(upbeat music) - [Bill] Where can you see vintage aircraft, classic cars, and ride in a World War II C-47 that was part of the D-Day invasion?

Right here at the Estrella Warbird Museum, and Pilots, Props and Planes.

(plane engines humming) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for Pilots, Props and Planes is provided by.

(upbeat music) Reedley College is proud to be a part of the aviation industry, providing advanced education in all aspects of flight science, aviation mechanics, and professional pilot training.

Go tigers!

(plane engine whooshing) (upbeat music) - We're here at the Estella Warbirds Museum in Paso Robles, California.

It's located right in the heart of the central coast wine country of California, and in addition to the Estella Museum having a magnificent collection of vintage aircraft and vintage cars, it is also a destination point for those wishing to enjoy all of the pleasures of the wine region here in the central coast area.

(plane engine humming) We're here at the Estella Warbird Museum, and joining me right now is the president of the museum, John Couch.

John, thank you for having us on the show.

- Well, thank you for including us in your program.

Appreciate it.

- How long has the museum been in existence?

- We've been active since 1992.

- What is the purpose?

What is the mission statement of the museum as a magnificent warbird museum?

- Right, the purpose of the museum is to be able to preserve all these different items of history, and to be able to recognize those who have worked, and served, or flown an aircraft.

And obviously it's not, it's more than aircraft, but it is, it's just to not let people forget about the sacrifices of others before them.

- Ken Neuman is the museum coordinator, and Ken is gonna walk us through this facility that is behind us.

And Ken, would you tell us a little bit about this particular building, and what you are showcasing here at the museum?

- Sure.

We call this Freedom Hall, and this is kind of our crown jewel of the museum.

And really, when people come here, this is one of the first things that we like to draw them to, because it just showcases so much aviation and military history here.

And as we kind of go down here, we actually have a special part of the museum.

One of our museum members has somehow amassed this, basically, consoles from different historical planes.

So we may not have the real plane here, but we have parts of the plane where people can come up, and actually look at the instruments that were part of that plane.

- So this particular shelf here, I'm looking at this photograph here of a P-47 Thunderbolt, and that is the instrument panel out of the that?

- [Ken] That's exact, the console from it, yep.

- [Bill] Interesting.

- And if you look right behind you, we have many Japanese stuff that you can see the plane, one off of it that was in existence, and that is one of the consoles from the actual cockpit.

- [Bill] This display, Ken, features a number of ladies in both uniform and flying outfits, the WASPs.

- [Ken] Yes.

- [Bill] Tell us a little bit about the Wasp program.

- [Ken] Well, we're lucky enough to have several of the uniforms here.

And WASPs, essentially, were used in the military to ferry planes back and forth for the military.

The guys were at war, and ladies wanted jump in wherever they could, whether it be manufacturing planes, actually in this case, flying planes.

They didn't get a lot of, I will say, respect, or even a lot acknowledgement during the war, and what we're trying to do here is show our appreciation for what they did, because without them, these planes wouldn't be going to the theaters they were needed, because there just wasn't enough personnel.

- What did WASP stand for?

- Women's Auxiliary Support Pilots, and that's what they were doing.

It's kind of a cool name they were given, you know?

- Where we're standing right now at the Estella Warbird Museum, there's a magnificent collection of jet aircraft and helicopters from the Korean War era, up into modern day aircraft.

The aircraft right behind me is the venerable McDonell Douglas F-4 Phantom.

This particular airplane was flown by the United States Marine Corps in the Vietnam War era conflict, and the gentleman standing next to me, retired Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Rice of the United States Marine Corps actually flew this airplane.

Wayne, thank you for joining us on the show.

- You're welcome.

- And would you tell us a little bit about your experience in the F-4?

- Well, I ended up flying the F-4 for about 11 years in the Marine Corps total, of different squadrons.

This particular model we have here is called the F-4S, and it was the last version of the Naval versions of the F-4 made, and the difference, really, is that it had leading edge slats for additional maneuverability.

It also had what they called smokeless engines, so that big old black smoke trail disappeared with this airplane.

And it had a very more modern radar in that it was digital rather than the old tubes and klystrons, and it was a very effective airplane.

It never went into combat, though, because it came along too late.

- You flew a number of different F-4s, but this particular airframe, you actually flew this very aircraft.

- Yes, I did.

I was in, that squadron, I was the Operations Officer and the Executive Officer for a while in this particular squadron, back at Beaufort, South Carolina.

- How many different jet aircraft did you fly during your time in the Marine Corps?

- [Col. Rice] Well, I flew the F-9 in training command, flew the T-2, two versions of that, also in the training command.

I flew a lot, actually almost 1,000 hours in TA-4, the two seat A-4 Skyhawk, but most of the time was in the Phantom.

- How'd you like flying the Phantom?

- You know, it was, for a guy who was 24, 25 years old, and the government writing the check, it was just a blast.

I mean, at the time it was a, basically, the most high performing airplane that we had.

It had some drawbacks and some advantages.

So you had to learn how to take advantages of the strong points, and avoid the drawbacks.

- What were some of the drawbacks with the airplane?

- Well, it was what they called high wing loading, and so when you rip this thing into a high-G turn, it would bleed off energy fairly fast and slow down, and it wouldn't turn that tightly, and that was the big problem that we had to learn dealing with the MiGs, and although I never actually saw a MiG in combat, you trained.

The MiGs were much more maneuverable.

They much faster.

They had the speed, and they had the maneuverability.

- [Bill] So what were the advantages?

How did you turn that into an advantage against the MiG?

- Well, in the dog fight area, you used to go vertical a lot, take advantage of the power of the airplane, out climb, and keep your speed up is the situation.

You had to kind of slash and go.

Never tried to turn, because they can out turn you.

- What did your armament consist of in that type of combat?

- Well, for this airplane, this was the Naval version of the F-4, so it never had a gun.

- Okay.

- Although we did have a gun pod, but not used very often, but it carried four Sparrow missiles, which are radar-guided missiles, and it had four Sidewinder missiles, heat seekers, so eight missiles all told, yes.

- [Bill] So what is your involvement here at the museum at Estella?

- Ah, well, it was just the latest thing.

When I retired, we moved up here not knowing anything about the area.

We came from Southern California.

And it was obviously something that was of interest, since I, and one of the first things I saw was this airplane.

I said, you know, duh.

(chuckles) And I looked up my logbook, and looked up the tail letters on the airplane, and said, "You know, I flew that airplane."

So I came out here and joined the museum, spent one year as the president, and been here at the museum since basically 2005.

- What I'd really like our audience to know, especially the fact that, first of all, we thank you for your service to our country.

- You're welcome.

- And secondly, for getting involved with the museum, because we're keeping, and you're keeping aviation history alive.

- Oh, yeah.

- And that's what this museum is all about.

- Exactly.

- Besides being a wonderful destination point where people see a wide range of aircraft, it's people like you who actually flew these airplanes, and can talk about the history, and how important our history is to us still.

- Well, yeah, it's something I enjoy.

I was not a science guy in college.

I was basically political science.

(chuckling) So ended up doing this instead, but I always wanted to fly, and this is kind of keeping things going, 'cause I'm still flying.

- Good for you, and happy to hear that.

- And I enjoy it, and I can talk, fortunately, about a lot of these airplanes, 'cause either having direct experience, or knowing somebody who did have an experience- - Sure.

- It's useful.

- Well, thank you very much for joining us today, and we appreciate your time and your expertise.

- Okay, well thank you.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for coming by, and giving us a little air time.

- Our pleasure.

One of the early primary trainers of World War II was the Boeing-built PT-17 Stearman.

What happens when you add a cockpit canopy, and turn this vintage biplane into a modern day aerobatic wonder?

Keep watching.

- It's probably the only Stearman flying the United States that's modified like this, 'cause there's a lot of things that I incorporated myself in the airplane to make it fly better, and that's one of the reasons why it is such a good air performer for relatively a stock airframe.

The wings been modified a little bit.

It's got four ailerons.

It's has spades on it, and a large engine.

And then it's got a lot of things done to it like the little minor things that look minor, like the wheels.

The size of the wheels are smaller, which gives it less drag, and the canopy really helps too.

The canopy makes the airplane perform fly better.

So this airplane has enough unique modifications on it that it really does well, and a lot of people think that a lot of is me, and it's me too, because I've been flying airplanes for many years, and I'm accustomed to a Stearman, but also it's kind of tricked out, you would say, for the air shows to work.

I like to take off downwind.

I do a roll, and I roll inverted, like a one and half roll inverted, and then I'll do a real sharp push and turn, and do a 270 degree turn, and I'll do a climbing turn.

And I like to climb up to about eight, 900 feet minimum, and then I'll dive down right in front of show center again.

And I pull up, and I call it the wopovoc, because a the Lomcovák is when you do the outside snap, and this is inside, because it's relatively low, and it's more under control, and I'll do a snap going up, and the airplane rotates around, comes back, and then I'll come out of that wopovoc, and I'll go down toward the end of the runway, and you push up, and you do a vertical half roll, push over the top, and then that puts me about 1100 feet, 1200 feet.

Then I come down out of that, and then I pull up, and I do a vertical roll into a torque roll, where the airplane stops, rotates, and starts coming back through the smoke again.

Well, that's pretty impressive for a big airplane like this.

And I think I'm probably one of the only guys doing it in a Stearman now.

I started it, because I just enjoy doing aerobatics.

And now as time goes on, there's tremendous satisfaction out of doing aerobatics, and you know, everybody's got a little bit of an ego about it, 'cause you can do it.

You like doing it.

You like to show off is what happens.

But what happens, I think my satisfaction is from the people that I touch, you know, like older people, maybe somebody that flew in World War II, or maybe some little kid that comes up, and looks up to you, and wants a ride, or you take for a ride.

I've had numerous of these young people I've taken for rides at 14, 15 years old.

Then next thing you know, about six years later, they're driving an F-18 or something, and they come up, "Hey, hi, Eddie," and you know, it's just really gratifying to see that you're able to do something that the people enjoy, and I enjoy doing.

(plane engine cranking) (plane engine humming) - I've kinda always just been a lifelong lover of all things airplane, and always, you know, worked my way up, and whenever there's a flying job, I always jump on it.

This is just so much fun.

We have such a great group of volunteers that keep this airplane flying for everybody.

And I feel very lucky to be one of the volunteers that gets to keep this airplane moving for people to see and enjoy it.

- You know, so you mentioned volunteers, and I understand perfectly well how volunteers play into keeping an airplane like this, but there's gotta be a lot more.

What else is involved?

I mean, it's gotta take a few dollars to keep this airplane airborne.

- [Ben] Absolutely.

- [Bill] How do you obtain that?

- [Ben] Definitely all through donors.

So part of being at the Estrella Warbirds Museum gets us a lot of people come in and see the airplane, and realize what we're doing with it, and we've had some very generous donors that helped us do some amazing things that got us to the big trip that we did back in 2019 of flying the airplane all the way over to England for the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

Took some big dollars, just, you know, even just for fuel, and we did some avionics upgrades, and another engine, and all those things were made possible because of our donors, and then our dedicated crew of volunteers.

And I think of all the airplanes that made the trip over there for the anniversary, we probably had one of the smallest groups of volunteers, but some really hard workers that pitched in, and made it a reality.

- That must have been quite an undertaking to fly airplanes that are as old as the history that separates today from the invasion to get that back across the Atlantic again, to reenact that.

- Absolutely.

Again, it was one of those things that just, you know, an amazing feeling to be part of flying an airplane like this.

There's that much history built in that this is the actual veteran airplane.

Really fun to be a part of it.

- You must have flown a lot of different airplanes in your career.

- A few, yeah.

- How does the DC-3, or the C-47 in this case, the military equivalent, how does that compare to your other aviation experiences?

- Well, you know, it's, every airplane is unique, and every airplane I've ever flown, I always kind of love for one reason or another.

And this airplane is amazing just for this scale of it, right?

It flies a lot like, you know, other smaller airplanes, but the relative simplicity of it compared to modern airplanes, and the amount that it could carry, where the fuel burn is still amazing, right?

It's still amazing airplane for still a lot of moving parts and maintenance, but it was just, it's amazing to think what we had, you know, back in the '30s when this was originally designed.

- There's a saying about aviation historians, that the airlines taught the Army Air Corps, the Navy, how to fly the DC-3, yet the Army and the Navy taught the airlines how to overload a DC-3.

(chuckles) - That is about right, and that is very interesting.

The military manuals for this airplane, you know, we're used to civilian airplanes, there's always a maximum gross takeoff weight, and that's the number, and that's it, period.

The military manual with this airplane had a 33,000 pound gross weight, and then there was this extra part of the envelope that's yellow, and it says, if you have approval from the base commander, you can go up to a certain weight, and then there's even an emergency weight, which is like, if people are shooting at you, this is how much you can put in it, and it'll probably still fly.

And so we, 33 was the standard gross weight in the military configuration, and this is actually now certified as a DC-3, so we can operate it and take it to air shows, and so we have an even lower, more conservative gross weight that guarantees, gets solid climb performance, even if we're at a certified gross weight.

- But it's an incredible testament to the design of the airplane that more than 80 years later, the airplane is still flying.

- [Ben] Yeah, there really is.

- There's an old joke about Provincetown Boston Airline used to fly a DC-3 up and down the east coast up until probably about 15 or 20 years ago, and it was considered one of the high time DC-3s that was still left in flying, and I read this account of a lady passenger getting on board, and having a conversation with the captain.

And she asked the captain as she was boarding the airplane, "Captain, this airplane is very old.

Is it safe?"

And the captain replied "Well, how do you think it got to be so old?"

These airplanes are still flying it.

It's amazing.

- [Ben] Yeah, it is.

- And I can appreciate what you said earlier about the amount of volunteer effort that goes into maintaining this airplane.

If you had to guess, and you may know, per hour flown, how many hours are involved with maintaining the airplane to get that hour of flying?

- You know, that's a good question.

I don't have an actual number there.

I'm sure someone's figured that out, but that's definitely the biggest activity at the museum is everybody coming out to maintain, and do scheduled inspections, and repair, and rebuild things as as they need work.

And that's, you know, we feel lucky when we get to fly it, but really, the major activity is preserving and maintaining this airplane.

Well, Ben, thank you very much for the opportunity to ride up here in the cockpit.

- [Ben] Absolutely.

- Magnificent flight.

This is really a thrill.

It's a thrill for me.

I have always wanted to ride up in the front end of the DC-3 or a C-47, and I appreciate that opportunity.

- [Ben] Well, since you're sitting here, you might as well do some flying.

- I would love to.

- I'm just gonna bring your power back up here to 25 inches, which is gonna give us just a cruise climb.

You can just keep a shallow climb going.

We'll come up to about 2,500 feet, and you have the controls.

- I have the controls.

- Trim there for a climb.

Here's your elevator trim right here if you need that.

And we'll head just about 15 degrees to the left, where we're heading right towards Cambria.

We'll head up towards, up the coast, and we'll fly by the Hearst Castle up there for everybody to see.

- [Bill] Okay.

- [Ben] You'll find the ailerons are quite heavy, and it's really a rudder airplane.

The rudder is very effective, and lighter in control field than the ailerons are.

We've recovered the ailerons.

Well, all the control services airplane twice now.

Each aileron is 19 feet long, which I don't know if you've rebuilt small airplanes, but that's about as big as the wings on a Taylorcraft.

- And I actually, my first airplane was a Taylorcraft, so I can appreciate that.

(plane engine humming) So yes, I do feel how heavy it is on the controls.

- Yep, definitely no hydraulic help here.

It's just all cables, but again, that lends to the simplicity, and the maintainability, and the utility of this airplane is that it's still a pretty simple airplane.

- So trim control.

- Yep, you want a little more nose down here?

If you can aim for about 100 knots.

- Okay.

- [Ben] There you go, that's good speed.

- So even as a big twin engine aircraft, there still is a lot of rudder input to maintain.

- [Ben] Yep.

But it doesn't take a lot of force in the rudder.

Obviously, the rudder is sized to be able to control the airplane when an engine fails, right?

- Wow, cool.

Well, I'm definitely used to flying smaller aircraft, antiques, Stearman.

I just sold a Bücker Jungmann project, but certainly my first love is antique biplanes and Pitts, and that genre of aircraft, but this is a thrill.

This is a treat.

- I've got a '77 Great Lakes 2T-1A.

- [Bill] Do you really?

- That I own with a partner, and we restored it.

That's a lot of fun airplane to fly, and it's, because it just has the light combing, it's more affordable than a, you know, you get into a Stearman, it's a little bit different budget.

- No doubt about that.

- Maybe you need a little nose up trim here.

Let's try and keep the climb going.

- Okay.

- [Ben] Up to 2,500.

(plane engine humming) - [Bill] How is that?

- [Ben] That looks good, yeah.

Anywhere a 100, 110 knots is gonna keep us climbing gradually, and that's perfect.

(plane engine humming) - So how close are we getting to San Simeon now?

- I don't know if you see that little fog bank there.

That's the little bay right there, so just to the right of, and just past that fog bank is about where San Simeon is.

- Okay.

- But if you're ready to give it up, I'll take the controls.

- So we're at about 1,600 now?

- [Ben] Yep.

- You want to get to 2,500?

- Yeah, by the time we get up there, I think if we just keep it about 100 knots, we'll do that.

I can add a little, a couple four inches here.

- [Crew] We're, about eight minutes out of the turn, and we're climbing at about a 100, so we'll be right there.

Nose down a little.

- [Crew] Here's Scott.

- [Ben] Okay.

All right.

- [Bill] All right, you ready to take it?

- I have the controls.

- [Bill] Go ahead, you have the control controls.

- Thank you.

- [Ben] You're welcome.

- Very cool.

- [Ben] Thanks for coming.

- Very cool.

- [Ben] Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you as well, and much appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

(plane engine humming) (indistinct chatter) Thank you for joining us today, and we hope that you enjoyed our ride on Betsy's Biscuit Bomber.

We look forward to seeing you again on the next Pilots, Props, and Planes.

- [Announcer] Funding for Pilots, Props and Planes is provided by.

Reedley College, nestled against the Sierra in central California, offers a full spectrum of flight science, aviation mechanics, and professional pilot education in an affordable community college setting.

Go tigers!

(plane engine whooshing) (upbeat music)