Twins and Twin

Today we got out to the field for a well deserved flying day. The sky looked as though it was going to consume us in rain any second but the overcast and no winds allowed for a great time. The decision was made to do some formation flying of our warbirds. I own the F-82 twin mustang sporting 60th anniversary Fox.35's while Dan is flying the Bearcat with his homebuilt Fox.35 twin. Dan is responsible for the building of both planes. I however had to rebuild, recover and repaint the F-82 5 years ago. The F-82 has some neat history behind it as it was built on Dan's bunk on the USS Forrestal. Dan at the time was a F-4 Phantom mechanic and eventually ended up as a F-14 mechanic. We figured the planes were built in 1983-1984. I ended up rebuilding the plane entirely in 2006 as it was totally wrecked. It suffered a wreck on my 3rd flight as I had the lines hooked up backwards, (you can't see the stab through the tall rudders).

Both planes suprisingly flew at similar speeds and used the identical amount of fuel. Each plane burned up 8 oz's a flight and all engines believe it or not cut simultaneously. Both planes were flown on 66' lines eyelet to eyelet. The talk was to fly level and just take it easy. This worked well for about 3 laps when they both went into the wingover together. I had to smile as my son was putting it through the paces. The inverted flight was impressive as Dan would fly the Bearcat inches and I mean inches above the ground while my son had the Mustang inverted and approx 18" off the belly of the Bearcat and this went on for 5 laps inverted. These two are some serious showmen. The had done wingovers from opposite sides crossing at the top looked as though they were going to have a head on, I don't know how they missed. The combat instincts were taking over and I had to yell out that were not here to have a combat match. I didn't want to have to take this one home in a trash bag. The picture quality isn't the best due to the overcast skies. Ken