Around the Field
The Navion from Noah’s
Ark, the ‘former navy pilot,’ and the eBay Taylorcraft
Story and photo by Jack Hodgson
Dewitt Freeman has
been coming to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh "for 25 years at least."
He’s from Louisa, Virginia.
Dewitt is 82, and when
asked, he describes himself as "a former navy pilot. I flew
fighters, F-4F, F-4Bs. I went through the whole gamut."
But when you push past
his natural modesty, you find he’s not just any former navy pilot; he’s
a retired rear admiral.
And that’s where the
EAA connection comes in.
Back in 1970 Dewitt was
an EAA member. He was a great admirer of EAA Founder Paul Poberezny but
had never met him.
"I was assigned as a
carrier division commander," says Dewitt, "and I had four
carriers that I had to take care of. I had to train them." When the
training time came for one of his carriers, the USS Independence, Dewitt
thought Paul might find it interesting.
"I sent Paul a
letter. I knew he was Air Force and National Guard, and I asked him if
he wanted to see how the Navy did this aviation thing. And by golly, he
took me up on it."
Paul flew down and joined
Dewitt aboard the Independence at Norfolk. Dewitt showed Paul the
training activities as the ship moved down the East Coast.
After about three days,
Paul had to return home.
"So I flew him off
the ship in a helicopter. And I proudly flew the helicopter
myself," Dewitt said. "Although I wasn’t an official
helicopter pilot, I knew how to fly the darn thing. So I gave Paul a
ride over to Jacksonville International."
"When we got in
there I told them I had a VIP passenger that needed to get to the
terminal, and I asked them where to land. They said, just land on the
grass by the side door of the terminal. Paul got out with his bags and
disappeared, and I went back to my ship.
"So ever since then
we’ve stayed in contact. He’s a good old friend."
Joe Jung and Brad
Adams are lounging beside Joe’s 1951 Navion in the Classic camping
area.
Joe and Brad are friends
from Kansas City, Missouri, and this is their first year to the fly-in.
Joe bought the plane in 1999. When he got it, it was just the airframe,
and he spent a couple of years to completely rebuild it.
Joe has been flying since
1999. But his buddy Brad is only a student pilot. He plans to finish up
for his checkride when he returns home from Oshkosh.
As we talk, Brad’s
holding an RV-10 brochure in his lap. "I think I’m going to jump
into it, see what we get," he said.
Brad is taking his flight
instruction out of Downtown Kansas City Airport, and Joe flies out of a
little private field called, "Noah’s Ark" in Waldron,
Missouri.
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|
Suzy Kryzanowicz
and the Taylorcraft she bought on eBay. Her shirt says,
"Women who behave, rarely make history." Photo by Jack
Hodgson |
When we meet Suzy
Kryzanowicz she’s sitting beside her Taylorcraft near the south
end of the field. Beside her is Ross Seabrooke, who we met five days
ago, way up on the north end. Small world.
Suzy is from Bay City,
Michigan, and has been coming to the fly-in for 12 years. Out in the
regular world she’s the captain of a corporate Falcon 2000 business
jet.
She flew into AirVenture
this year in her 1946 Taylorcraft via the VFR corridor along the
shoreline of downtown Chicago. You’d think that an experienced biz-jet
pilot would be unfazed by that route, but she says it’s very different
from the flying she normally does.
"IFR and VFR are
totally different," she explained. "You take a lot of things
for granted when you’re filing IFR. They tell you who you’re
supposed to talk to. VFR there’s a lot of flipping through pages to
figure out what’s the approach." She started to sound a little
frantic. "I don’t have my taxi diagram, oh my gosh, where’s the
yaw damper? Why doesn’t a Taylorcraft have a yaw damper?"
Suzy’s Taylorcraft has
an interesting story behind it. One night, about three years ago, she
was feeling a little crazy.
"I really wanted an
airplane, so I got on eBay and I bid on this airplane…and I won it!
When I came to my senses, and I saw that I won an airplane, I was like,
well, I guess I better go take a look at it."
She arranged to go
inspect the plane, and after a little bit of further negotiation, she
ended up owning it.
Now she flies it to
Oshkosh.
You can e-mail Jack at atf2006@aroundthefield.net.
