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A Ride To Tunica

WOW - What a ride to the Tunica, MS, Air Races last week!!

I was fortunate to get a ride in the back of Speedball Alice, Art Vance's P-51. About 1700 Nautical miles—with 4 two hour legs!! I rode with Art three legs and with Dan one leg going and all with Art coming home. The P-51 is actually not too bad in the back!!

The ride in the Sea Fury was great too, but more cramped with a backpack parachute on!!

At 11500 feet—it was nice and cool in the P-51—normally known for a "Warm" ride in the back!! Art was a lot of fun to fly with, we were constantly looking at the scenery and even did a few rolls above the clouds to break the monotony.

We were chasing a large storm the whole flight and finally caught it; East Texas and on across Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi. We had to go down to 1200—1500 ft to stay under the cloud deck in scattered rain showers for the last couple hours. It is quite a feat to herd 6 - WWII fighters across the US, with virtually no maintenance problems, in weather part of the time and keep them all in the same sky!

Part of my duties were to keep track of Buttons in the P-51 and Dan in the Sea Fury. We flew a loose fingertip formation, with us the 6th plane in the rear. I also kept track of our location on a WAC chart and occasionally gave Art a VOR Frequency for double-checking location; helps take the boredom away and setting under the canopy—in the sun—keeps you awake.

I had been in the back of the Sea Fury with Lloyd to Moose Jaw, Canada, and Kansas City, and Sherman, Texas. Also with CJ to Denver, so I felt comfortable riding along! I feel really fortunate, as not many people are lucky enough to ever do this in their lifetime and here I have done it many times! It gets hectic, hot (on the ground in AZ, NM, & TX), cramped, noisy, busy and sometimes—even bordering on "boring"—But I would not miss it for anything!

The Races were typical Air Racing: lots of fun; dusty (trying to keep the plane clean); safe, only one Mayday (SeaFury911 burnt a piston); typical controversy (Hey -it was the first time out) but all in all, a great race and time.

Hope we do it again next year.

Here are a few "Quotes" from the trip=

1. Mike said "Now stay with me guys, the weather will get better - I Hope."
2. Art said "Hey - the weather looks better - 'Upside Down'"
3. Larry says "Smile - you are on candid camera"
4. Matt says In fact - He never stopped saying--
5. Al said "What - Only 37 miles to dinner???"
6. Art said "Tower at 1100 - Never mind - We missed it!!!

Story and photography by: Larry Rengstorf

For further information on the Tunica Air Races and Air Show
http://tunicaairraces.com

About The Author Larry Rengstorf has long been a fixture in air racing at the National Championship Air Races. Among many other duties, Larry was crew chief for the late Lloyd Hamilton.