Fate? Maybe. But there I was, flying my open-cockpit Fly Baby, 2,000 feet above a small town named Enumclaw.
A flash of blue, and an RV-3 shot by, rolling. Then he turned hard to the left to set up for another pass.
Heard about him. He was based at a nearby airport and had a habit of trying to entice other airplanes into dogfights.
I’m only human. I shoved the throttle forward and turned hard into the bandit.
It was 150-hp Lyc against 85-hp Continental. It was fixed-pitch against constant speed. Wire bracing against cantilever wings. Aluminum against wood. An airline pilot with a reputation of “bouncing” all comers against a 500-hour private pilot who’d never dogfought before.
In the grand and glorious tradition of air combat, I don’t remember many specifics. Only snatches, like stills from a gun-camera film. Arching my head backward to watch the RV pass right to left a hundred feet overhead. Sun glinting off a canopy. Stunned disbelief when the ‘Baby’s nose kept dropping even with full aft stick (my second inadvertent stall in 22 years!). Breaking into the RV’s diving passes to ruin his attacks. The curve of the RV as he tried to stay on my tail. And the rare sight of my nose lining up on the RV’s turtledeck for a few blissful seconds.
After a few minutes (Two? Three? Five? Who knows?), he finally broke off and headed away to search for another victim. I flew carefully for a few moments, letting the adrenaline surge die down a bit, then headed to the airport where my buddy should be waiting.
I’m still glad I did it—just because I always wanted to do it. But it did leave a bit of a negative impression. Perhaps my experience was too much like real air combat. The surprise attack. The feeling of being outclassed. The lack of rules; no holds barred. The fact that sometimes you end up as a flag painted on the other guy’s airplane.
It left a fond memory. But I never felt like doing it again.
Fun read, Ron!
is this areal story?
Sure is, Stephen. Let me give you some background.
Two or three weeks prior to this, I had taken a BFR in a local flight school Decathlon, flying over the same area. The Enumclaw plateau southeast of Seattle was and is a popular training area.
The RV had bounced us during my BFR, swooping in towards us several times as I was trying to do S-turns. The instructor was cussing a blue streak, and it was from him that I learned the background of the RV pilot. And the fact that he did that sort of thing a lot.
So that was how I knew what was going on, when I saw the RV diving at me and my trusty Fly Baby. Me and a friend, Peter (not Pete Bowers), had been flying to Enumclaw airport, he was flying one of the Story Specials (a plane very similar to a Fly Baby). I was following Pete in when I was pounced upon. He never saw the RV and just continued enter the pattern and land while I was, uhhh, “distracted.”
I was flying Pete Bowers’ original Fly Baby, N500F (the picture with the article). It was still owned by Bowers, he let our EAA chapter use it as a club airplane.
I’m sure the RV could out run the Fly Baby but likely the Fly Baby could out turn the RV. It’s not the airplane . . . it’s the pilot.
Perhaps install a gun camera?
As a glider pilot, sometimes in a thermal with another glider, it can become a game of keeping on one’s tail. Great read, Ron!
Sounds like that was a bit of unleaded fun, Ron. But how could you resist the temptation to photoshop a silhouette of an RV right under the “Fly Baby” in that glamour shot of your plane?
Modesty. 🙂
The sky above the trenches in Enumclaw is full of activity. It is mostly dominated by those RV’s, but the local Stearman holds his own and always gets the attention.
Watch out for the ack-ack. There are little boys out there with wooden guns who are not discriminating about which plane is who’s…
Nice picture of N500F!
Thanks, Dale, and it’s good to hear from you! This picture was taken about 30 years ago at Wax Orchards on Vashon Island. I’d seen some folks flying RC planes there, and dropped in to watch. Put one of the RC pilots into N500F’s cockpit to stand on the brakes when I hand-propped the airplane to leave….
A dandy read—good on ya!