How To Survive Oshkosh: Lessons from a 40 Year Veteran Winged Victory Ep 27

Rob and Scott sit down with Greg and Mary Kaminski and talk about 40 years of Oshkosh, Minnesota museum scene and talk about the Vast difference of Gregs uncle piloting a B-17 in Europe at the beginning of the war to his father waist Gunning in a B-17 at the end of the war.
We experienced some technical Difficulties with one of the cameras during this conversation, so please enjoy the reprieve of not having to see your hosts, until the end anyway...

#warbirds #museum #flying  #ww2 #airplane #pilot  #podcast  #planes  #history #aviation #b17 #oshkosh #eaa     #nationalmuseumofwwiiaviation

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Transcript

SPEAKER_09 0:13

My brother got me excited about aviation. From there, you know, when you decide to do something, you jump in with both feet.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Or I do at least. They wanted to do something with the concept of building something wrapped around World War II aviation.

SPEAKER_09 0:29

You know, I think that I've I've always wanted to build a museum.

SPEAKER_08 0:33

From an early age, six or seven years old, all I wanted to be is around these World War II airplanes.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

It's amazing how much goes on behind the scenes here.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

The museum as a whole is much more than the airplanes.

SPEAKER_08 0:56

Everything moves, it comes to life, a learning environment that hopefully can engage everybody, telling the story of the people who were there. Let's not do that again. And I'm gonna walk you through what we do every morning to bring the museum to life.

SPEAKER_09 1:23

To see it and build it, and then I think in the last two years, watch it actually blossom and flourish.

SPEAKER_10 1:49

You know, my dad's business went from a couple of guys that were barely making it to a pretty proficient restoration shop, if not the number one shop in the world, really.

SPEAKER_08 2:01

We would say, hey, we this is what we need to do. Because if not, it's gonna take us six years to make that project.

SPEAKER_11 2:07

So it's it's quite a feat to restore these airplanes to flying.

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Welcome to another episode of Winged Victory with Rob and Yay Scott!

SPEAKER_10 3:26

Scott, I'm back.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Newly improved.

SPEAKER_10 3:28

Yeah, getting closer to being a bionic man.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Yep. Our guests this morning are Mary Kaminsky.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Hello, guys.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

And her husband, Greg, who has managed to stay married to her for 47 years.

SPEAKER_06 3:46

47 going on 48.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

And you gotta be doing something right, but we'll uh we'll we won't talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

No, we won't.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

We won't. Let's not.

SPEAKER_10 3:57

This isn't marriage counseling one-on-one.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

Well, believe me, they could probably do it, and some of us, well, not me now, could profit. But you know, we've all of us West Coast guys who've been talking about Reno, but these people know the big leagues, Oshkosh. Greg, you've been there going for 40 years. 40 years. And and you're going again this year? How many years have the two of you been going?

SPEAKER_04 4:29

22.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 4:31

I had to call my daughter-in-law up last night and say, when did you guys get married? So that's how I knew, because then girls were allowed to go. Otherwise, it was just the boys that went.

SPEAKER_10 4:41

Okay. I like that philosophy. So um before we maybe get into the Oshkosh stuff, what what was something that got you going in the whole aviation? Why why were you even initiating yourself to go see Oshkosh? What was what was the primer from that?

SPEAKER_06 5:00

Well, when you grow up in the Minneapolis area, which is close to Oshkosh, just over uh 250 miles. Yeah, it's in the news. I mean, you're aware of it and stuff. And I've always been interested in aviation. As a matter of fact, when I was uh very young, like infant, my uncle who lived across the alley from us would go over to my parents and say, Can I take Greg to the airport to watch airplanes? He wanted an excuse because he didn't have any kids yet. So uh so yeah, I've been going to the airport a lot. And um again, being aware of Osh Gosh, when we moved to uh back to Minnesota, we were living in Maryus from New Jersey, um came back, and that was in 85. Well, 86 comes along, and my cousin Steve says, uh, do you want to go to Oshkosh? That his brother-in-law flies a 170 for work, and he was gonna go, let's go camp under the wing. And I thought, oh, that'd be just great. You know, so that was the first year that I went was uh was in 86. And um and we flew in. Oshgosh has a unique arrival procedure.

SPEAKER_10 6:32

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

Yeah, big big notice to Airmen and Mariners.

SPEAKER_10 6:37

Oh my gosh. Have you read through it? Oh, I've read through it, yes.

SPEAKER_06 6:41

And you can imagine the chaos that exists. If everybody did what they're supposed to do, it's well managed. Um you essentially fly to a point in space and start lining up. And faster aircraft are 100 feet higher, slower aircraft are below, so they try to separate that out as best they can.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Yeah, separation is probably a really good thing.

SPEAKER_06 7:09

Right. And you turn your transponder off because there's so many aircraft in that area, it's just garbage on a radar anyway.

SPEAKER_07 7:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:18

So you turn that off and you don't talk on the radio. That's very important. You can't have everybody talking on the radio.

SPEAKER_10 7:26

Well, especially some goober. You know. Well, there's always the guy that keys up and then doesn't unkey. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 7:33

That happens all the time. Open mic. And so you're flying in and you're you're you get behind somebody. It doesn't matter who, you get behind somebody. So this keeps on building, building, building. When we got to that point, I'm looking around, it's like mosquitoes in the air. And I'm like, how in the heck is this going on? Well, we got behind one guy, and he was flying about 50 feet or more too low from where he was supposed to be. And they have ground controllers, remote ground controllers, and they'll say, like, uh uh, red high wing, rock your wings. And then you're just supposed to give a little rock. So that there's sort of a two-way communication. This guy would rock his wings with every radio call. Every radio call.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

Desperate to be part of the part of the bunch.

SPEAKER_06 8:28

I don't know what was going on. And then we got to the point where you're either going to turn right and you'll land to the north, or you will go to the left and then go in and land going east. And these two runways do not cross.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Well, that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_06 8:47

Okay. So they told the guy in front of us uh, you know, Rocky Rings, yeah, okay. And uh go to the right, you're gonna be landing to the north, you know, on 3-6. He went the other way. And they told us to follow him, you know, in the same communication. And so we're like, do we follow him or not? And we just, no, we're gonna go the way he was supposed to go.

SPEAKER_05 9:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:15

So we go down there and we're going in on final. Couple things. One, I'm wondering, is he getting 3-6 and 1-8 mixed up? And we're gonna catch him coming this way. Um that didn't happen. I mean, we never saw him again. But when you're landing at Oshgosh, and this this is fun. Uh we'll talk about that maybe in a little bit, but um, they have dots on the runway. And there's so much traffic coming in that they actually land two aircraft on the same runway at the same time. They'll tell you what color.

SPEAKER_10 9:49

Is it just two now? Or is because I've seen four dots on it.

SPEAKER_06 9:52

There's there's more dots. They normally use um two of them. Two of them. Okay. Yeah, they don't normally land four at once. Yeah. But maybe they'll land somebody further down or whatever. And then on the the 3-6 runway, um, they actually use the taxiway also as a to land? To land on. It's much less than the width of the main.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

I suppose so, but then again, you're sharing the main with somebody else.

SPEAKER_06 10:23

Well, you don't share it this way, you share it this way.

SPEAKER_10 10:25

Well, that's good. So at this point, how much experience have you had flying? Is this kind of your one of your first experiences?

SPEAKER_06 10:31

Or uh no, it's not my first. I don't remember when I first flew. Um I I guess I can't answer that without giving it some thought.

SPEAKER_10 10:42

Well, uh, my my point is like that's the first time you fly into Oshkosh compared to maybe flying in today, like how much um was it perilous? Was it just oh ignorance was bliss?

SPEAKER_06 10:56

No, no. The only time I was concerned was how does this all get together?

SPEAKER_10 11:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 11:04

Once we were in line, um I felt pretty comfortable until this guy went that way. And then I said, I was in the front seat on the right side, and I said, I'm just gonna look for that other guy coming the other way. Just you land the plane. Yeah, well, I'm gonna look this way, don't worry about that. I'll see him if he's coming that way.

SPEAKER_10 11:24

It's nice to have a second set of eyes. Yeah. It kind of has an idea. Vital.

SPEAKER_06 11:28

And and you know, it's always a big deal. You know, I I flew into Oshkosh. And then the other thing is camping under the wing. You know, you gotta camp under the wing one time.

SPEAKER_10 11:41

One time. Notice how he said that. One time.

SPEAKER_06 11:45

Until the storm comes. Till the storm comes, and guess what? There's a storm every year. We were soaked. We were absolutely soaked. We we were in the tent, and it was you don't get to pick really well, you know, if you're in a dip or whatever or not. So but uh it was so much fun. I think we were there two days. We just stayed overnight one night. We flew out the next day.

SPEAKER_03 12:10

Well, besides, if you're bringing your bride, you want to upgrade the accommodation.

SPEAKER_04 12:15

Oh, yeah. And that was that was that was later.

SPEAKER_06 12:20

Yeah, I went there the next year, my neighbor Mike and I went and we took a pop-up. And we went out on Thursday night after work, I believe. And um we drove through the night. We would always drive through the night and get there in the morning and just sort of crash for a little while, and then sort of through the day, and we wanted to get that extra day in there. Then we moved that to you know Wednesday, and eventually we we started going a week. And we did that with Mike and then my friend, uh Mike Hardy, my friend uh Greg Benson. Um so there were three of us. And then my son started to go. And uh Mike brought his son, and they were what, a year apart?

SPEAKER_04 13:11

Yeah, they were six years old when you first started bringing them up.

SPEAKER_06 13:14

Right, yeah. And um So that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_04 13:17

It was a boy. It was a boy out. The girls stayed home and did their shopping and went out to eat. The boys went to Oshgosh.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Did girl stuff.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

Because they just said girls weren't allowed.

SPEAKER_06 13:27

Yeah, I was bringing my dad, uh World War II veteran, and he really liked the war birds, of course. Um told me all about the B17.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Well good.

SPEAKER_06 13:38

So uh then we did that, and then Kevin, my son, actually met his wife there. Or his future wife.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

Future wife.

SPEAKER_06 13:49

So, and that's why Mary says, when did you get married?

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Yeah, that's when I had to figure out when I was allowed to go. And it was after they got married, because Sarah went. She's been going since she was an infant. So she's there 40 years plus.

SPEAKER_03 14:04

Well, you uh so you got a good daughter-in-law then. Yeah. And speaking speaking for myself, my sons both chose well, but they don't always do that. So that's that's good.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

Yeah, it was fun.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

And now we can we can skip around a little bit, but both of you, you you wanted to uh sit in front of this airplane because both of you have uh has some history with it, not this particular airplane. But I think your first T6 ride, they tapped you on the shoulder as you're cooking and said, hey, go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 14:47

We formed Wings of the North. And so we were having a Mother's Day flying. So I was always did food for Planes of Fame, so naturally I did the food for Wings of the North. So I'm cooking burgers and getting everything ready for the pilots and and the guests that are coming, and all of a sudden I get this tap on my shoulder, and they said, Well, you're needed outside. And I says, Well, I need somebody to cover me here, so they covered that. And they bring me over to uh Dick Nisley's T6, and they says, Were you going for a ride? What? Okay, it was my first ride ever. You know, I've watched the the planes fly, and I love to listen to them. I never got a never got a ride in it. So they strapped me in, and as soon as they strapped me in on the seat with the uh parachute, and I said, What is this gonna involve? Because like I said, I've never been in one. So then they got me, they briefed me, and they buckled me all in, and Dick said, Well, we're just gonna fly around the patch, and um, you know, everything will be fine. I'll be I'll be gentle. And I said, Okay, I'm your you know, you're my first. And uh so we're flying around, and it was just amazing to see stuff from the air to the ground. And uh so then we're finished finished the patch, and he goes, Okay, well, we're gonna do a military break to land. I don't know what that is. So all of a sudden he's going, we're flying low, and he goes, and I went, I was scared. It scared the crap out of me. He's down, he tells me at the end, he goes, Yeah, you really banked up there. I says, I know, I thought I was gonna fall out. It was fun. So that was my first experience, and that got me hooked.

SPEAKER_06 16:46

So Yeah, Dick Nisley was an uh X T6 instructor in the military.

SPEAKER_10 16:54

So he didn't know how to fly that plane at all. No, no, not at all. Yeah, and then a couple hours in there.

SPEAKER_06 16:58

Then he flew DC3s for the airlines afterward. So he's a big tailwheel guy. I was not worried at all. We're not gonna have a problem. Yeah, that's fun.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

Well, and that got you guys into the whole T6 community at one point.

SPEAKER_06 17:15

Right. There was uh five T6s, I think, at Flying Cloud Airport. And every Wednesday they would go out and practice formation fly. And they flew formations at events and funerals. They actually flew for my dad's funeral. Your parents.

SPEAKER_04 17:37

And my parents. They're called the T6 Thunder. T6 Thunder. They still fly. And they still fly.

SPEAKER_06 17:44

New pilots now, everybody's getting older, but so uh they had constant back seats open on Wednesdays.

unknown 17:52

You know.

SPEAKER_10 17:53

So you just made sure that you were free on Wednesday.

SPEAKER_06 17:55

If you're free on Wednesday, come on in. Come on out. Uh you might have to help clean some oil up afterward, you know, but they were going anyway. Yeah. So um they were they're very good. They are very good.

SPEAKER_10 18:08

Yeah, I guess if you're going weekly, that's pretty proficient. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:13

They would go out, they'd fly. Um I don't know if it was before or after they had lunch. I think it was before lunch, and then they'd debrief and stuff like that. Yeah, they they were very good. And um they were pilots with a lot of time in it for the most part. And I had mentioned Kurt Brown. Um he was a shuttle shuttle commander. He did the um oh what's his name? Uh the uh ex uh astronaut that friendship setup. Give me his name. You're supposed to know.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

I'm supposed to know. No, Grissom.

SPEAKER_06 18:56

No, no, no, uh John Glenn.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

John Glenn, okay.

SPEAKER_06 18:59

He was the one that gave him his flight up in the in uh the shuttle when he went back as an old lady gentleman.

SPEAKER_03 19:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:07

Yep. So at any rate, uh, for example, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

And so the T6 isn't the only backseat ride you got.

SPEAKER_04 19:23

No. I was uh Well, I got I got several. But um Another one of these? Another one of those. I was in the right place at the right time.

SPEAKER_10 19:33

Um I got a that's usually how it goes with these things. Right. You stick yourself around and just kind of keep working around with these white people, then eventually they're like, hey, let's go.

SPEAKER_04 19:43

You work, you clean the planes, you know, and then all of a sudden you Well it was um it was our air show time, Air Expo. And another tap on the shoulder, and they said, How'd you like to go up in the P51 red tail? You've been in that. I said, I've been in that. I said, Well, yeah. Okay, I haven't. I'm in this. I've been in it. And it was a hot day. We were stuck on the runway, I got overheated, and we're flying, and it felt like we were just doing little circles like this. I was I was starting to close in. He wasn't as nice to you. It was Doug Rosendahl. Oh yeah. Oh good.

SPEAKER_10 20:25

Good old Doug.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 20:28

He just got commemorated with the CAF Hall of Fame or something like that. Oh, is that right? Yeah. I think I just saw he got inducted into that.

unknown 20:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_10 20:35

And just did a ceremony.

SPEAKER_06 20:37

Uh John Sandberg is going into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame. He's going to be inducted at the dinner this year.

SPEAKER_10 20:47

So getting back to Oshkosh, you guys have been going, you've been going since 86, you said, right? So what is it what is like the main draw for you? I mean, obviously it's it's the airplanes. There's a ton of airplanes. But I mean, what's something that maybe is a little off the beaten path that you guys look forward to to seeing when you go?

SPEAKER_06 21:05

It's sort of changed throughout the years.

SPEAKER_10 21:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 21:09

Um it got bigger and they have different stuff. Initially when I was going, I was going to the forums that they have there. They have uh three forums.

SPEAKER_07 21:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 21:24

And you can go, and I went learned a rivet, learned to cover, learned to weld. One of the things I did was uh we were doing the tubing for the Spirit of St. Louis replica. So I cut some of the tubes, you know, and you got a round at the end so they fit together properly and whatnot, and then weld together. So I did some of that on there. One of the two replicas that they that they were building.

SPEAKER_04 21:53

I learned how to scan with an iron. Yeah, that's an iron fabric.

SPEAKER_06 22:00

I I was into that. You could go to uh almost any kind of a form that you want, weather, you know, everything. Everything aviation was was covered. So I was doing a lot of those. And then I'm thinking like, oh, maybe I should build an airplane. You know? And I remember when the kit boxes came out, I was really enamored with a kit box. I thought that was a really capable aircraft. It was relatively inexpensive when it first came out. They're pretty hard to touch now, especially on a budget that I would have had. But um so I was interested in that, so I started looking at different aircraft. You were there looking with me also.

SPEAKER_04 22:45

I was looking at the more of the sport aviation ones. Right, yeah. So the two-seaters, you know, front to back. Little RVs. I was like, I signed up to get um uh lessons. Yeah. Uh student pilot? Student pilot. She became a student pilot. Student pilot.

SPEAKER_06 23:02

So that's as far as it went for big. That sort of brings you into the women in aviation.

SPEAKER_04 23:07

Women in aviation.

SPEAKER_06 23:08

So um, but you know, so that's sort of what I was doing. Um always spent time down in the Warbirds area. What new aircraft are coming in? And I saw just aircraft that as you're growing up, you never think that you're gonna see like um like a mosquito. Kermit Weeks brought his mosquito there.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

I was like, I think it's still there. It is still there.

SPEAKER_06 23:32

It's not flyable anymore. That's why it's still there. Um I think two years it flew if I recall.

unknown 23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 23:41

So it's still in their museum. So uh yeah, but anyways, like that. Um my dad always talked about, oh, during the war I saw uh ME262, you know. And uh he said he was a waste gunner, and he says there's a couple of them, they'd be flying off the wing over there, and and we didn't shoot at them because we didn't want to antagonize them. But uh he figured that they were just trying to get the altitude for the for the uh flak guns, you know, accurate altitude of them. Yeah. Anyways, so I always wanted to see one because he was talking about how cool they were, you know. And I got to see that. And ME109, something else I never thought I'd I'd see as I was growing up. Because they just they didn't exist here.

SPEAKER_07 24:25

No.

SPEAKER_06 24:26

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10 24:27

So what about you, Mary? What is it that takes you back every year other than just being dragged along?

SPEAKER_04 24:33

But my well, yeah, dragged along in the beginning, learning just learning the aircraft was was tough. But for me it was the the community, the camaraderie, coming coming back to see people we met five years ago, and you know, just getting together and and seeing everybody again was is what I liked.

SPEAKER_06 24:56

Yeah, Mary would host with uh Greg's wife Lindy um a T6 Tuesday, we called it. The native T6 Tuesday. So talk about that.

SPEAKER_04 25:05

Yeah, because the the T6s would from our from Eden Prairie would go to Dubuque, Iowa for their um formation clinic. And then it would fly right to um Oshkosh after that. So they would they would come in on a on a Tuesday, 12 o'clock, one o'clock. And we go sit on the on the runway and watch them, watch them f landing, and we have our little scorecards, you know. And we always had to take pictures because the pilots want to see what they look like when they were landing, you know. You know, so we always took pictures. So it's T6 Tuesday started. They got out of their planes, they did their briefing, and then they came down to our campsite, and we would have um appetizers, refreshments, and uh, you know, talk about what they're gonna fly the next day in the war bird and in review in the war bird uh part of the show. So that was another thing we had to take pictures of. Their spacing, you know, because they the T6s come over this way high up the air. The T28s and T34s will go this way. So we always had to take pictures of let me see how I how I'm spaced up there. So they get a different view.

SPEAKER_10 26:21

So you're kind of groundproof.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

Yeah, we're groundproof. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

And greater. But that's one one aside. You both are so key to this museum, that this museum, you know, you wound up as a lead for the front desk with about three minutes notice, and Greg's done everything from be behind the camera to uh working with you guys in the shop and as a docent. And you just the the thing that struck me about both of you is the the depth of your knowledge uh about all this stuff. You know, you taught me how to fold and unfold the wings on a wildcat, which I had no idea how to do, and I don't want to break it.

SPEAKER_06 27:16

Yeah, it's um sort of stuff that you pick up. I started at the Plains of Fame East in the early 90s. It was soon after the Pond Racer crash, if you know what the Pond Racer is. Yeah, yeah. Which reminds us of South African. South African. But um and in that museum they they had twenty, I believe it was 26 fliable World War II haircraft. Uh you know, the four uh four cats and uh B-17, which is what got me involved involved. Uh because of your dad. Because of my dad and they had put a uh ad in the paper. And you know, we just got a B-17 and we're looking for veteran crew to give tours through the B-17. And uh wouldn't that be great? You come out, there's a B-17, and there's a pilot, maybe, and uh bombardier, uh gunner, whatever, um who are gonna give the tour through the plane.

SPEAKER_07 28:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:31

And uh great idea, and they built a nice crew. I forget what the name of the crew was, but um and they they handled that. But at any rate, he saw this in the paper, and he he says, Greg, come on, come on over. Greg, Greg, Greg, would you would you go with me and and get me signed up for this crew? You know, that's I says, okay, yeah, you can't. Well, of course. Yeah. So I go there and I ended up signing up to be a volunteer there.

SPEAKER_04 29:00

And that's what we learned everything that his dad did.

SPEAKER_06 29:03

Right, that's when he started talking about it.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

Really?

SPEAKER_10 29:06

You didn't even really know before that.

SPEAKER_06 29:07

No, he had a little box that he kept in a closet, and every once in a while he'd pull them out, and it had some pictures in there, and he had a little bit of flack, um, which to this day I can't find that piece. I don't know what he did with it. Um and then his wings, you know, and his his other stuff that he that he kept. And he'd look through them and I'd crawl up on his lap and he'd sort of this is that, and I didn't know what he was talking about. You know, I didn't know what he was talking about.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

But you sure did later.

SPEAKER_06 29:42

Yeah, later I did. And I have all those pictures now, um, which that's another story in itself.

SPEAKER_10 29:50

Um, well what did that I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but what did that do for your dad to be able to to be on that crew? I mean, did you see a difference in him?

SPEAKER_06 29:59

For him let's okay, this is going off subject a little bit. That's all right. His his his brother, his older brother, oldest in the family, his name was Vince. And he went in early in the war. And he was an original B-17 crew that went over to England. So he ended up going through um whatever word you want to use.

SPEAKER_03 30:27

The early bad days.

SPEAKER_06 30:28

Right. And uh he became um uh shell shock or whatever you want to call it. And he was it was very common.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 30:40

It was very common.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

I think the the term in the uh 8th Air Force was flak happy.

SPEAKER_06 30:46

Yeah. And so he actually he was in the 601st. Um he um went to the recovery hospital.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:00

Um get his head on straight. And they were looking for a pilot, they were short of pilot, so he volunteered. I'll go. Made for TV movie, right? Uh flew with another crew, and they were shot down and he he perished. Um so um my dad, on the other hand, went in. I'm gonna abbreviate. I'm gonna abbreviate.

SPEAKER_08 31:31

Sure.

SPEAKER_06 31:32

And um he was an aviation cadet, they didn't need pilots anymore, they killed that class, so he went to aerial gunnery school in Kingman and became a waste gunner. And he went over there, and his first missions were in January of 45. Completely different.

SPEAKER_10 31:53

Oh, yeah, whole different scenario. They owned the skies by then. I asked him escorts.

SPEAKER_06 31:58

I asked him, I said, Dad, did you ever actually shoot at another? And he never answered. But I took it as a and he said there there wasn't really nothing up there. The only thing that was pure terror was the um the flag. The flak. Because as the Germans moved back to Germany, guess what they took? It got they took their 88s with them. Yes. And he said there were planes blown out of the sky right next to them.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Well, we actually lost more airplanes to FLAC than than to fighters anyway. I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

But he did 15 missions. He did 15 missions. And he was there the last day when they announced the war is over. This was a funny that I I kind of like the story. He goes, We're in uh Glat Glaton Air Force Base in England and got the news. Everybody ran into all the planes, got all the guns, and they were so flare guns. Flare guns. Oh, really? I thought that was a cute story.

SPEAKER_06 32:58

They said the photo shop or whatever was open. The people were just going in there get taking strike photos and stuff out and bringing them home. So I have a couple of those too that he brought down. Price. But the point I was gonna make is he wasn't like traumatized the way my uncle was.

SPEAKER_05 33:19

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:20

So although he didn't talk about it, I don't think he had people to talk to. Um my uncle, who lived across the alley, was actually in New Guinea. No, yeah, he was in New Guinea. He was at one of the repair depots there. Um so he was a I believe he was a prop guy. I think he was a prop guy. So um, and that it it didn't connect with what my father was.

SPEAKER_10 33:52

It's a different experience. He might have actually had more good experiences.

SPEAKER_06 33:56

Yes, he talks about going to London, yeah. You know, stuff like the fun stuff. Oh, going to Ireland and drinking the Irish whiskey, that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:07

But when he got together with the crew that had that same experiences, you know, later in life, I think that's when he started to open up more and tell more stories and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 34:18

So you guys wound up not just attending, but volunteering at Oshkosh. You've been doing that for well a lot of years.

SPEAKER_04 34:29

I we we did a lot a lot of little stuff throughout the different throughout the years.

SPEAKER_06 34:35

Yeah. Uh Peru, we do that TBM gathering. Um The Wings of the North Air Show, we continue to do that. And um the Jerry Beck fly-in.

SPEAKER_04 34:46

The fly-in.

SPEAKER_06 34:46

This is what got me involved. I I went to Oshgosh, I said, this is my vacation. This is my vacation.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

And we're all still working full time. We were working full time. So it's a vacation. We don't want to work.

SPEAKER_10 34:58

Work.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

We don't want to work. We want to volunteer. Volunteer.

SPEAKER_06 35:01

I don't like to say work, volunteer. And uh and well, Jerry Beck, as you you probably know, was flying his A model. It was the green precious metal, I think was the name on the side. And uh, we were there, and he was landing. I'm not gonna go through the whole thing, but he was landing, ran upon uh Casey Odegaard's P51D tail. You know, you know the story. Yeah, flipped over and and and he perished in that. And Greg Benson and I were actually down on the approach end of the runway. We had Canon used to have a shop there, or a little store, that you could go and borrow their newest cameras and lenses, but you had to have it back at like four o'clock. So we left that area, thank goodness, maybe, um, before that happened. So I didn't have to see it. I had been talking to him like three hours earlier about uh about his airplane. Anyways, so uh we said, oh, if we had been there with our radios, because we always carry the handheld, would we have seen that the separation was bad? I don't know. I don't know. Um but uh after that we said they should have somebody down there all the time. And actually fifteen years practically went by and Ed Finnegan we were talking to, he's he's Warbird safety uh director. Um and he says we have a crew that now mans the approach ends of the runways during the Warbird portion of the show. Would you like to and I'm like count me in. You know, count me in. So for the last five years now, that's Greg and I go down on 3-6 usually, and um we have a great view of the air show going over because they're curling around almost over our head and doing their passes, and um but binoculars, radio, and we check, the other person double checks gear, flaps, and space. And if it doesn't look right, knock it off, wave off, we tell them to go around.

unknown 37:37

Go around, go around.

SPEAKER_06 37:38

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Hi, we're here at the National Museum of World War II Aviation in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in front of our B-25, and we'd like to show you something.

SPEAKER_10 37:50

Alright, you see this dipstick? You see that number right there? It says 37.5. That's not 37.5 quarts, it's 37.5 gallons of oil. And that's just for one engine. So take a look around. You can see for yourself just how much oil can be required to keep this museum flying. This is where our friends at Blazing Aviation come into play.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

As well as outfitting the Pikes Peak Regional Air Show. And honestly, without their support and the most competitive pricing on the market, keeping these rare birds in the air on a regular basis would be a much harder proposition. With products such as Aeroshell, Aviation Oil, and Phillips Smoke Oil for just your everyday needs, increases, and even de-icing fluids, our friends at Blazing Aviation are ready to help you with your needs at the right price.

SPEAKER_10 38:57

Look. Whether you're a pilot, maintainer, or an owner, there are just some things that you have to have to fly that airplane. Why not get those things at the best price from the people you know and trust? Get them from Blazing Aviation. Go to blazingaviation.com, airplaneoil.com, or just give them a call at 888-394-0983. And as always, let them know you heard it here on the Wing Victory Podcast. So speaking of warbirds, I mean, how um throughout the years, how I guess how much were you paying attention to like the champ grand champion warbirds throughout the years? And like how when did it really turn into what it is today as far as the restorations? Yeah. When did you start to see that change?

SPEAKER_04 39:56

We had one.

SPEAKER_06 40:05

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_10 40:06

Yeah, because there's so much going on. I've only been there once, and I was in third grade. What I was completely overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_06 40:12

Yeah, about what year was that? Do you know?

SPEAKER_10 40:15

I was there probably in 82, 83.

SPEAKER_06 40:17

Okay, that was that was probably before I went. Um it um I can't say the year or anything, but the the accuracy of the restorations just they've gotten better and leapfrog, leapfrog. Well, Wings of the North um had aircraft from um Paul Aylin, Paul Allen collection, along with some others.

SPEAKER_10 40:46

So the Flying Heritage Collection, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:48

No.

SPEAKER_10 40:49

Oh, Paul Allen. Paul Allen. No, not Allen. Okay, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 40:53

Alan.

SPEAKER_06 40:54

And uh he had like the Bush Steerman. So it was a uh steerman that George Bush flew while he was in uh Naval Air Station in Minneapolis in the winter.

SPEAKER_04 41:10

So we got that plane. We got that plane in there, and sent the uh cabin door or one of the doors to President. Baggage door, and he signed inside. And he signed inside of it.

SPEAKER_10 41:22

Is that airplane in Pearl Harbor now?

SPEAKER_06 41:24

No. No, there is one.

SPEAKER_10 41:26

I think there's one in Pearl Harbor. Still in Wings of the Could be.

SPEAKER_06 41:31

This was two or three flights.

SPEAKER_10 41:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 41:34

Um they had that the I don't know what you call it, muffer or whatever on the front of the engine to keep it keep it warm. Um anyway, so there was that one. Um he had a TBM, he had a uh he had a T6 that was uh uh uh best T6 at Osh Osh one year. And um he had Jerry Beck's Corsair Corsair? Yeah, yeah, that was Wings of the North. Jerry Beck's Corsair. Um and then he had Sierra Sioux which was a P-51D that was in Europe. Okay, and um it had gone to Sweden and then down to South America, and then it was brought back, the wings were clipped. Um when it came back, I don't know if I can say this or not, it came back with the machine guns in it. So we were trying to locate those. We were trying to locate those to put them back in. Um we had heard that they were in a uh garage somewhere, and uh, but never did find them. At any rate, they came back and Doc Chriska flew it for 30 years or something. He made it back, if you put the ring tips back on and painted it as as it was, you know, on the other side. He actually painted it with Sierra Su on one side and Gull Kale on the other, which is gold K. That was the Swedish. So that side looked Swedish, this side looked uh looked um American. So he flew it until the Londrons in the tail were uh corroded. So sort of part that Paul bought it, Paul Allen bought it from him and had a complete restoration done at uh aircraft. And so I'm getting somewhere with this. And so uh when the restoration was being done, this whole airframe as it sat flew in Europe. Okay? And so they tried to as much as they can retain it. Well, they had to reskin it. I mean, the the skins.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Well, it was something at some point you know if you're gonna fly it.

SPEAKER_06 44:04

Yep. And they had to redo the Lange Rons. But as far as I know, pretty much everything else was original. And then they Paul wanted it. This is the way it was when it sat in Europe on the airfield. And so that's what they did. I mean, it was an extensive restoration with the actual armor back in it.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

Oh wow. And all the skins had all the numbers on them, the part numbers.

SPEAKER_06 44:31

Yeah, that's one thing that they did. The aluminum, that's a good point, Mary. Um, the aluminum has got the the stenciling on it, you know, that washes off very easily. Well, it was the wrong fonts.

SPEAKER_10 44:45

Oh yeah, it's all modern.

SPEAKER_06 44:47

So they clean that off and they put the original back on. And they Aircorse said when they stamp these parts out, some of them are the same on the right and the left. So they put these things on a stack and they cut them out. Well, if it goes on the right, that stenciling will be outside of the plane. And if you put them up, that that's my new left. And if they put it on the right, it's going to be inside. Inside. And so they did some of the skins like that. So there was stenciling outside. And they went back to the factory in Wisconsin that had during that time frame built the rivets for the plane. They were still in business and they pulled the uh the contract, pulled the contract, and they built new old rivets.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

Identical to World War II. This this goes back to when we were talking to your dad about the difference in restoration.

SPEAKER_10 45:45

Oh, yeah. It's that last 10% takes the 90th. You know, it's the 90% thing. Yep. It's just hard.

SPEAKER_04 45:51

That's the hard part. But forward into Oshkosh again.

SPEAKER_06 45:57

Yeah, I mean, when I had been going there and I'm I'm walking here and they're judging now, and they're looking at all these planes and stuff. And I I'm just sort of thinking, boy, I'd love to bring an airplane to mine here sometime and talk to all these people coming up and you know, talk about their plane stuff, and uh there'd be some pride involved there. Well, we brought Wings of the North brought Paul's plane there. Well Paul threw it out to be judged at. And this plane has got to win, right? The extent of the restoration um was such that I I didn't see any way that it couldn't couldn't win. But it didn't.

SPEAKER_10 46:40

Yeah, it depends on what shows up. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 46:42

And people now, I'm not taking my plane this year because this aircraft happened. Happens all the time.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

And what was that other aircraft that won?

SPEAKER_06 46:52

A mosquito.

SPEAKER_10 46:53

Yeah, I was gonna say a mosquito. Well, because it, you know, you don't you probably haven't seen a mosquito that flew in forever.

SPEAKER_06 46:58

Yeah, well, this was another one that came. Um it I I agree, you've got to give the grand champion to this mosquito. Um, however, it was not as extensive as meticulous wrong.

SPEAKER_10 47:12

Sometimes it's not just about the restoration, it's about the rarity of the airplane. How hard was it? I mean, it's a wooden airplane, it's a lot different than a Mustang. Exactly. We could build a Mustang from scratch. Exactly. So that's not a problem.

SPEAKER_06 47:24

Yep. And one of the things they dinged the CRSU on was those stencils.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Okay. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:34

But it was fun, you know. We could stand in front of the plane the whole time it was up on Warbirds on the tarmac up there, and they also did it uh Warbirds in Review. Right. So they had um a talk about it and this and that. And we all had our shirts on, you know, Sierra Sioux and so it that was kind of fun. You had it, we had a golf code.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

There's like 300 and some war birds at Oshkosh these years.

SPEAKER_04 48:05

Yep. Last year was 328.

SPEAKER_06 48:08

You got your numbers?

SPEAKER_04 48:09

I got my numbers here.

SPEAKER_06 48:11

Yeah, because we don't memorize numbers.

SPEAKER_04 48:13

320, 361 war birds.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Show warbirds. I mean, that's yeah, just you could spend all your time, and I would, just there. Yeah. I mean, experimentals or home built.

SPEAKER_04 48:28

10,000 aircraft there at any time. Flying in. Yeah. But for the show, there was um 995 vintage would fly, 910 home built would fly, 361 warbirds, 101 ultralights, uh seaplanes, balloons, and rotocraft. Yeah, they've got a little bit of everything, yeah. Everything.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

Well, because it's it's about everything aviation.

SPEAKER_04 48:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 48:58

In the in the grand scheme of things.

SPEAKER_10 49:00

Yeah, so we're getting a little short here on this. So I think the last thing that I'd like to kind of talk about real quick, um, because I haven't been there in God knows how long. Um what is the difference? Like, I I would I would feel like back in the 80s it was probably more of a community feel, like everybody was really kind of just aviation related. It seems like in the last five, six years or so, I've really seen it blown up on social media where a lot of people that maybe weren't just you know born and bred in the aviation community are showing up out there. I mean, can you explain that difference of like just the crowds and the people maybe in the last 10 years versus the first 10?

SPEAKER_06 49:39

Uh early on, or even not so early on, it was aviation people, it was aviation-centric. And they would they would brag about this is a uh air venture crowd, there's not a gum wrapper left when they at night when people walk away. And it's become more of a vacation destination. Sort of just a party event, a lot of non-aviation people there. Um so um in that respect you can say maybe it's more disrespectful.

SPEAKER_03 50:22

Less respectful then?

SPEAKER_06 50:24

Maybe I said that wrong?

SPEAKER_03 50:26

No, no, I just yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:29

Um but on the other hand, I don't go there now as much for the aircraft as when I go to see the people and um talk with them again. It's they have a Warbird picnic there on Sunday night that we go to. And it's everybody warbird related, um, either working on the aircraft, uh pilots, owners. Uh Kermit Weeks goes there. We we talk to him every year. Museum owners. Museum uh uh owners, workers, volunteers, stuff like that. I ran into Les Crawley was that two years ago? Two years, yeah. Two years ago. You know, Les Crawley.

SPEAKER_10 51:12

I know of him, but I don't know her in person.

SPEAKER_06 51:14

Um I was just I was at the picnic there and I was wearing my F38 t-shirt. Don't know why, but I was. And this man comes up from behind, hey Greg, Greg. Oh, he didn't say Greg, hey Mr. Mr. Mr. Um, where'd you get that t-shirt? And I just had this big smile on my face. I said, you'll notice it's an F3A. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Of course, because he was the one that that brought the restoration back to Minnesota.

SPEAKER_07 51:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:43

So um so you meet people. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 51:46

And there's all kinds of people. You got billionaires, millionaires, normal folk. Just happened to walk into one after the air show. I'm walking down, and all of a sudden this guy rams into me. And he goes, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_06 52:02

With an English end.

SPEAKER_04 52:03

And I said, No, no problem, no problem. And then he's laughing. He goes, Do you know who that was? No. Sir Richard Branson. I said, Damn. I could have been picked up by a knife.

SPEAKER_10 52:24

Last parting words for him there, Rob, or you want to end off on that note?

SPEAKER_03 52:28

I think that's a great note to end on. I appreciate you guys coming out. Um, thanks for having us. Do so much around here, and your your ties to the community are deep and wide. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_06 52:44

Well, thanks for having us. It was uh it was enjoyable.

SPEAKER_10 52:47

Didn't I run in you in Minnesota? Where was that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I got family back there, and I was and he was just coming back from uh getting his plot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 52:59

That's what it was. I flew out that time.

SPEAKER_04 53:01

They were on the same, they were in the airport at the same time and they looked. Right? So yeah. Well, thanks guys, really appreciate you coming out. Thank you. Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_03 53:13

Well, two more of the amazing people that we get to hang out with around here.

SPEAKER_10 53:18

Yeah, I mean, we were just gonna you know start off, we were really just gonna talk about Oshkosh, and then all of a sudden, hey, you find out you know, dad's a waist gunner in B-17s, and on it on a B later on in a B-17 crew out at Palm Springs, not Palm Springs, but uh Plains of Fame. Yeah. And so then you just kind of want to go down that path, and you just don't know what you're gonna find until you start talking.

SPEAKER_03 53:39

Go go where it takes us. Yeah. But speaking of where it's taken us, we got lots of stuff coming up.

SPEAKER_10 53:46

Well, we finally got uh summer's coming around the corner. Yep. So uh our first actual fly day uh for the year is gonna be in April, and that's gonna be the F3A Corsair. Yeah. As far as I know. It's still going on, and we're really excited about that.

SPEAKER_03 54:03

So always always great to see.

SPEAKER_10 54:05

So you want to see an airplane fly, come out, see a nice presentation about an hour long. Depends on how long you you guys decide to be winded.

SPEAKER_03 54:14

Well, not me.

SPEAKER_10 54:17

Whoever's doing the presentation.

SPEAKER_03 54:18

I have a really strict uh editor when when I do these fly days.

SPEAKER_10 54:23

So we're excited about about getting that started going again. Yeah. Um and then speaking of, we got the uh air, the new part of the air museum pavilion is going up rapidly. Uh most of the steel is up now. They're gonna be start showing it here pretty soon. Pretty excited about that. So uh still looking for donations on that to help finish it out. So you can always go to our page and uh do some donating.

SPEAKER_03 54:50

We'd uh we'd be very grateful if you would. Absolutely. And but also speaking of of donations, there's the thing with Kroger.

SPEAKER_10 54:59

Yeah, so we got a uh deal with Kroger, um, and it's any Kroger, it's not just the Kroger in Colorado, it's any Kroger's around the United States. Wow. So grocery store chain. If you go on, we got all the instructions on our description page, but if you go on and follow those instructions, it's real easy. I did it. It took me like a minute and a half, and I'm inept when it comes to this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 55:23

So it'll take me three or four.

SPEAKER_10 55:24

But you just sign up, and then any anything that you spend when you're just doing your normal grocery shopping, we get a very small percentage of that.

SPEAKER_03 55:32

So it all helps. It all adds up. Absolutely. It's all gonna add up. Well, it's mighty fine to have you back.

SPEAKER_10 55:39

Well, I'm glad to be back. I I was pretty jealous watching you and Zoro and Mark and the last one, and I had I had questions, you know, but you guys did very well with the uh the what do we call the alphabet soup.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

Well, the the sear, yes. Um although I think uh William did a great job with the uh with the title, Your Assignment Is You're a War Criminal.

SPEAKER_10 56:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

So that was good. And speaking of William, who uh is doing great work behind the scenes. Can't do that without him.

SPEAKER_10 56:13

So appreciate Greg and Mary Kaminsky sitting down with us today, and again our producer William Stevenson, and my partner Rob Gale and myself, Scott Claire. Stay safe out there.