The Liberty Foundation Goes to DC

The Liberty Foundation Goes to DC!

I spend a lot of my own time working on Chalk 40, the C-47 that stays here at West Georgia Regional Airport. What I don’t spend my time doing is flying with it to airshows and events all across the region. Thankfully this time was different as I hopped in with John Hess, his son Jason, and Melisa Fowler to make our way to Washington-Dulles airport (KIAD) on Friday, June 13th. We departed in marginal VFR conditions and made our way to the north side of Atlanta’s bravo before picking up and IFR clearance. Jason, who is a bit of a techy, jerry-rigged a Starlink antenna beneath the bubble canopy that’s mounted on the top of the airplane which gave us impressively fast in-flight WiFi! John allowed me to get some hands-on flying time in the left seat as I diverted left and right around build ups and getting some good actual IFR time. Then he took over as we made our arrival into IAD landing runway 19L.

As you probably guessed or heard, we were up here for the United States Army 250th Anniversary event. At least, that’s all that I knew. We were parking at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, aka the National Air and Space Museum. As we pulled up I spotted our P-51, Old Crow, parked among four or five other P-51s as well as a B-25 Mitchell and, to my surprise, a Luftwaffe Airbus A400! We were directed to our parking spot, and we secured the airplane. It was a rather warm day, so we went inside into their Preservation and Restoration hangar to wait on our ride to the hotel. Right off the bat there’s an F-86 Sabre hanging upside down from a large stand. Oh, and a SSME which stands for Space Shuttle Main Engine! Yes, this one flew! At this time about 20 to 25 of us were gathering and catching up with each other. Except for me because I’m still pretty new to the warbird side of aviation outside of my home airport. Not long though we loaded up our bags and ourselves on a tour bus and rode 5 minutes to the hotel across the interstate only to come back to something pretty special.

We arrived back at the museum and families were making their way out the doors and into the parking lot. Chimes are going off over the PA system stating that the museum is closing as we make our way back to the Preservation and Restoration hangar. Here I find out we’re being offered a private tour of the restoration hangar! We were allowed to take pictures but restricted from posting online and on social media. So unfortunately I can’t share them here. Christopher Browne, the director of the Museum, introduced us to the facility and his team. The tour was soon taken over by Dr. Jeremy Kinney who is the Associate Director of Research and was assisted by Nelson Blankenship who is the Preservation and Restoration Unit Chief. We were shown a number of aircraft that the staff refers to as “artifacts” to include a B-26 Marauder that was in separate pieces. This B-26 known as Flak-Bait is in the process of preservation as the team works to preserve the condition of the airframe. The only repairs that will be made are any severe corrosion and damage from shipping decades ago when it came from Europe. The paint is original straight from the factory. Every patch is from combat damage. The bottom side of the wings once had invasion stripes painted on them but were later removed during service yet evidence of them remained. Long story short this bomber started with a reputation as being one of the more poorer quality aircraft that aircrews flew and would mumble about flying in. But it quickly became the one aircraft that would always come back from every mission. It flew over 200 missions! 

We saw a few other artifacts to include a Huey helicopter that was pulled from the museum floor to be transferred to a new exhibit in downtown DC later next year. I have a buddy whose grandfather flew this exact Huey in Vietnam so I had to get pictures of it and keep him posted on the changes being made. Not long after we made our way back to the museum floor where it was a bit darker than before due to some of the lights being turned off. But it created a bit of a romantic atmosphere as we made our way through the doors and to a walkway intersection where a cocktail bar was setup and four dinner tables were being set beside it. We were invited to wander the museum for the next half hour as dinner was being prepared. Our tables were being made in front of the Boeing 707 that Tex Johnson rolled over the Puget Sound. I explored a little bit admiring the fact that I was here exactly one year and one day ago before and had no idea at that time that I would be back here doing what I was doing now. I met up with Nelson Blankenship (Restoration Unit Chief) and talked with him for about 15 minutes. We both came from the Air Force out of High School as aircraft electricians. He continued his service in the Navy and then civil service which eventually led him to his current job.

In order to keep this portion brief, dinner was delicious, and we even had dessert. The night concluded with a final exploration of the museum at our leisure until the last bus ride was scheduled to take us to the hotel. I must explain this one moment I had, though. I met with my group and walked through the museum. We walked downstairs that descended next to the Space Shuttle Discovery. The hangar was lit but dark as individual spotlights illuminated from the bottom portions of the shuttle. There was absolutely no one else around. No sound of kids running or yelling, no chatter from the usual hundreds of visitors at a time, nothing of the sorts. The moment was surreal as you could just quietly observe such a magnificent piece of engineering that had traveled to and from space. It was amazing, to say the least. I know I’m not doing the moment justice. An opportunity was there to get the perfect picture of the shuttle with zero distractions. What an opportunity!

It’s when we got back to the hotel that I realized I didn’t know all of the details of this trip. We weren’t up here just for the anniversary celebration. The museum was holding a Family Day from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm and we were using the warbirds as static displays which is why we were wined and dined. It also explained why the A400 from Germany was here as well as some Navy rotorcraft and a P-3 Hurricane Hunter that showed up later after we did. My day started at 0700 and I was pretty much overseeing that static display of the C-47. Throughout the day and thanks to the help of Joshua, Jason, and John we had hundreds of visitors cycle through the C-47 looking at the flightdeck and walking up and down the cargo area. Towards the end of the event a few folks from the reenactment camp came by that were geared up as if they were jumping out of our airplane. Turned out they were a part of a parachuting team which had jumped out of this C-47 a couple years ago in Peachtree City, Georgia. They took turns as they ushered families on board and gave them a run down on how to jump out of our C-47. They even had them repeat commands! The kids had a blast as they pretended to jump out of the door. Oh, and it was HOT that day. I don’t remember the temperature but definitely at least high 80’s plus the added heat inside the airplane.

The event came to a close and the static displays that had flown in yesterday quickly departed except for those of us that were here for the parade which were four P-51’s, the B-25, and us in the C-47. Not long after unmarked vans started to show up and people in polos and K9s began to go through our airplanes. It was TSA, an EOD team from the Department of Defense, and Secret Service. They were all very nice and easy to work with. They verified our ID’s and went though our airplanes for obvious reasons since we were about to fly over the national mall where the President would be. Melisa loves dogs so she had one of them sit in the pilot seat of the C-47 which made for an irresistible photo op. Once everything was clear we just hung tight until our time came.

Our original ToT (Time on Target) over the capital was 1901 (7:01 pm). It was around 1745 when we got loaded up and engines started as an opportunity to go earlier presented itself. There were two flights involved, Warbird 1 and Warbird 2. Warbird 1 was the B-25 and two P-51’s and Warbird 2 was us in the C-47 and the other 2 P-51’s to include Ray in Old Crow. John Hess was PIC, Melissa was SIC, and I was a safety observer positioned behind them. Behind me was a Secret Service agent along for the ride, again for obvious reasons. We taxied out to runway 1R where about 5 United Airlines Jets were waiting to depart. We did our runups and were off the ground pretty quickly. Dulles Tower and Potomac Approach were involved with the planning and execution of this event as well. Both flights went into a hold southwest of the capital mall. We held for probably 10 minutes until we got the final ToT which I believe was 1636. Rain showers had popped up though and I was watching as they took over Manasses and headed to DC. It wasn’t enough to cancel though. Visibility dropped to about four miles, and we worked to maintain about 30 seconds separation between us and Warbird 1. Before I knew it I spotted the Washington Monument, and I took a couple seconds to look out the left window. I saw the White House but that was pretty much it as I had to go back to keeping my eyes on Warbird 1 and the engine instruments.

We broke off to the right after we flew past the monument and at the point I had lost Warbird 1 in the rain. We contacted Potomac Approach and got radar vectors back to Dulles behind them. We eventually got them back in sight as we got out of the weather. We entered a right downwind for runway 1R but there was a heavy rain shower immediately south of the field that restricted the final to about 2 miles. We opted for a short overhead initial as it’s the quickest was to get all of us on the ground. Unfortunately, there were about 8 airliners waiting for us to land and to top it all off someone in the tower made the needed decision to switch flows. In other words, the airport was going to switch from taking off and landing northbound to southbound. We all landed uneventfully with only one United Captain keying up on the towered frequency saying, “Why are we waiting on these guys?!” who was then promptly ignored. We held short of a taxiway for about 20 minutes as Dulles Ground worked to get 8 airliners from ERJs to 767s turned around and headed to the opposite end also get all of us warbirds back to the museum. It was a fascinating glimpse into the complexity of ATC having to juggle so many things going on at once. My hats go off to them!

We made it back with everyone wearing big smiles and swapping high-fives. The Army Captain that was our liaison told us that President Trump looked up at us and gave us a thumbs-up as we flew by. We parked the Mustangs inside the restoration hangar and headed back to the hotel. We all went straight to the hotel restaurant where most of us treated ourselves to a steak dinner and a drink or two. After a couple of hours of socializing we all headed to our rooms. I for one had felt like I had worked a 12 hour day in the peak of summer in Kuwait back during my last deployment. I was beat! But I was also in awe of what I had done today. I hopefully helped inspire some younger folks with our C-47 but I know we brought a lot of joy to a lot of people during the family day event. We successfully executed a fly-by operation that was attended by the highest officials of our country. But regardless of how you see this parade that took place whether it was for our military or for someone specific, we honored 250 years of the United States Army and every service member past and present with equipment that served in the Army Air Forces, with living history. That’s what all of us did it for and that is what it is about for all of us.

The next morning, we were faced with low IFR and marginal VFR our entire route home. Thankfully the C-47 is IFR equipped and certified so once the bases got a bit higher we loaded up and came home. The B-25 is VFR only and personal minimums weren’t met for the Mustang pilots. Ray flew home with us and after 4 hours of flying we finally made it home. Oh, and I finally got to land the C-47! I still don’t know how to describe it because it was unlike anything I’ve done before. Overall, it was a mission success, and The Liberty Foundation will financially benefit from this event which will help keep our aircraft going and work towards building a museum of our own here at CTJ. There are other airshows and events on the horizon. And word is already going around that we’re wanted back for another 250th anniversary that’s coming next year. You can probably figure out what that may be…