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Oakland County International Airport Festival of the Air
(Note: Clicking on any image in this travelogue will bring up a full screen version of the image.)Friday, August 9: Boonton to Detroit
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The flight out was pretty simple. An hour-and-a-half hop from Newark International to Detroit Metro. I'd drive to Bill Henderson's in Morristown, leave the car there, and he'd run me the 20 minute drive to the airport, as he usually does. (Thanks, Bill!)
So we thought. Hurricane Debby threw a monkey wrench into that plan, even though its path took it nowhere near either end of that flight. But it did disrupt the entire commercial airline schedule throughout the US, as flights to Florida and the Southeast Seaboard states were all being canceled or re-routed. I got text messages from Delta that my 5:30 departure was being delayed to 6:10, and then to 8:30, and finally, just as I was leaving the house, to 10:12PM. It wasn't so bad at my end, but poor Steve had to pick me up at a quarter to one in the morning in Detroit. I figured out that if I had left my house at the time I had originally scheduled, I could have made the trip by car, and arrived at the same time I actually did.
To add a little spice to the trip, as I was sitting by my gate waiting to board, I began to notice that the boarding process seemed awfully late in getting started, and there weren't a lot of people waiting to board either. I walked up to the gate and saw on the screen that the flight to Detroit was now scheduled to depart at 12:40 AM. WHAT??!! I walked over to the screens showing all departures, and discovered that the 12:40 departure was for a different flight to Detroit, and that my flight had been shifted to another gate halfway down the terminal, and was in the process of boarding when I got to the gate. Thanks for letting me know, Delta. I made the flight, and actually had a rare empty seat next to me.
Steve picked me up, and delivered me to his son FOD's house, where I would be bunking for the weekend. FOD's given name is Nick, but he has inherited the aviation bug from his father, and is as immersed in the culture as his dad. And like all professional aviators, he goes by his handle, rather than his given name. "FOD" is aviation-speak for "Foreign Object Damage", which is what happens when a jet engine sucks up a piece of detritus left on the runway, and spits it out the back, along with various broken compressor blades, turbine bearings, and odd bits of piping that have become dislodged. Steve's handle is "Dogbag", for his habit of tossing his cookies during early aerobatic training. FOD got his pilot's license while still in high school, and at age 22 is an instructor, aerobatic-rated, and working on his multi-engine commercial license.
Saturday, August 10: A Tale of Two Airports
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The airshow was to take place on Sunday. Steve was the "Air Boss". That is, he was in charge of all the goings on that involved actual airplanes, both flying and static display. Which meant he would be busy as a two-peckered goat for the weekend. Most of my hanging out would be with FOD. Which was fine with me. Our task for Saturday would be to ferry two airplanes located at Detroit City Airport to Oakland County International, where the airshow was to take place. Detroit City Airport is not to be confused with Detroit Wayne County International Airport (DTW), the main commercial monster that serves the major airlines. Its official name is Coleman A. Young International Airport, but all the aviation types all call it Detroit City. It used to be the main airfield for the city of Detroit in the 20s and 30s, but the city long ago outgrew it. It now serves as an auxiliary field for general (ie, private and corporate) aviation. It also houses the aircraft collection of the Tuskeegee Airmen Museum, of which Steve is a curator. It's also the field from which I took my first flying lessons back in 2019.
Shuttling Planes
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FOD and I arose around 8-ish, grabbed some breakfast at a nearby restaurant and headed out to meet Steve at Detroit City. We wheeled out two planes from the Tuskegee Airmen's Museum collection. They are light enough to be manipulated by one or two people pulling and pushing. The Motor Glider (Photo 1) is somewhat of an odd bird. It's a Schweitzer SGM2-37 procured by the US Air Force sometime in the 80s. It is a variant of a standard sailplane manufactured by Schweitzer, intended to be used to train pilots to fly gliders. Consequently, it has the long narrow wing and light construction typical of a glider. But rather than requiring another airplane to tow it up to altitude, it is equipped with a motor to take off on its own. Once at altitude, the motor would then be shut down, and the rest of the flight would be unpowered. The performance on glide would not be as good as that of a motorless glider due to the extra weight of the engine and fuel, and extra drag of the stopped propeller But it was more than sufficient to teach pilots the basic principals of soaring. It's a two-seat craft, and it was the one in which I had gotten my instruction 5 years ago with Steve.
The other ship is a BT-13 Consolidated Vultee Valiant basic trainer (Photo 2), also procured by the Air Force, looking rather exotic with its fixed (non-retractable) landing gear and big radial engine. Steve flew the BT-13, and FOD flew the Motor Glider to the Oakland County airport, with me as passenger. The two planes would join several dozen others in a static (non-flying) display at the airshow the following day. While they were prepping the planes I wandered around the hanger, ogling some of the other ships in the Tuskegee Airmen's collection. I drooled particularly heavily over the Stearman PT-17, a classic pre-WWII biplane trainer (Photos 4 - 6). PT-17s are still used today for aerobatic demonstration flying, although usually with engines much more powerful than the standard 200 HP stock. Steve has promised to take me up in the Stearman and turn me upside-down some day.
I took Photos 7, 8, and 9 on the short 20-minute hop from Detroit City to Oakland County. Neither airport handles a lot of traffic, so we were able to take off and land with no delays. It was quite windy that day, and at 2,500 feet of altitude, we were bounced around some. While some folks get nervous or airsick in such conditions, my usual response is, "Wheeeeeeeee!"
We taxied to the static display area, and tied down the aircraft, joining one or two other early arrivals. Steve took care of some airshow business, and then we all piled into his car, went out for a bite of lunch, and drove back to Detroit City Airport. FOD took me back to his place, where I caught up on my email. FOD plays music, and has a number of unusual electric guitars, and one acoustic, which he hadn't played in a long time. I had planned on playing a few songs for him and Steve after the airshow. (Steve's wife Mary was away visiting during the weekend.) I was glad to be able to use FOD's guitar, and not have to schlep mine through the airports. The strings had not been changed in a long time, and he was concerned if the instrument would be acceptable to me. But he installed a new set, and and it proved to be quite acceptable. I was still feeling a bit tired after my long trip the previous day, so I turned in early.
* A quick note about the caption on Photo 8: That line is the first line an old camp song from the 30s that I learned in my model airplane flying days in high school and college which went:
Into the air, junior birdmen.
Into the air upside-down.
Into the air, junior birdmen.
Keep your noses off the ground.
