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"AirFest Avenger"

Chuck Wentworth ranks as one of the most remarkable pilots in the history of the Reno National Championship Air Races. In 1981, he was racing his Cassutt Formula One, "Flexi-Flyer," (Formerly the Vomit Comet), Race 69, when the engine suddenly and violently broke loose from the mounts. A thin safety cable, adopted by Formula One rules, kept the engine — albeit severely ajar — on the nose of the aircraft, preventing what would certainly have been an accident resulting in the loss of the aircraft and pilot.

Chuck glided the "Flexi-Flyer" off the course and onto the main ramp for a successful emergency landing in which no one was hurt, either in the cockpit or on the ground. You would think, coming so close to death, that he would be deterred from Air Racing, but not Chuck Wentworth. Two years later, he raced the very same aircraft in the Gold Race at the 1983 Reno Air Races, and finished first at a speed of 239.02 mph, to become that year's National Champion in Formula One.

Chuck has since retired from Air Racing, and now owns Antique Aero, a company that first began as Jim and Zona Appleby's creation at Flabob Airport, near Riverside, California; before moving to Apple Valley, California, near Chuck's home in Hesperia, California, after he purchased it; and finally moving to Paso Robles Airport, Paso Robles, California, where Chuck maintains Antique Aero as an aircraft restoration and replication facility, while participating in the building of the local Air Museum's collection.

Among the replica Warbirds in Chuck's collection, a series of beautifully built World War I fighters, like the Fokker Dr.1 Triplane, the Fokker DVII, the Sopwith Camel and the Nieuport 17. In the restored Warbirds category, Chuck's facility is home to two very special airplanes, the Vought F-4U Corsair and this:

...a Grumman TBM Avenger, one of the two types of carrier-based torpedo planes instrumental in winning World War II for the allies.

This particular aircraft carries the markings of President George Bush Sr., who flew an Avenger during World War II from the decks of the USS San Jacinto, and was even shot down on one occasion, bailing out at the last moment, but in no position to assist his two crewmembers, who perished in the crash.

Chuck has shown the aircraft at major Air Shows in the California area, including Riverside, Minter Field, and in 2002, Grass Valley, where he met up with photographer Mike Gallagher in John Parker's American Air Racing Piper Seneca photo plane, over the forest-covered, rolling hillsides, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The visit to Grass Valley may have been a homecoming for this particular aircraft, which reportedly operated in Department of Forestry service as an Air Attack tanker during the 1960s and 70s. In the previous year, AirFest 2001 at Grass Valley played host to a Grumman F-7F Tigercat which, indeed, had served at Grass Valley, during the dangerous fire seasons that especially occur in the Summer and early Fall.

Thus, the crews at AirFest 2002 were looking forward to seeing the TBM on the Grass Valley strip again, with many young men and old timers in the local area, having distinct memories of TBM operations on the Nevada County Airport, which sits between Nevada City and Grass Valley itself.

The aircraft and pilot made many friends of the local residents and firefighters here, along with visiting soldiers who came to AirFest 2002 at Grass Valley, bearing memories of the TBM from their time in service during WWII.

Old soldiers may fade away, but men like Chuck Wentworth keep their memories alive by preserving those Warbirds that were lucky enough to escape the scrapper's torch at Davis-Monthan AFB, or the bulldozer in the South Pacific.

Which leads us to believe that no matter who flew the old Warbirds then, and no matter who flies them today, there is always a hero in the cockpit.

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