Dallas

I was going to write up about our flight in the C-47 down to Dallas, that I got to fly a DC-3/C-47 for about 45 minutes, which is cool. That I got to meet the last member of the Gunfighter group and his wife, and they’re very nice people, and one of the wives gave me a Gunfighter t-shirt.  Then my keyboard quit working so I didn’t, and today my keyboard works, but we had a tragedy instead.

I went to the pilot briefing, and ended up going in the C-47 with Jordan and Lumpy. We had a blast. We flew around, did several passes, formation passes, had two C-47s and 3 C-45s for a nice “cargo” flight. It was cold and windy but sunny and we were just having a great day.

We landed, and were walking in to get a late lunch, when a one-of-a-kind P-63 crashed into the middle of the B-17 “Texas Raiders”, with 4 or 5 on board.  I saw the explosion and fireball, but didn’t know who it was at the time. I did know I had several friends up flying, and we were trying very hard to find out who they were. When two Mustangs flew overhead, I felt an awful lot of relief. 

At this point, I apparently somehow accidentally butt dialed Kaylee on my cell phone. It was in my pocket. She could hear the airshow announcement “An unexpected event has occurred. Please remain calm” blah blah repeating over and over, and she could hear sirens, and she remembered that I was at an airshow, and it scared her that I wasn’t answering her, so she texted Steve, who tried to reach me. But I couldn’t hear anything over the noise. Finally Kaylee did hear my voice and she knew I was okay, and shortly after that I pulled out my phone and saw the text from Steve and got back to him. But for a brief period, I scared my family.  Kaylee having watched the accident at Glenndale didn’t need this too.  Not that any of us did.  I sure didn’t.  I really don’t want to see another airplane fireball again. I can’t get to sleep. Partly because you know when the tail came off and they went inverted and straight down, they had time to unsuccessfully try to recover and know their fate, and that’s pretty awful. At least it was fast. The P-63 pilot never saw the plane he flew into, you can tell, so he was flying one second and woke up in the afterlife the next. But the B-17, that was a horror show. A fast one, but still one.  I had had drinks with two of the pilots last night. I’d sat under the wing of the P-63 in the hangar.  One of my friends hugged the pilot before he got into the cockpit, and I have a picture of the copilot of the B-17 waving as he taxied by to go fly, big grins and happy waves. Fun and lighthearted and easy, until boom, instant tragedy and loss. 

Everyone is rocked right now. 

I was supposed to fly in the show tomorrow, then go home at 9 pm, arriving in Indy after midnight, home after 1 am.  Instead, tomorrow’s show is of course canceled, and I changed my reservation to 9 am, so I can get home. I just want to go home…