July 17, 2025 • 21 mins
For many ALPA members, flying is more than a career—it is a passion. And that passion is on full display at EAA’s AirVenture Oshkosh every year. At the 2024 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, the Air Line Pilot Podcast caught up with ALPA members who arrived in classic warbirds or other vintage aircraft, or who flew as part of the daily airshow. William “Skip” Stewart (FedEx Express) gave aerobatic performances in his modified Pitts S-2S, Bill Sleeper (United, ret.) provided rides in a 1929 Ford Tri Motor, Billy Janus (Delta) piloted a C-47 Skytrain, Jeff Linebaugh (FedEx Express) flew a P-51 Mustang, and Martin Gerhard (United) and Steve McGarry (Kalitta) reenacted as paratroopers to commemorate the 80th anniversary of World War II’s Normandy invasion.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Welcome to the Airline Pilot podcast.
I'm Jason Ambrosi.
Every July, hundreds of thousands of aviators descend on Oshkosh, Wisconsin to take part in EAA AirVenture, turning it into the busiest airport in the world.
Anytime you have passionate pilots gathered in one place like this, there will always be ALPA pilots.
(00:26):
For many of us, aviation is more than just a job.
So ALPA is committed to being at events like EAA AirVenture to connect with our membership and the next generation of airline pilots.
Last year we caught up with several ALPA members who were participating in the show, and as we gear up for this year's AirVenture, we wanted to share their stories with you.
(00:49):
Each guest today brings their own connection to aviation history.
From a retired United Airlines captain flying the classic Ford Tri Motor to honoring the legacy of World War II in a C 47 to airshow pilots, we'll start with them introducing themselves and their aircraft.
My name is Skip Stewart.
I fly for FedEx in the MD 11.
(01:11):
I fly a, uh, a highly modified Pitts S-2s, an airplane that I modified and built myself in air shows all over the world.
I like to call it a seemingly outta control, crazy low level air show.
I got involved in aerobatics, uh, really through model airplanes.
My interest in airplanes started when I was very young, and the only outlet I had since I couldn't be a pilot yet was to build models, and that became remote controlled airplane models.
(01:34):
Which you fly.
And once you learn how to fly a remote controlled airplane, it's all about aerobatics and tricks and showing off for your friends.
And you have to keep it close to you because you have to see it to control it.
So I didn't know it at the time, but I was actually flying an airshow flying with a model airplane.
So I, when I was about 14 years old, I went to an air show for the first time, saw a guy named Leo Loudenslager flying a laser, which I had a model of, and it for some reason never put two and two together, that this is a model of a real airplane.
(01:59):
And the real airplane flies like the model.
That just was an epiphany that I could take what I really enjoyed as a kid and do it as an adult for real.
So that was inspiration and that's, I became an airline pilot so that I could afford to do that and just got lucky that I happened to be a successful.
People wanna watch me fly, so that's just icing on the cake.
Bill Sleeper, United Airlines retired in 2017 and retired off the 747-400.
(02:25):
Yeah, here at Air, AirVenture and flying in 1929, Ford Tri-Motor offering rides to the general public, another of one of our united pilots, bill Thacker.
I was giving a line check to back in 2015, I think it was, from San Francisco to Tokyo, and turns out he was one of the Tri-Motor pilots.
And we got to talking, one thing led to another.
He said, Hey, you know, he might be interested in getting involved with the Tri-Motor and call this number, which I did, and here I am.
(02:48):
I have a fair amount of tail, little experience, the airplane.
Is not nimble by any means.
It's not difficult to fly, but it has its own personality and the EAA requires the piles to have at least a hundred hour, a hundred landings in tight before they turn you loose with it.
My name's Billy Janis.
I am currently a Delta seven three NB out of New York, so co-pilot on seven three out of the three major New York's.
(03:11):
Currently we're sitting in the cockpit of Placid Lassie, the C 47 here at Oshkosh.
So I've been flying this airplane since 22.
I'm new, uh, compared to some of the members.
I had just moved home right before I started at Delta.
I had been flying for a couple of airlines up in Alaska, flying some other Douglas airplanes, and so I, uh, showed up here with this group in about 2022.
(03:34):
They happened to need a co-op for a weekend, and I was waiting to start a Delta and they, they, I had a whole bunch of free time, so.
My name is Jeff Linebaugh and I fly for FedEx.
I'm a 767 captain in Memphis.
This is a P 51 Mustang.
It belongs to the Commemorative Air Force, and there's a group of five of us that fly it, giving ride experiences and displaying the airplane at air shows throughout the country.
(03:57):
The airplane is painted in the colors of the 343rd Fighter Squadron, which was in the 55th Fighter Group, ate their forest in England.
This Gunfighter.
It was named by the squadron commander of the Lone Star Gunfighters, an F four unit in the seventies, who owned the airplane before it became part of the commemorate of Air Force.
I got involved in it about 15 years ago.
(04:19):
Did a lot of work behind the scenes to try and help keep the airplane going, and ended up working up into the pilot role.
There's an airplane called the North American T-6 Texan, which was the trainer for this.
I had a lot of time in that.
I rode in the backseat of this airplane several times, and then it was, learn how to start it, get in it, and go, and good luck.
Don't bend anything.
(04:41):
Martin Gerhard with United Airlines.
I'm a triple seven captain out of Houston.
Steve McGarry, I'm a Envoy.
E 175 FO out of DFW.
So we are the World War II Airborne demonstration team.
For the past of roughly almost 30 years now, we've been demonstration parachute operations out of original 1940s aircraft and our ongoing mission to remember, honor and serve the generation from World War II and veterans of.
(05:03):
Well, basically all wars at this point, but we are primarily here to preserve the memory of the World War II paratrooper to show the world how it was done back then.
I've been here for 16 years.
I went through their jump school in 2008.
Uh, we run two jump schools twice a year.
One in July and one in October, and it's a nine day course.
So it's very similar to what the guys went through in World War ii, except it's condensed, obviously.
(05:24):
I think they took them a month to do it or so, and we do it in nine days.
In Army Jump School for, if you go jump school for the United States Army, it's going to be a three week course.
We take what the Army teaches you and wees it down to a nine day course with, so it's a, or five days of jump, five days of ground phase, and then four days of jump phase basically is how we run it.
I was in the army, I joined the military back in late 2003 and then reported to my radar school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and saw a uh, beautiful C 47 sitting on the ramp there and thought, who does that belong to? So I finally asked the right guys and they said, oh, it belongs to the Airborne Demonstration team.
(05:58):
You should go talk to them.
So I got in touch with our original founder, Richard Wolf, who was running the school back then, and I came through the parachute course here in 2005, and I've been with him ever since.
I actually spent a month in Normandy about 20 years ago, and I was standing at one of the drop zones, envisioning the mayhem and the airplanes or the ships, and I just got this wild.
(06:20):
Thought thinking, I'd like to jump from a C 47 just once.
Never in my wildest dreams thinking I could ever do it.
Speed up.
10 years later, I was a volunteer with the comm member of Air Force.
Got to talking to somebody there about D-Day and paratroopers, and he asked me, I said, have you ever jumped? I was like, well, I've done a couple of sword jump, but I'd really like to jump out of a C 47.
He said, well, there's this group in Oklahoma that does that.
(06:41):
And I was shocked.
I didn't believe it.
So I ran home that night and I looked him up online and sure enough, I found the World War II Airborne demonstration team immediately called the phone number, and I also talked to our founder, Sergeant Major Wolf, and I asked him, I said, you guys jump over C 47.
He goes, yes, we do.
And I was like, you guys, mostly military guys? He goes, well, yes we are.
All the instructors are prior, prior service.
(07:02):
I was like, well, I'm just a civilian guy.
Can I do this? He said, absolutely.
You just have to show up and go through our jump school.
I signed up the very next jump show.
That was in January of 2008, planning to do only my five jumps to graduate.
Fell in love with it, and then 16 years later, I'm still doing it.
Our team on the ground in Oshkosh was able to catch up with these unique individuals and ask them specific questions related to their participation in Oshkosh AirVenture.
(07:28):
First, they asked What makes these aircraft unique, both in its design and its history? I started with a dock Pitts S-2S, and I took it apart all the way down to the frame and sold everything except the frame and built a custom airplane out of it.
A stock Pitts is only good for plus six and minus three Gs, and I do close to plus 12 and minus seven in my show.
So just about everything that I modified was for strength.
(07:51):
A few areas that can make it lighter and then also more horsepower.
And then a cool paint job, of course, because it's gotta look good.
This is a small biplane.
Curtis Pitts designed it back in the forties and then it's been improved over the years.
So a lot like a Porsche 911.
You can see the very first Pitts and the latest Pitts and you know that they're related.
But it's a a small high performance biplane that used to be the pinnacle of aerobatic aircraft until the monoplanes came out in the seventies.
(08:17):
The Tri-Motor is the first all metal aircraft that was produced for passenger service in the 1920s.
It has three engines because the technology back then did not, the engine did not produce enough horsepower to make a two engine airplane, and the reason they had three is that they felt it would be much safer to have three engines.
One could fail in the airplane, could still operate on two engines.
(08:37):
It started out in passenger service.
It was actually Eastern Airlines, the predecessor of Eastern Airlines, very first airplane, and it was passed around over the, in the early.
The late twenties, early thirties between different domestic airlines, and eventually it became obsolete when the DC twos and Boeing two 40 sevens evolved.
So the airplane wound up going south of the border and stayed south of the border for a couple of decades and came back and was converted to a crop duster.
(09:02):
Spent a number of years doing that, and that wound up being a smoke jumper airplane up in Idaho.
And there's a whole lot of history of this airplane also was a bore bomber for the same company, but the bore bombing was eventually discontinued and they wound up making it a smoke jumper.
Then after that it was campaigned as a ride hopping airplane and in 19, I think it was in 1973, I think it was when it was destroyed.
(09:26):
Yeah, it was destroyed at a air show event in 1973.
The EAA bought it and spent 12 years restoring it, and it's been on the air tour circuit since 1985.
These airplanes that have such amazing history.
Part of the reason is because so many of these airplanes were used during World War ii, so it's really cool that we actually have the specific history of this particular airplane.
(09:47):
This airplane is painted up, just how it was back in 1943 when it came off the factory floor in Burbank, California.
This airplane, though it participated in some of the most major campaigns of World War ii, it was there for Operation Varsity, also known as the D-Day invasion.
This airplane towed two gliders, I believe it was dropped paratroopers.
It was there for Operation Market Garden.
(10:08):
It was there for dropping supplies over Bass Stone.
This airplane was a part of Operation Repulse, and it really saw a lot of action during World War ii.
Eventually, after the war came home was a freighter for a long time, hauling all sorts of stuff around the US for a number of operators.
Until one day they blew an engine, the company couldn't afford to put a new engine on it, and it sat derelict.
(10:30):
They followed up with where has this aircraft taken you and any memorable stops or interesting routes they may have made? Uh, this year I'm doing 20 air shows in multiple countries, so I usually start in February and the last shows go through November.
Then in December, I do the Airshow Convention, so I really only have one month off a year that I'm not doing something.
Airshow wise, I've flown in Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Martin, e St.
(10:55):
Martin, China, United Air Remnants, literally all over the world.
Well, we take it all over the country.
It's been to the West coast, so after AirVenture, it's gonna be working its way through Virginia.
It'll come back to Oshkosh for the winter, and then we're putting together the travel plans for the next season.
But it could get back out to the West Coast.
We're not quite sure yet.
They can be a lot of work in moderate turbulence.
(11:16):
The airplane has no ya damper.
They only have elevator trim.
And I always like to bring a copilot along on the long trips where there's turbulence.
'cause I can say, Hey, how do, how about getting a little bit of four Tri-Motor time? You got it.
So that's my autopilot is, uh, people I bring along the in the right seat.
Yeah, so this airplane, it lives on the road in the summertime.
It just depends on what they've got going on.
(11:38):
So we do all sorts of other things with this airplane, including dropping paratroopers, not always current paratroopers, but people that dress up in the reenactors, that dress up in the full garb and still jump from these airplanes with round canopies.
We go to air shows, like here at Oshkosh, we were just at Geneseo, where we'll make passes.
We'll also do formation flights with other DC threes.
(11:58):
We do quite a few different things with this airplane, so the airplane goes wherever kind of people want it to be.
This year though, our tour started off at, in a couple air shows down in Georgia, we went to the Tacoma Air Show.
We were where we were dropping actors from the series, band of brothers who were getting trained to be actual jumpers to go jump for Normandy.
Went to the Maxwell Air Force Base Air Show and went to Sun and Fun in Lakeland, Florida.
(12:20):
It came up to another air show in Georgia back to New York.
And from there we hopped all the way across from Oxford, Connecticut to Presca, Maine.
We went to Goose Bay, Canada.
I.
Over to Reykjavík Iceland, down to Prestwick, Scotland, and then over to the uk, and then eventually ended all the way up in France, Germany, and then all the way back, just the crossings alone.
(12:43):
We're about 27, 28 hours of flying, so this airplane's flown about 120 hours so far this year we're here in Oshkosh.
We still have more events to go later this year.
For the listeners who have not been to an air show like this, can you describe the performance and what goes into preparing for an event like Oshkosh? I think they're seemingly outta control.
Low level air shows that I'm trying to get the spectators emotionally engaged in my wellbeing.
(13:07):
I want them to wonder if I'm gonna make it.
I want them to feel the excitement and the danger.
It is a dangerous thing to do, so I've designed my show to look dangerous.
I'm doing it safe to me.
I'm wondering if I turn the stove off or I'm gonna have for lunch while I'm flying.
To me, it's super easy and, and I'm honestly a little surprised when I get finished with my show and people are like blown away.
Oh man, you barely made it here.
(13:28):
That's what I've tried to do.
You come out of a maneuver with plenty of altitude to finish it, but you fly it towards the ground until it just looks like you're barely, and then you start pulling, but you got plenty of speed and it's super safe.
But if you miss the ground by an inch, people think it's barely made it.
And that's to me, what it's all about.
You can go to a museum and you can learn about history, but truly seeing these things operate, smelling the oil as it starts up, and then really getting the opportunity to share with people, you know what these.
(13:53):
Truly heroes that we have of the greatest generation that they went through flying these airplanes.
We had a bunch of patches for going over this year and it said unarmed unescorted and stuff like that.
'cause none of these airplanes had it.
We got to fly some World War II veterans earlier this year, which obviously were losing quicker and quicker.
But we got to fly a gentleman earlier this year that the last time he'd been in a DC three was over.
(14:16):
I believe it was Holland bailing out of it on fire And holes bigger than us.
The side of the airplane.
That's why we do this kind of stuff, is to honor those guys and be able to just help people appreciate what those gentlemen went through.
And it's pretty cool to fly it too.
During air shows, we put the airplane through its paces.
(14:37):
We do aerobatics, low level loops and rolls Cuban eights combinations of those maneuvers to try and show the capability of the airplane and the performance.
It's a special privilege to get to do it for sure.
We love the opportunity to be able to share the airplane with people.
We just love to be able to share the experience with, especially with other pilots, because it is an amazing flying airplane.
(14:58):
It's simple to fly in a lot of regards.
It's very high performance, especially for its time period.
And to be able to share what the experience was like for guys 19, 20 years old, to be going into combat in Europe, defending our bombers.
It's something that, yeah, it's just a special privilege to be able to share that experience.
The team inquired about how their individual experience flying this historical aircraft compared to modern airline flying.
(15:25):
The DC three C 40 sevens are really an amazing airplane.
I mean, obviously they've been going for a long time.
This particular one was built in 1943 and besides a couple years where they were waiting to put some engines on it, it's been flying pretty much that entire time.
So it's an amazing thing.
There's actually a number of other Delta pilots who fly these aircraft, and it's cool to be a part of that group.
I fly seven three at work.
Everyone jokes about the seven three being a dinosaur, but this is a little older old school than that.
(15:49):
I always used to joke with people.
When I came to Delta, the thing I appreciated most was an autopilot in a bathroom, which as you notice this doesn't have that.
So it's a really cool airplane.
It's an amazing history.
It's a big, relatively speaking, easy airplane to fly, uh, with a lot of amazing history and stuff like that.
It's got some challenging aspects that have to do with mostly managing the airplane from engine stuff.
(16:10):
As I said, there's no autopilot in here, so everything you're doing is hand flying.
Like when we brought it back across the Atlantic, all the guys at Delta and American United and everywhere else that are doing those long haul flights, it's only seven hours for them and they get to go in the back and take a nap and everything else we did 10 hours straight and while we made it was between Goose Bay, Canada and Reykjavík Iceland.
(16:31):
And like you said, no autopilot for us.
You don't get the kind of vibrations in modern airliners that you do in this.
You don't get the smell of avgas, you don't get the visuals of the propellers turning and starting and smoking a little bit as they start up.
There's a lot of sensory experiences associated with this airplane, but the big one is that it's, we fly it low, like a thousand feet above ground.
(16:53):
It's not fast.
Or you take off at 80, cruise at 80 land at 80, and it's just this very interesting, unique experience that you don't experience any place else.
To me, the biplanes are the best.
Air show.
Airplanes are strong.
The Pitts S two in particularly, no one's ever broken one in flight that resulted in a crash.
So you fly out with confidence knowing that if you do break it, then you've flown it harder than anybody's ever flown it in history, which you'd be pretty arrogant to think that, but I have broken a lot of things on the airplane, but it always brings you home, so I like that.
(17:22):
The other thing I like about it has a lot of drag so it doesn't get going real fast.
So you can do a low tight show.
Uh, and with the most of the modern monoplanes are so fast, but the show gets really wide and really tall, and I like doing things low and tight and in your face, and I think the bike plane has the best ability to do that.
That's a completely different thing.
Of course, the 7 67 is big and smooth and very automated.
(17:45):
This is quite the opposite of that.
It's a pretty high performance ride.
Gets off the ground in a hurry.
It's back to the basics.
Everything is manual on the airplane.
You've gotta watch all the gauges, you've gotta manage the engine, all the different systems on the airplane.
It's all, all up to you.
And finally, the team asked, how do you pass down your love of flying for the next generation? How do I pass my passion for aviation on? I try to seek out.
(18:11):
Primarily kids like seniors in high school or maybe in college that are interested in it, that maybe can't afford to do that, or his parents aren't really up for it, and get them to help me out around the hangar, start 'em off sweeping and hand me tools and cleaning airplanes and actually own ESS 1 52.
In exchange for that, if they have.
Attitude, aptitude and Ability, I will give them a free private pilot's license and if they continue to be, uh, successful and interested, then I also have a multi-engine airplane that I can give 'em a multi in.
(18:38):
Then they start flying the twin to the air shows to yield their multi-time.
And I've done that with six or eight.
I'll call 'em kids 'cause I'm 56 years old.
But, and most of them have gone on to successful careers at Delta and United American Spirit.
One of them is a high level mechanic, wears a suit to, to work at American.
So they helped me out.
I helped them out.
It's full circle, and I hope that I instilled in them that once they become successful, that they'll reach back and help somebody out as well.
(19:04):
We all do this 'cause we love it.
I always tell people I fly big airplanes to be able to come home and play with little airplanes 'cause this kind of stuff is what we all appreciate doing.
'cause it's not just about flying the airplane, it's about meeting a lot of really good people from friends all over the place.
That's where you come to Oshkosh for the airplanes and you stay for the people.
And it's the same with operating these kind of airplanes.
You just meet friends all over the country.
(19:24):
You get to visit them.
And with our line of work, that makes it a lot easier too.
So it's really just, I think it's all great.
I've done just about every job on this team up to this point.
Honestly, I enjoy the jumping.
I enjoy the jump operations.
I enjoy crewing, the aircraft, you name it.
There's days I go up there, throw on a parachute and go out after my stick.
There's days I go up there, put on a safety harness and just throw the stick out.
(19:45):
I.
It's a blast no matter what I do.
'cause no matter what I do, I'm still getting to do this job of this aircraft.
And the kinda the extraordinary thing about what we do, we are one of the only organizations that operates a World War II era aircraft and does exactly the same mission with it that they were doing in World War ii.
We train to the same standards as the US government does.
We go through, we go through ground schools, we go through parachute schools, we do refresher courses, we do everything that the Army does, just, we do it on, on the civilian side and we do it in the 1940s.
(20:11):
Uniforms.
So there's, there's refresher trainings.
It's just like being a pilot.
Just you don't just, you don't land with the airplane.
We take this airplane all over the country and so I've seen, I've been to cities and parts of the country that I wouldn't otherwise go to.
One of the fun things I got to do with it was doing a tourist stop in Truth of Consequence is New Mexico and we got a call from the Space Port of America.
(20:32):
Say, Hey, would you mind flying the Tri-Motor over here? We'd like to get pictures of you with the Tri-Motor in front of the space Port of America.
So we did, and that was what a, that was a very unique experience that was only associated with the Tri-Motor.
Thank you to each of our guests for sharing the passion and dedication it takes to keep aviation history alive.
(20:53):
If you're preparing to travel to Oshkosh yourself this year, or watching from afar.
Look for all the ALPA members, keeping the rich legacy of aviation alive at EAA AirVenture.
We'll see you there.
If you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover, reach out to podcast at ALPA dot org to listen and subscribe to the Airline Pilot podcast or learn more about ALPA.
(21:18):
Check us out online at ALPA dot org or find us on all major podcast platforms.
Until next time, this is the Airline Pilot podcast.
Copyright ALPA 2025.
All rights reserved.
Thanks and have a safe flight.
Welcome to the Airline Pilot podcast.
I'm Jason Ambrosi.
Every July, hundreds of thousands of aviators descend on Oshkosh, Wisconsin to take part in EAA AirVenture, turning it into the busiest airport in the world.
Anytime you have passionate pilots gathered in one place like this, there will always be ALPA pilots.
(00:26):
For many of us, aviation is more than just a job.
So ALPA is committed to being at events like EAA AirVenture to connect with our membership and the next generation of airline pilots.
Last year we caught up with several ALPA members who were participating in the show, and as we gear up for this year's AirVenture, we wanted to share their stories with you.
(00:49):
Each guest today brings their own connection to aviation history.
From a retired United Airlines captain flying the classic Ford Tri Motor to honoring the legacy of World War II in a C 47 to airshow pilots, we'll start with them introducing themselves and their aircraft.
My name is Skip Stewart.
I fly for FedEx in the MD 11.
(01:11):
I fly a, uh, a highly modified Pitts S-2s, an airplane that I modified and built myself in air shows all over the world.
I like to call it a seemingly outta control, crazy low level air show.
I got involved in aerobatics, uh, really through model airplanes.
My interest in airplanes started when I was very young, and the only outlet I had since I couldn't be a pilot yet was to build models, and that became remote controlled airplane models.
(01:34):
Which you fly.
And once you learn how to fly a remote controlled airplane, it's all about aerobatics and tricks and showing off for your friends.
And you have to keep it close to you because you have to see it to control it.
So I didn't know it at the time, but I was actually flying an airshow flying with a model airplane.
So I, when I was about 14 years old, I went to an air show for the first time, saw a guy named Leo Loudenslager flying a laser, which I had a model of, and it for some reason never put two and two together, that this is a model of a real airplane.
(01:59):
And the real airplane flies like the model.
That just was an epiphany that I could take what I really enjoyed as a kid and do it as an adult for real.
So that was inspiration and that's, I became an airline pilot so that I could afford to do that and just got lucky that I happened to be a successful.
People wanna watch me fly, so that's just icing on the cake.
Bill Sleeper, United Airlines retired in 2017 and retired off the 747-400.
(02:25):
Yeah, here at Air, AirVenture and flying in 1929, Ford Tri-Motor offering rides to the general public, another of one of our united pilots, bill Thacker.
I was giving a line check to back in 2015, I think it was, from San Francisco to Tokyo, and turns out he was one of the Tri-Motor pilots.
And we got to talking, one thing led to another.
He said, Hey, you know, he might be interested in getting involved with the Tri-Motor and call this number, which I did, and here I am.
(02:48):
I have a fair amount of tail, little experience, the airplane.
Is not nimble by any means.
It's not difficult to fly, but it has its own personality and the EAA requires the piles to have at least a hundred hour, a hundred landings in tight before they turn you loose with it.
My name's Billy Janis.
I am currently a Delta seven three NB out of New York, so co-pilot on seven three out of the three major New York's.
(03:11):
Currently we're sitting in the cockpit of Placid Lassie, the C 47 here at Oshkosh.
So I've been flying this airplane since 22.
I'm new, uh, compared to some of the members.
I had just moved home right before I started at Delta.
I had been flying for a couple of airlines up in Alaska, flying some other Douglas airplanes, and so I, uh, showed up here with this group in about 2022.
(03:34):
They happened to need a co-op for a weekend, and I was waiting to start a Delta and they, they, I had a whole bunch of free time, so.
My name is Jeff Linebaugh and I fly for FedEx.
I'm a 767 captain in Memphis.
This is a P 51 Mustang.
It belongs to the Commemorative Air Force, and there's a group of five of us that fly it, giving ride experiences and displaying the airplane at air shows throughout the country.
(03:57):
The airplane is painted in the colors of the 343rd Fighter Squadron, which was in the 55th Fighter Group, ate their forest in England.
This Gunfighter.
It was named by the squadron commander of the Lone Star Gunfighters, an F four unit in the seventies, who owned the airplane before it became part of the commemorate of Air Force.
I got involved in it about 15 years ago.
(04:19):
Did a lot of work behind the scenes to try and help keep the airplane going, and ended up working up into the pilot role.
There's an airplane called the North American T-6 Texan, which was the trainer for this.
I had a lot of time in that.
I rode in the backseat of this airplane several times, and then it was, learn how to start it, get in it, and go, and good luck.
Don't bend anything.
(04:41):
Martin Gerhard with United Airlines.
I'm a triple seven captain out of Houston.
Steve McGarry, I'm a Envoy.
E 175 FO out of DFW.
So we are the World War II Airborne demonstration team.
For the past of roughly almost 30 years now, we've been demonstration parachute operations out of original 1940s aircraft and our ongoing mission to remember, honor and serve the generation from World War II and veterans of.
(05:03):
Well, basically all wars at this point, but we are primarily here to preserve the memory of the World War II paratrooper to show the world how it was done back then.
I've been here for 16 years.
I went through their jump school in 2008.
Uh, we run two jump schools twice a year.
One in July and one in October, and it's a nine day course.
So it's very similar to what the guys went through in World War ii, except it's condensed, obviously.
(05:24):
I think they took them a month to do it or so, and we do it in nine days.
In Army Jump School for, if you go jump school for the United States Army, it's going to be a three week course.
We take what the Army teaches you and wees it down to a nine day course with, so it's a, or five days of jump, five days of ground phase, and then four days of jump phase basically is how we run it.
I was in the army, I joined the military back in late 2003 and then reported to my radar school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and saw a uh, beautiful C 47 sitting on the ramp there and thought, who does that belong to? So I finally asked the right guys and they said, oh, it belongs to the Airborne Demonstration team.
(05:58):
You should go talk to them.
So I got in touch with our original founder, Richard Wolf, who was running the school back then, and I came through the parachute course here in 2005, and I've been with him ever since.
I actually spent a month in Normandy about 20 years ago, and I was standing at one of the drop zones, envisioning the mayhem and the airplanes or the ships, and I just got this wild.
(06:20):
Thought thinking, I'd like to jump from a C 47 just once.
Never in my wildest dreams thinking I could ever do it.
Speed up.
10 years later, I was a volunteer with the comm member of Air Force.
Got to talking to somebody there about D-Day and paratroopers, and he asked me, I said, have you ever jumped? I was like, well, I've done a couple of sword jump, but I'd really like to jump out of a C 47.
He said, well, there's this group in Oklahoma that does that.
(06:41):
And I was shocked.
I didn't believe it.
So I ran home that night and I looked him up online and sure enough, I found the World War II Airborne demonstration team immediately called the phone number, and I also talked to our founder, Sergeant Major Wolf, and I asked him, I said, you guys jump over C 47.
He goes, yes, we do.
And I was like, you guys, mostly military guys? He goes, well, yes we are.
All the instructors are prior, prior service.
(07:02):
I was like, well, I'm just a civilian guy.
Can I do this? He said, absolutely.
You just have to show up and go through our jump school.
I signed up the very next jump show.
That was in January of 2008, planning to do only my five jumps to graduate.
Fell in love with it, and then 16 years later, I'm still doing it.
Our team on the ground in Oshkosh was able to catch up with these unique individuals and ask them specific questions related to their participation in Oshkosh AirVenture.
(07:28):
First, they asked What makes these aircraft unique, both in its design and its history? I started with a dock Pitts S-2S, and I took it apart all the way down to the frame and sold everything except the frame and built a custom airplane out of it.
A stock Pitts is only good for plus six and minus three Gs, and I do close to plus 12 and minus seven in my show.
So just about everything that I modified was for strength.
(07:51):
A few areas that can make it lighter and then also more horsepower.
And then a cool paint job, of course, because it's gotta look good.
This is a small biplane.
Curtis Pitts designed it back in the forties and then it's been improved over the years.
So a lot like a Porsche 911.
You can see the very first Pitts and the latest Pitts and you know that they're related.
But it's a a small high performance biplane that used to be the pinnacle of aerobatic aircraft until the monoplanes came out in the seventies.
(08:17):
The Tri-Motor is the first all metal aircraft that was produced for passenger service in the 1920s.
It has three engines because the technology back then did not, the engine did not produce enough horsepower to make a two engine airplane, and the reason they had three is that they felt it would be much safer to have three engines.
One could fail in the airplane, could still operate on two engines.
(08:37):
It started out in passenger service.
It was actually Eastern Airlines, the predecessor of Eastern Airlines, very first airplane, and it was passed around over the, in the early.
The late twenties, early thirties between different domestic airlines, and eventually it became obsolete when the DC twos and Boeing two 40 sevens evolved.
So the airplane wound up going south of the border and stayed south of the border for a couple of decades and came back and was converted to a crop duster.
(09:02):
Spent a number of years doing that, and that wound up being a smoke jumper airplane up in Idaho.
And there's a whole lot of history of this airplane also was a bore bomber for the same company, but the bore bombing was eventually discontinued and they wound up making it a smoke jumper.
Then after that it was campaigned as a ride hopping airplane and in 19, I think it was in 1973, I think it was when it was destroyed.
(09:26):
Yeah, it was destroyed at a air show event in 1973.
The EAA bought it and spent 12 years restoring it, and it's been on the air tour circuit since 1985.
These airplanes that have such amazing history.
Part of the reason is because so many of these airplanes were used during World War ii, so it's really cool that we actually have the specific history of this particular airplane.
(09:47):
This airplane is painted up, just how it was back in 1943 when it came off the factory floor in Burbank, California.
This airplane, though it participated in some of the most major campaigns of World War ii, it was there for Operation Varsity, also known as the D-Day invasion.
This airplane towed two gliders, I believe it was dropped paratroopers.
It was there for Operation Market Garden.
(10:08):
It was there for dropping supplies over Bass Stone.
This airplane was a part of Operation Repulse, and it really saw a lot of action during World War ii.
Eventually, after the war came home was a freighter for a long time, hauling all sorts of stuff around the US for a number of operators.
Until one day they blew an engine, the company couldn't afford to put a new engine on it, and it sat derelict.
(10:30):
They followed up with where has this aircraft taken you and any memorable stops or interesting routes they may have made? Uh, this year I'm doing 20 air shows in multiple countries, so I usually start in February and the last shows go through November.
Then in December, I do the Airshow Convention, so I really only have one month off a year that I'm not doing something.
Airshow wise, I've flown in Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Martin, e St.
(10:55):
Martin, China, United Air Remnants, literally all over the world.
Well, we take it all over the country.
It's been to the West coast, so after AirVenture, it's gonna be working its way through Virginia.
It'll come back to Oshkosh for the winter, and then we're putting together the travel plans for the next season.
But it could get back out to the West Coast.
We're not quite sure yet.
They can be a lot of work in moderate turbulence.
(11:16):
The airplane has no ya damper.
They only have elevator trim.
And I always like to bring a copilot along on the long trips where there's turbulence.
'cause I can say, Hey, how do, how about getting a little bit of four Tri-Motor time? You got it.
So that's my autopilot is, uh, people I bring along the in the right seat.
Yeah, so this airplane, it lives on the road in the summertime.
It just depends on what they've got going on.
(11:38):
So we do all sorts of other things with this airplane, including dropping paratroopers, not always current paratroopers, but people that dress up in the reenactors, that dress up in the full garb and still jump from these airplanes with round canopies.
We go to air shows, like here at Oshkosh, we were just at Geneseo, where we'll make passes.
We'll also do formation flights with other DC threes.
(11:58):
We do quite a few different things with this airplane, so the airplane goes wherever kind of people want it to be.
This year though, our tour started off at, in a couple air shows down in Georgia, we went to the Tacoma Air Show.
We were where we were dropping actors from the series, band of brothers who were getting trained to be actual jumpers to go jump for Normandy.
Went to the Maxwell Air Force Base Air Show and went to Sun and Fun in Lakeland, Florida.
(12:20):
It came up to another air show in Georgia back to New York.
And from there we hopped all the way across from Oxford, Connecticut to Presca, Maine.
We went to Goose Bay, Canada.
I.
Over to Reykjavík Iceland, down to Prestwick, Scotland, and then over to the uk, and then eventually ended all the way up in France, Germany, and then all the way back, just the crossings alone.
(12:43):
We're about 27, 28 hours of flying, so this airplane's flown about 120 hours so far this year we're here in Oshkosh.
We still have more events to go later this year.
For the listeners who have not been to an air show like this, can you describe the performance and what goes into preparing for an event like Oshkosh? I think they're seemingly outta control.
Low level air shows that I'm trying to get the spectators emotionally engaged in my wellbeing.
(13:07):
I want them to wonder if I'm gonna make it.
I want them to feel the excitement and the danger.
It is a dangerous thing to do, so I've designed my show to look dangerous.
I'm doing it safe to me.
I'm wondering if I turn the stove off or I'm gonna have for lunch while I'm flying.
To me, it's super easy and, and I'm honestly a little surprised when I get finished with my show and people are like blown away.
Oh man, you barely made it here.
(13:28):
That's what I've tried to do.
You come out of a maneuver with plenty of altitude to finish it, but you fly it towards the ground until it just looks like you're barely, and then you start pulling, but you got plenty of speed and it's super safe.
But if you miss the ground by an inch, people think it's barely made it.
And that's to me, what it's all about.
You can go to a museum and you can learn about history, but truly seeing these things operate, smelling the oil as it starts up, and then really getting the opportunity to share with people, you know what these.
(13:53):
Truly heroes that we have of the greatest generation that they went through flying these airplanes.
We had a bunch of patches for going over this year and it said unarmed unescorted and stuff like that.
'cause none of these airplanes had it.
We got to fly some World War II veterans earlier this year, which obviously were losing quicker and quicker.
But we got to fly a gentleman earlier this year that the last time he'd been in a DC three was over.
(14:16):
I believe it was Holland bailing out of it on fire And holes bigger than us.
The side of the airplane.
That's why we do this kind of stuff, is to honor those guys and be able to just help people appreciate what those gentlemen went through.
And it's pretty cool to fly it too.
During air shows, we put the airplane through its paces.
(14:37):
We do aerobatics, low level loops and rolls Cuban eights combinations of those maneuvers to try and show the capability of the airplane and the performance.
It's a special privilege to get to do it for sure.
We love the opportunity to be able to share the airplane with people.
We just love to be able to share the experience with, especially with other pilots, because it is an amazing flying airplane.
(14:58):
It's simple to fly in a lot of regards.
It's very high performance, especially for its time period.
And to be able to share what the experience was like for guys 19, 20 years old, to be going into combat in Europe, defending our bombers.
It's something that, yeah, it's just a special privilege to be able to share that experience.
The team inquired about how their individual experience flying this historical aircraft compared to modern airline flying.
(15:25):
The DC three C 40 sevens are really an amazing airplane.
I mean, obviously they've been going for a long time.
This particular one was built in 1943 and besides a couple years where they were waiting to put some engines on it, it's been flying pretty much that entire time.
So it's an amazing thing.
There's actually a number of other Delta pilots who fly these aircraft, and it's cool to be a part of that group.
I fly seven three at work.
Everyone jokes about the seven three being a dinosaur, but this is a little older old school than that.
(15:49):
I always used to joke with people.
When I came to Delta, the thing I appreciated most was an autopilot in a bathroom, which as you notice this doesn't have that.
So it's a really cool airplane.
It's an amazing history.
It's a big, relatively speaking, easy airplane to fly, uh, with a lot of amazing history and stuff like that.
It's got some challenging aspects that have to do with mostly managing the airplane from engine stuff.
(16:10):
As I said, there's no autopilot in here, so everything you're doing is hand flying.
Like when we brought it back across the Atlantic, all the guys at Delta and American United and everywhere else that are doing those long haul flights, it's only seven hours for them and they get to go in the back and take a nap and everything else we did 10 hours straight and while we made it was between Goose Bay, Canada and Reykjavík Iceland.
(16:31):
And like you said, no autopilot for us.
You don't get the kind of vibrations in modern airliners that you do in this.
You don't get the smell of avgas, you don't get the visuals of the propellers turning and starting and smoking a little bit as they start up.
There's a lot of sensory experiences associated with this airplane, but the big one is that it's, we fly it low, like a thousand feet above ground.
(16:53):
It's not fast.
Or you take off at 80, cruise at 80 land at 80, and it's just this very interesting, unique experience that you don't experience any place else.
To me, the biplanes are the best.
Air show.
Airplanes are strong.
The Pitts S two in particularly, no one's ever broken one in flight that resulted in a crash.
So you fly out with confidence knowing that if you do break it, then you've flown it harder than anybody's ever flown it in history, which you'd be pretty arrogant to think that, but I have broken a lot of things on the airplane, but it always brings you home, so I like that.
(17:22):
The other thing I like about it has a lot of drag so it doesn't get going real fast.
So you can do a low tight show.
Uh, and with the most of the modern monoplanes are so fast, but the show gets really wide and really tall, and I like doing things low and tight and in your face, and I think the bike plane has the best ability to do that.
That's a completely different thing.
Of course, the 7 67 is big and smooth and very automated.
(17:45):
This is quite the opposite of that.
It's a pretty high performance ride.
Gets off the ground in a hurry.
It's back to the basics.
Everything is manual on the airplane.
You've gotta watch all the gauges, you've gotta manage the engine, all the different systems on the airplane.
It's all, all up to you.
And finally, the team asked, how do you pass down your love of flying for the next generation? How do I pass my passion for aviation on? I try to seek out.
(18:11):
Primarily kids like seniors in high school or maybe in college that are interested in it, that maybe can't afford to do that, or his parents aren't really up for it, and get them to help me out around the hangar, start 'em off sweeping and hand me tools and cleaning airplanes and actually own ESS 1 52.
In exchange for that, if they have.
Attitude, aptitude and Ability, I will give them a free private pilot's license and if they continue to be, uh, successful and interested, then I also have a multi-engine airplane that I can give 'em a multi in.
(18:38):
Then they start flying the twin to the air shows to yield their multi-time.
And I've done that with six or eight.
I'll call 'em kids 'cause I'm 56 years old.
But, and most of them have gone on to successful careers at Delta and United American Spirit.
One of them is a high level mechanic, wears a suit to, to work at American.
So they helped me out.
I helped them out.
It's full circle, and I hope that I instilled in them that once they become successful, that they'll reach back and help somebody out as well.
(19:04):
We all do this 'cause we love it.
I always tell people I fly big airplanes to be able to come home and play with little airplanes 'cause this kind of stuff is what we all appreciate doing.
'cause it's not just about flying the airplane, it's about meeting a lot of really good people from friends all over the place.
That's where you come to Oshkosh for the airplanes and you stay for the people.
And it's the same with operating these kind of airplanes.
You just meet friends all over the country.
(19:24):
You get to visit them.
And with our line of work, that makes it a lot easier too.
So it's really just, I think it's all great.
I've done just about every job on this team up to this point.
Honestly, I enjoy the jumping.
I enjoy the jump operations.
I enjoy crewing, the aircraft, you name it.
There's days I go up there, throw on a parachute and go out after my stick.
There's days I go up there, put on a safety harness and just throw the stick out.
(19:45):
I.
It's a blast no matter what I do.
'cause no matter what I do, I'm still getting to do this job of this aircraft.
And the kinda the extraordinary thing about what we do, we are one of the only organizations that operates a World War II era aircraft and does exactly the same mission with it that they were doing in World War ii.
We train to the same standards as the US government does.
We go through, we go through ground schools, we go through parachute schools, we do refresher courses, we do everything that the Army does, just, we do it on, on the civilian side and we do it in the 1940s.
(20:11):
Uniforms.
So there's, there's refresher trainings.
It's just like being a pilot.
Just you don't just, you don't land with the airplane.
We take this airplane all over the country and so I've seen, I've been to cities and parts of the country that I wouldn't otherwise go to.
One of the fun things I got to do with it was doing a tourist stop in Truth of Consequence is New Mexico and we got a call from the Space Port of America.
(20:32):
Say, Hey, would you mind flying the Tri-Motor over here? We'd like to get pictures of you with the Tri-Motor in front of the space Port of America.
So we did, and that was what a, that was a very unique experience that was only associated with the Tri-Motor.
Thank you to each of our guests for sharing the passion and dedication it takes to keep aviation history alive.
(20:53):
If you're preparing to travel to Oshkosh yourself this year, or watching from afar.
Look for all the ALPA members, keeping the rich legacy of aviation alive at EAA AirVenture.
We'll see you there.
If you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover, reach out to podcast at ALPA dot org to listen and subscribe to the Airline Pilot podcast or learn more about ALPA.
(21:18):
Check us out online at ALPA dot org or find us on all major podcast platforms.
Until next time, this is the Airline Pilot podcast.
Copyright ALPA 2025.
All rights reserved.
Thanks and have a safe flight.
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