and I flew our T-37s cross country trip together. As soon as we parked our jets our instructors jumped out and hurried away to the club leaving us to secure the planes. As we walked away I elbowed John and pointed at his jet. "Your flaps are still down, bozo!" He looked at my Tweet, snickered and pointed. "Your speed brake is still down, idiot!"

Another welcome sight was Chip who had just retired from United as a 777 captain. Chip served one tour on active duty flying C-141s. Low-keyed and subtle-humored, Chip was the best instrument pilot in the class. After retiring he was content never to touch the controls of a plane again, but he loved just to be around them. 

The last guy was Ahmad, from Iran. In 1972 the U.S. and Iran were allies. Their king (they called him the Shah) sent his young men to the U.S. for pilot training, and so that’s how Ahmad came to be among us. We lost track of him after he left Vance. He was a Phantom pilot in the Iranian Air Force and we knew he would have been heavily involved in the 7-year Iran-Iraq war. None of us in 73-06 ever expected Ahmad to survive that. But he did. About 2005 he converted to Christianity and was threatened by the local mullahs. He came to the U.S. and got in touch with us. We helped him hire an attorney to file for status as a religious refugee. The U.S. government denied him refugee status but allowed him a green card after years of hellish red tape and incompetent bureaucratic bungling. He found a job and settled. Seeing Ahmad at Oshkosh with the other old friends was a special treat.

There was another friend there as well, apart from the 73-06 guys—Dave from Tucson. Dave is the guy who helped me get my RV-6. If you followed Decision Height, you might remember him from the Seven Sierra Whiskey series of posts. Dave met up with the rest of us and I was delighted to introduce him to the 73-06 gang and later to Mongoose. They all wanted to see Alabama Girl and so as we were all walking to the warbird corral I thought this day was one of the greatest in my life. So many memories and good times I had known with these guys, blended with the awesome place we were in, just damn near overwhelmed me. I was only two weeks into retirement, and I was enjoying one of the greatest times I had ever known. My cup was running over.

As we walked Dave told me he was planning a flight to Alaska in just two weeks in his Cessna 182. Was I interested in going along? I immediately used a question on him I had heard him say many times: “Does the sun rise in the east?” He grinned and we agreed to discuss the details after Oshkosh. As we approached the long rows of Yaks and CJs I thought, On top of all this, now I’m going to Alaska, low and slow—just what I had always dreamed of. What an incredible day this was becoming. And the flying had not even started yet!.

After I showed Alabama Girl to the gang we headed to the briefing tent where Mongoose was busily preparing to lead the 12-ship veterans memorial formation fly-over, scheduled to launch at 1000.

Replete with high-pressure adrenaline bursts, and a judicious ration of nerve-wracking, it was to be a flight I'll never forget.

Mongoose makes a point with Dave, who carries a big bomb around on his back.

Mongoose gets Dave squared away in the back cockpit for the Veterans Memorial Fly-over

John tries on Alabama Girl for size

No T-37 we ever flew looked that good

Mike tries on Alabama Girl

Ahmad takes five. Or ten.

 

   

Pete preferred wing-walking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mongoose, Part II

You’ll recall from the first post on Mongoose that we had a dicey time getting our 2-ship of Chinese Communist war birds into Oshkosh because of the thunderstorm. I was flying a CJ-6 owned by Mike, a student pilot who split and went his own way after we landed.

Mongoose and I took the shuttle to the college and got our bare-bones dorm room. We changed and hurried to Kelly’s Bar on the edge of the campus. During airshow week Kelly’s becomes a pilot magnet, expanding into the parking lot with tables and an outdoor bar. The only separation between the outdoor bar/dining area and the street was a fence made of that orange plastic lattice-work that you can get at Home Depot. And there, at the outdoor bar, Mongoose and I planted ourselves, sipping beers and waiting for our dinner.

It was our first opportunity to get caught up. Mongoose was a Triple-7 captain at Delta. I had just retired, not two weeks before, from United. This trip to AirVenture was my retirement “break-out” trip. My original plan was to fly my RV-6 in and camp, but when Mike asked me to pilot his beautiful “Alabama Girl,” to Oshkosh, I jumped at it. In fact, Alabama Girl was formerly owned by the Mongoose himself. What a wild story: Mongoose had bought a brand new new CJ-6 (not Alabama Girl) that suffered a catastrophic engine failure just before takeoff. He had the wings taken off and hired a truck to take to the repair shop at another airport. On the way the truck ran off the road causing severe damage to the plane.

The plane was to be repaired by non-other than Mongoose’s very own aircraft repair facility. This was an enterprise he owned on the side of his regular job as an airline pilot. But his shop was busy with big jobs repairing and refurbishing L-39 jets. The restoration of the CJ-6 would have to be done as time allowed. Mongoose couldn’t wait it out. He bought another CJ to fly while waiting for his first one to be repaired. 

When finally the first plane was ready he sold the interim plane to Mike, and thus that is how Mike ended up with it. Mike renamed it Alabama Girl, painted a busty Daisy Duke on the nose, and asked Mongoose for a recommendation on someone to fly it to Oshkosh for him. That’s how I came into the story.

Mongoose and I sipped our beers and got out our phones. We brandished pictures of our grand kids; each had just had our first one. “Your’s is cute, but mine’s cutter!” We were two guys getting older and laughing about it.

Then, inevitably, we reminisced about the old days flying the Star Lizard in the Magnolia Militia. For about the 50^th time I heard

Our favorite outlawed patch

the story about how he “saved my life.” I was flying a C-141 somewhere up on the east coast. He was in the co-pilot’s seat. Without any warning at all from ATC, a Cessna suddenly appeared in our windshield. The monster jet was on auto-pilot and I was heads-down. He grabbed the controls, clicked off the auto-pilot and hauled the nose up. The Cessna flashed underneath us. Indeed his sharp eye saved a possible collision. I let him reiterate his tale, and then reminded him how I, in turn, saved him. It was a far different story.    

I lost track of Mongoose when I retired from the Guard, but a few years later I went to the cockpit of a Delta MD-80 to ask the captain for the jump seat and, low and behold, there he was. We slapped shoulders and got re-acquainted. We swapped phone numbers promising to stay in touch.

A loquacious Manhattan Yankee who had taken up residence in the Deep South, Mongoose had spent years trying with limited success to fit in with us good ole boys. At times he flew off the handle when he was simply unable to absorb our subtle ways with humor and our often not-so-subtle unrefined revelry. But his attempts to adapt were for the most part acceptable to us and his unabashed honesty captured me into his friendship.

A year after the meeting in the MD-80 he called me. He had just retired from the Guard. Now he had a bunch of time on his hands. He didn’t like golf and fishing was too slow for him. He didn’t know what to do with himself. “What about those 'little airplanes' you fly?" he asked. “Maybe that’s something I can get interested in.”

The following Saturday he came to my airport to see my Yak-52. I put him in the front cockpit. He proceeded to tear the sky up.

In addition to C-141s, he had instructed in T-38s and had flown A-10s. The fighter-like performance of the Yak thrilled him and he flew the plane as if he were born in it. Later that day we joined up with two other Yaks and a CJ-6 and for the first time in decades he flew close formation. All day long this went on until I was green-in-the-gills sick. If he had been on the insurance papers I would gladly have gotten out and let him go with it. At the end of the day Mongoose partied with the gang and became as ensnared as a bass on a treble hook. He knew now what he would do with his life.

Within two weeks he had a Yak of his own. He later sold it to buy the new CJ-6. Then he got involved with jets, checking out in L-39s. Soon he bought a failing L-39 refurbishing facility and turned its business around. He flew L-39s to South America and Europe, delivering them to customers. He checked out in other civilianized jets as well. In his reflective moods—which was usually his second or  third scotch—he would tell me he owed it all to me for introducing him to his new world, and I would tell him it made us even for the Cessna that almost flew through our windshield that day.

And so after all we had been through together, near-misses, bad weather, missiles shot at us, engines quitting—you name it—Mongoose and I were lucky to be there at Kelly’s Bar, enjoying the old stories, when our mortality suddenly appeared in our faces like a menacing drill sergeant.

We heard an eerie, increasingly loud rush that sounded like locked tires sliding on the wet pavement. We looked up at the bartender. She had whirled around toward the sound. It got louder. WOOOOSH! BAM CRUNCH!  Air bags exploding.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. Things were tumbling. Big things. Pieces were flying. Mongoose and I flinched and jumped backward from our stools. People at the tables nearby dove out of their chairs. I saw a vehicle roll over and over, slinging pieces off, coming right at Kelly’s Bar.  

The car came to rest inches from the thin nylon netting. In a flash Mongoose was gone. I looked back at the car and saw him sprint to it and begin helping the occupants. Shortly a dozen others came alongside him and three teenage girls were soon free from the wreckage, standing crying. The second car was still upright in the middle of the intersection. Incredibly, no one was hurt.

Mongoose came back around the corner, spied his beer and grabbed it. We sat back down. I looked at him and said, “Now, what were you saying about that time we nearly got killed?” Shaking like quaking aspens, we burst out into laughter as police cars and EMTs pulled up only feet in front of us, strobes flashing.  

After dinner we headed back to the dorm room chuckling about yet another near miss, anticipating with relish the events of tomorrow. We would fly in Oshkosh—the world’s greatest airshow. I was to sleep little, due to his abominable snoring and thinking about the events of the day and those of the coming day, which would bring on yet another story that we would tell again and again.

AirVenture 2014—my retirement break-out trip—was to live up to its expectations as a fantastic milestone to start a new chapter in my life. 

Following Mongoose Part I

Note to readers:

The next several posts originally appeared in a new blog I started shortly after I retired from United, and after I ended posting to Decision Height. That blog was titled "Three Mike Five." I am going to put that one to rest and migrate its posts into Decision Height. Forgive me if you read them on the other blog, but maybe they're worth a re-read. To fully understand an upcoming post I have planned about my accident flight, you will need to be familiar with this series about "Alabama Girl."

Mike and I rode Alabama Girl north in the general direction of Oshkosh, suffering a slight quartering headwind and churning through skies as clear as a glass of sunshine. We were bound for Bloomington, Indiana to meet up with another CJ-6 owned and flown by a friend of ours whose call-sign was "Mongoose."  

Rich "Mongoose" Hess

Mongoose is a “lead or get the hell out of the way” type of guy who mostly doesn’t wait for you to get out of the way. His ego cuts a swath so wide the moon holds to let him by. His persistence sometimes casts him into caustic skirmishes with similar swaggering characters, of which there were many where we were going. Having known him for 25 years, served with him in wartime, sparred with him in dogfights, and listened for hours on end to his ideas, his aspirations and his dreams, I know enough to stay aside and watch with amusement as he dictates his resolve on old friends and unsuspecting strangers alike. There are those who call him a prima donna, but Mongoose consistently cashes the checks his ego writes. Prima donnas can’t do that. And that is why I have remained his friend for so long.

 
I was headed for my first solo landing in the ‘Chang. You will recall from the last post that, while Mike—the guy in my back pit—owned the bird, he was not yet a pilot. The

Me agonizing over retirement

Bloomington tower cleared us for a straight-in to runway 35, a nice long one. About two miles out, just as I was about to reach for the gear handle, I heard an airport truck tell the tower he was on the runway to pick up a piece of debris. The tower controller immediately cancelled my landing clearance and in the same breath asked if I could accept runway 24, which was almost perpendicular to 35 and lay on my side of the airport—very close to my position. Additionally, it was short, about 3500 feet.
 
A careful pilot, or one whose bladder was not full, would have told the tower “unable” and executed a missed approach. I was neither that day. I accepted the clearance to 24 and immediately turned onto a left downwind. By then we were very close (laterally) to the runway and I began canvassing my memory on the accidents I had read about. CJ-6s were notoriously unforgiving of pilots over-shooting final approach and correcting with excessive bank and top rudder. I sensed a learning opportunity for Mike and began telling him about the trap being set for us and how we must be diligent to avoid it. This lecture lasted to the base turn where I suddenly realized the gear was still up. Damn! One “teachable moment” (don’t you hate that phrase?) created another. I put the gear down, looked over the landing checklist and monitored the close-in final turn carefully. A head wind helped avoid an overshoot.
 
We got down safely and the tower man thanked us profusely. I taxied to the pumps and shut down. We had plenty of gas, but a top-off wouldn’t hurt, especially knowing where we were headed—the world’s busiest airport for one week of the year, and this was that week. After lunch I completed flight planning for the run up to Oshkosh, preparing to lead the flight of two, if necessary, or go single-ship if the Mongoose didn’t show up.   

An hour later he landed, annoyed that we had beaten him there, yet smugly satisfied that he had executed the role of respected, debonair late-comer. Even before jumping down from his wing he informed me of his plan to lead the flight into OSH. It was okay with me. He would now do the most work; I would be the humble happy wingman. Mongoose’s plan was to stay low both to minimize headwinds and stay out of the way of O’Hare arrival and departure traffic. We took off and headed northwest. He checked us in with ATC for flight following with the usual call: “Red Star Flight, Check.”

 
I responded as required: “Red Star Two.”
 
The controller, apparently unaccustomed to formation protocol, blocked my response, thinking Mongoose’s call was for him: “Aircraft calling Indianapolis Approach, say again.”
 
Because Mongoose is an astute—damn near perfect—formation leader, he made the check-in call again to insure I was on the frequency. Again the controller blocked me, asking who was calling him and for what.
 
Mongoose said, “Indianapolis, standby-by I’m trying to check my flight in.”
 
The controller was obviously agitated: “Aircraft on Indianapolis frequency go to another. You are interfering.”
 
I could see the ire turning Mongoose’s helmet red. His voice volume went up:  “Indianapolis, I am trying to check my flight in on your frequency and then I will ask you for radar service!”
 
The controller, still not getting it, retorted, “Okay, but if you need to tell your wingman to keep quiet.”
 
I knew a lecture was coming from Mongoose: “Having the flight check-in is perfectly normal and necessary, now are you going to give us flight following to Oshkosh or not?”
 
The controller, not about to relinquish the high ground, denied the request. Mongoose switched us to air-to-air frequency and we didn’t talk to another radar facility from that point.
 
The countryside across Illinois and southern Wisconsin was

Flying loose on Mongoose's wing with Mike and I in the mirror

uncommonly beautiful in the lowering sun. Barns, silos and wind turbines cast long shadows across brilliantly colorful fields of corn and wheat. It was wonderful flying. You could get about as low as you dared; the only threats were birds and towers. Mongoose had state-of-the-art electronics in his cockpit to alert him for obstacles, and he was an awesome master at spotting both birds and nearby aircraft. He could do it even when he was on the wing.
 
As we neared OSH, tired but happily anticipating parking our birds in the warbird area, meeting old buddies and have a grand dinner, we saw an ominous cloud formation in front. Mongoose, being the perfectionist he is, already knew there was a rain shower in the area of the airport—in fact the only thundercloud in the whole lower 48 states that afternoon sat over the busiest airport. Our perfect weather run-up from the Deep South was to terminate with—with what?
 
Fon du Lac had just passed under our bellies. It was stuffed with airplanes that had either not wanted to challenge that thunderstorm, or simply planned to land there and take a bus to the big show, as many pilots preferred. That opportunity was behind us now, but still choosable, and maybe preferable to the cloud ahead. The closer we got the darker that thing got. It was right over OSH. Mongoose had IFR capability in his plane but Alabama Girl did not. He waggled his wings—the signal for me to close it up tightly. I moved in. Mongoose contacted the OSH tower and got permission to land on 36L. We couldn’t see it for the rain shaft. The turbulence increased, but I held tight. Mongoose bore straight for the monster. Then I saw his head nod and his gear doors open. I threw our rollers out. Runway 36L came swimming out of the drizzle and mist. The center-line stripes raced at us. BAM! I drove Mike’s Chang onto the runway, checked-up with brakes and fell in behind behind Mongoose.
 
It was then, with the stress off, that I suddenly realized there were no other aircraft on the OSH tower frequency. We were the only ones! I laughed. Mike said, "No other idiots would attempt this!"
 
We fell in trail behind the “Follow-Me” truck and were met by marshallers parking us on the grass in the warbird corral. We hopped out and closed our canopies because of rain. Mongoose walked up, drenched, grinning like a fool and slapped our shoulders.
 
“Cheated death again,” Mike shouted.

Mike grabbed his camping gear and separated in search of friends. Mongoose and I headed into town on the airshow shuttle bus for rooms at the college and then on to Kelly’s Bar, the airshow pilot hangout, not knowing that we were about to “cheat death” for real—at Kelly’s.

On Mongoose's wing headed for sport aviation mecca.