Rico's friend
Kelley, (aka
Hauksbee, photo, center, below) a W
orld War One junkie, flew to
Dayton, Ohio to see some W
orld War One airplanes and files
this report:
The
Dawn Patrol Rendezvous at
Wright-Patterson AFB:
All-in-all, it was a little smaller, and a little thinner than I expected, but the trade-off was that there was no admission charge; just drive in. It was nearly impossible to find. Signage was next to nil. But I'd rented a car, and
Wright-Patt was huge, so I figured that I'd just drive east 'til I hit it, then look for something official (like a guard shack, or a manned gate) and ask directions. Luck brought me to the entrance of the
USAF Flight Museum. As I approached the building, I saw a hand-made sign on a stick saying
WWI Fly-In; it
had to be close. (Luck had patted me on the head again). That, and others like it, led me around the building and through various parking lots, until I came to the end of the paved area and found myself facing a huge grass field with runways. Way-the-hell-and-gone across that and up against the tree line was what appeared to be a mass of parked cars and white tents. I turned around to search out a way to get there and noticed a double line of florescent orange road cones marking a lane across the grass with lots of fresh tire tracks. This put me on a beat-to-hell tarmac road which led to another double line of cones across more grass and suddenly I was driving down a runway, which made me a tad nervous. I would not have been surprised to see a
Jeep with MPs in it appear and ask what I was doing, but just then a guy with a red flag stepped out and directed me in among the cars. I had arrived.
I walked in and checked it out. Not much was going on. It was Saturday morning and there was a wicked cross-wind, which discouraged flying. (Rain was threatening, but never arrived and Sunday was gorgeous) The first thing I noticed was all these little-bitty airplanes. They were, for the most part, three-quarter scale home-built planes tricked out to look like something historical. I knew I was not going to see
real W
orld War One airplanes, but I did expect full-sized modern replicas. No such luck. This was a gathering of garage-builders. Later it turned out that there
was a SPAD (though re-engined, which disguised it) a
Sopwith Pup, and (I think) a
Nieuport. These did
not fly. The photos don't convey the sizes well; standing next to the cockpits, one wondered how a full-grown man could possibly shoe-horn himself into one. I'd expect to see the sides of the fuselage flex in and out every time the pilot took a deep breath.
Rico says they're pretty, but he's a
World War Two plane junkie...
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