In October, 2001, my wife returned from a trip to Minneapolis, MN where she visited with her Aunt, Uncle and cousins and told me that her Uncle Bob was going to be inducted into the “Aviation Hall of Fame” in April.  Well, since I kind of like Uncle Bob too, I was interested in learning more about this.

A little background might help here. "Uncle Bob" is Robert Ceronsky, a B-29 command pilot in WWII who flew 17 missions out of Guam and who holds the record for the longest ever un-refueled B-29 mission at 3,010nm and 20 hours. Bob went on to a commercial career beginning with United Airlines, Wisconsin Central, North Central and Republic Airlines who was bought out by Northwest Airlines. Bob flew B-18’s (yes, that’s right), B-25 Mitchell’s, B17’s and B-24 Liberator’s. After the war he flew DC-3’s, Lockheed Electra’s, Convair CV-580’s and DC-9’s. He served as a check ride instructor, chief of operations, Chief Pilot and was a 747-200 simulator instructor. When he retired from Republic, he had been number one in seniority for 20 years. He was responsible for setting up the original NDB network throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin and compiled flight data for many of the charts still used today. This is just the rough overview of his contributions to aviation.

The Charles. A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh foundation funds and sponsors a Hall of Fame to honor such people and Bob was chosen as one of this year’s inductees along with seven other military, bush and commercial pilots. Bob’s induction ceremony was going to be on April 20^th in Minneapolis and we really wanted to go. Somehow we put it together and found ourselves on a Northwest Airlines 757 departing Portland, OR for MSP. We have friends in Washington D.C. and decided to go on to there for a few days afterward.

Okay, now down to the fun stuff. On Saturday, before the Ceremony, My wife Kim’s cousin’s husband, a Northwest A-320 captain, took me up for a spin (literally) in his new Pitts S2C. One word sums this up…OHMYGOD!!!

On a sunny spring afternoon, Bob drove us out to Fleming Field near St. Paul. We met up with Bill and headed over to his hangar. Bill pulled up the door and there it was… an immaculate, bright red bi-plane that was much smaller than I had imagined. Bill grabbed hold of the base of one of the propeller blades and easily pulled the plane out with one hand.   The S-2c is a tandem two-seater with a 300hp Continental engine and a dry weight of just over 1,100 lbs. While Bill did a quick pre-flight, I checked out the cockpit, noticing a distinct lack of navigational instruments but also a nifty little GPS unit

Once I learned the correct places to step and use for hand-holds, I wriggled my 6 foot, 190lb. frame into the cockpit. With me strapped securely in the front seat, Bill gave me a quick briefing and cockpit orientation. I donned a headset and we began the zig-zag taxi out to runway 34.

After taxiing into position, Bill started his TO roll. Within about 500ft. the tail came up and we were climbing hard. We made a quick bank (reading 2.2 g’s on the gauge) at about 50-degrees, turned downwind and headed southwest, cruising at 160kt toward another of Kim’s cousin’s house, about 30 nm away, to blow some leaves off of her roof.  We quickly leveled off at 2,000’ and soon I heard Bill’s voice over the com say “The plane is yours. Climb on up to three thousand and aim for that snow covered hill at 11 o’clock.” Is this for real? I cautiously grasped the stick, not knowing exactly what to expect. After bouncing the thing up to 3,500 looking for a non-existent VSI, I finally realized that the Pitts doesn’t have one and figured out that I needed to fly it from the altimeter. Within a couple of minutes I started to get a feel for the stick. We had some significant turbulence and probably a 20-30kt gusting wind, so I needed to work carefully to keep the plane where I wanted it. This plane is incredibly responsive. It takes SMALL inputs.  

In some ways, the real Pitts is easier to fly than the virtual one. Being able to feel backpressure on the stick makes the real plane less twitchy than in FS. Turbulence and wind notwithstanding, I found it pretty easy to keep straight and level. From the front seat it was a challenge to see the horizon ahead over the cowling. From the rear, the forward view is so limited that Bill said he always takes a very short final because he cannot see the runway to line up if he’s too far out.    

Once we spotted Nan’s house, Bill took the plane back and the show started. After assuring him that I would let him know if I was about to mess up his airplane, he said “aileron roll” and the next thing I knew, the horizon was spinning like a propeller. WHAAGGAAA!! We came back around low and headed for Nan’s. “Now we’ll do a half loop and roll out at the top”. Suddenly the house disappeared and I became one with my seat. I looked at the G gauge and read it at 6.1. UHHHGGHHHH!!! The g’s lightened a bit and I looked out the canopy to see the house above me. He snapped the plane back and the blue was once again on top. Bill checked in with me to see if my stomach was still where it was supposed to be, then said we’d do a full loop now.  He advanced the throttle and smoothly pulled the nose up. Amazing! You see the horizon disappear, become nothing but sky, then the ground appears above you and slowly comes around in front and then becomes the horizon again. It felt almost surreal.

Now comes the real fun. “Want to do a hammerhead?” “Sure”. Full throttle again, hard nose up (another 6+ g’s) and we’re going straight up until the stall buzzer starts and the airspeed shows zero. The nose falls gently over to the left and we’re going straight down. Bill pulled the nose up at about 1,000’ and tossed in another couple of aileron rolls for good measure. We remembered that Kim was back at Fleming, waiting for her ride and figured we’d better head back.

He asked if I wanted to fly it back and after thinking about it for about .00001 millisecond, I said roger. I climbed back to 3,000’, headed for the refinery at 1 o’clock, turned left up the Mississippi River and cruised back to St. Paul. The wind had picked up a bit more and I got some good practice keeping the plane on course with the rudder. At one point we caught a bump that pushed us up almost 300’ before I could nurse it back down. Bill took the controls back for the approach and brought it in for a short final to 34. We crossed the threshold at about 80kt. and I heard the stall warning just fraction of a second before the front wheels touched. The tail wheel came down and we taxied over to the pumps for a little top-off.    

Reluctantly, I un-strapped and extracted myself, feeling at the same time exhilarated and quivery. Even though this ride was nowhere near as physically demanding as a typical aerobatic routine, I could feel the effect that the g-forces had on my muscle tissue. This has given me an even greater respect for the mental and physical conditioning that an aerobatic pilot must maintain. Bill admitted that he could easily make himself sick if he pushes the envelope too far. I WANT ONE!

After watching Bill and Kim climb out and turn south, Bob and I wandered over to a neighboring hangar where we gawked and drooled over a perfect P-51C Mustang and a neat little Marchetti trainer. We spent a couple more days in Minneapolis, which gave me an opportunity to get more information and tips from Bob and Bill. 

From Minneapolis, it was on to Washington D.C. and a day at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Before departing KMSP however, I kept myself amused by watching several NWA DC-9’s (including ours) backing away from the gates with the reversers. Anyone with an interest in aviation and opportunity to visit the museum owes it to themselves to do so.   

Flight simulation provides a fairly accurate method of learning to fly and maneuver the plane, but absolutely cannot reproduce the external forces that tell you what the airplane is doing. Granted, taking the controls of an in-flight aircraft and making a few simple turns and altitude changes is a very different matter than being responsible for the controlling and navigating the aircraft, but this experience also demonstrated the realism that exists within FS2002 and it’s value as a flight training tool. I have also confirmed that almost all the procedures that a skilled and competent FS pilot uses are the same as those used by real world pilots.  

All too soon, vacation time was over. We managed to traverse the formidable security obstacle course at Baltimore-Washington Intl. (and just WHO thought it was a good idea to put the Starbucks outside of security, anyhow?) and had a couple of smooth flights across the U.S. in a 757-200 and an A-320. I'm back home, getting ready to fire up FS2002.  Enough of those real planes... let's go flying!

Tony Radmilovich