It all started when my Dad and I were looking for something to do while my Mom and sister where spending the afternoon at the Hotel's pool. The four of us where spending a few days in and around Orlando Florida, doing the usual Orlando stuff. One of the days we didn't have anything planned to do, and while the other two were content to hang around the hotel, my dad and I were looking for something else to do. He had heard about a small air force museum in Kissimmee, a small city/town a few miles south of Orlando. Being both suckers for anything to do with military aviation, we made the 30 minute car ride with high hopes.

This place was amazing. It was basically a rich World War II nut who had bought an old hanger and as many WWII aircraft as he could get his hands on, along with some aircraft from other eras as well. The difference here was that unlike most museums, most of the aircraft were either in multiple pieces, or were just junk heaps on the floor. Still, all the aircraft were in the process of being restored back to flying condition. Again, unlike most museums, this place had no felt ropes. As a visitor you had full, unsupervised roam of the facilities. While the volunteers there were not working on the B-17 above, I had the chance to actually climb up inside the bomb bay, as well as get an extremely close look at the entire aircraft. Of course, a B-17 wasn't something I had never seen in person before, but I had never gotten within 50 feet of one, let alone touch one.

So the museum was all well and good, and while browsing the outside junk heaps as appose to the inside ones, we were just about to head back to the car when I heard something above us. An aircraft. We were at an airport after all, but while to the untrained ear this could have been any type of plane, I instantly recognized the distinctive purr of a large radial engine. That could only mean one thing: one of the flyable aircraft from the museum was out flying, and naturally, I had to stay and watch it come in. The aircraft in question turned out to be a T-6 Texan, a mass-produced aircraft from World War II used to train almost all American pilots. It also turned out that aircraft was not part of the museum directly, but instead belonged to a little place next door that gave rides.

While I would have liked to go up in it, $180 was a bit much for a 15 minute hop around Kissimmee, and for the time being I was content to admire the beautifully maintained plane from the tarmac. That was until my Dad went over to the place, and learned that no, this was not a sightseeing tour, but a flight instruction. As in when you when up, you were the one flying. I been dreaming of flying a plane all my life, and when combined with the fact that I could be flying this WWII fighter, a dream I may have had but never expected to fulfill outside of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator or IL2, there was no question. I scheduled a flight. I would return in two days..

Notice the huge grin on my face.

It was 9:15 in the morning, the wind was light, scattered clouds at 1500 feet. We were off.

I sat up front, with Crag, my flight instructor in the back. He was English but had lived in South Africa most of his life, and was a really cool guy with a huge accent. As we taxied out I could hardly contain myself. I stared downward at the gauges, which I had see hundreds of times in static museum displays or on a computer screen. But never in life, in motion. Somebody once said that planes in a museum (he meant something like the Air and Space museum in D.C., not the museum I was just talking about) are like insects pined in wooden display cases. They aren’t real. To really see these aircraft for what they are, you have to see them outside in the 90-degree sun boiling on black ash fault. You have to smell the oil and be deafened by the roar of a Merlin V12 or a Pratt & Whitney radial. When I was sitting in that cockpit, it was a religious experience.

Happy as can be

What a view

As with all good things, this one had to come to an end. After flying lazy eights around some fields south of the airport, I was instructed to head back. Crag handled takeoff and landing of course, but I'd say I was in full control of the aircraft for about 80% of the flight.

Well, once again I was ready to leave Kissimmee when something caught my eye. As we were taxiing back, we went by another hanger with WWII aircraft in it. Crag told me that while those were privately owned and not part of the museum, the owners would probably let me take a look if I asked. A quick 5-minute drive, and my dad and I were walking through the offices of this second hanger. Unlike the museum hanger, this was in impeccable condition. You could eat off the floor of this place. We were only in the offices and halls, not in the hanger itself, but already you could tell this place had a bit more money than the museum. On the walls were hung paintings of WWII fighters. There was a glass case with a polished browning .50 caliber machine gun complete with ammunition belt, the standard armament of US. aircraft of the time period.

We found a nice women who said we were welcome to take a look around, and pointed towards a door leading to the inside of the hanger. I opened it, and became a kid in a candy store.

Frank Borman's Mustang

A Battle of Britain Hero

This hanger contained a total of three Mustangs, American fighters which mainly fought in the European theater, and one Spitfire, England's premiere fighter. All four were in mint flying condition and spotlessly cleaned. I didn't learn the owners of the other three aircraft, but the red mustang is owned by Frank Borman, on of America's early astronauts.

There was a similarly painted blue mustang, which had been recently sold at auction for around 1.5 Million dollars. The new owner was sitting in the cockpit with a certified mustang instructor on the wing, talking to him about some gages.

The people in the hanger treated me at first a bit like a sixteen year old in a Ferrari dealership, but warmed up a bit once they saw I wasn't going to break anything. One of the guys there led me over to Borman's plane, and actually let me climb up and stand on the wing. I got a good shot of the cockpit, though I was a bit disappointed that it looked like all the original instruments and controls had been replaced.

One of the mustangs was actually owned by whoever owned the hanger itself, and had been converted to a two seat, dual control aircraft. For the small fortune of around $2700, you could go up for an hour and have the time of your life. While I realize that piloting the Texan should have been just another check on my life to-do list, it has only wetted my appetite for aviation, and specifically WWII aviation even more. I think that when I make my millions (and everybody does at some point right?), I'm going to purchase something similar to what I found in that hanger.

You hear that Borman? Your Mustang will be mine some day!

- Ian Jefferys

Links:
www.warbirdadventures.com (The Texan place)
www.warbirdmuseum.com (The WWII air museum)
www.stallion51.com (The place where my future mustang is)