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 50th time I heard
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.
 |
| Our favorite outlawed patch |
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.
