TRARON 2002 FORMATION CLINIC

By Dick Perkins and Ross Bausone. Photos by Tom Carter.

The thundering roar of warbirds reverberated through the Central Valley near the old Castle Air Force Base at Atwater the weekend of May 17 through 19, 2002. The sound signaled the success of the Fourth Annual TRARON Formation Clinic sponsored by the Golden Gate Wing. More than thirty aircraft participated in this spring classic made up of 1-P51, 10-T28s, 8-Yaks & CJs, 2-T34s, 2-BT13s,& 6-T6s, plus our T-33 & Mig-17 on static display.

T-28 flight preparing to taxi, with marshallers ready

Yak, CJ and T34 flight line

Julie Clark’s shiny yellow T-28 “Top Banana”

Colonel Jim Booth did an outstanding job of planning, organizing, and supervising the event. To successfully operate this weekend affair requires more than just airplanes and pilots as more than sixty CAF members were in attendance.

Colonel Ross Bausone scheduled each of the flights juggling the back-seat check pilots with those new pilots who are striving to get their formation credentials. We had thirteen new pilots this year and six of them passed their check rides. Ken Karas received his flight leader patch and Rich Ferdon, Mark Guthrie, Ken Hansen, Lynn Hunt, and Harry Hirschhman got their Wingman qualifications. In addition a number of other pilots who were already qualified accomplished their re-qualification rides.

T-28 formation flight photos

A large number of marshallers are necessary to insure safety on the ground and the Golden Gate Wing each year receives excellent support from the Inland Empire Wing in this activity. Colonel Ed "BANGER" Cleveland from the Riverside unit is their Chief Marshaller and supervised this event as well. Marshallers on hand were:

Jim Booth and FMT Enterprises Parachute Riggers from Poway, CA.

The Wing’s Mig-17 and T-33 towed over for static display

Saturday night dinner under B-17 wing at Castle Air Museum

Colonel Pete Geiler and his father, Ron, were on hand to provide the libations both evenings. Ron, who travels all the way from Syracuse, New York, for the event, and Pete also helped as van drivers both days.

Colonel Dan Roads, the Wing’s Hydration Engineer, was on site early Friday not only providing ground transportation for the pilots but also insuring the safety of the ramp overnight. Dan has received his unique title by helping keep parched pilots refreshed with cold water bottles on the ramp. He is a most welcome sight to the pilots at the conclusion of a rigorous formation flight. He is the first to greet them with a broad smile and a cold bottle of water. Dan’s wife, Stacey, also attended and performed all the registration and administrative duties.

Colonel Steve Kauzlarich, the Wing’s videographer, was on hand to record the entire weekend on videotape. His tape will be available to members for a modest charge.

Since this year the event was held without an active control tower, Colonel Mike McKinley did an excellent job of providing advisory instructions over the local Unicom frequency. He added immeasurably to the safety of the event.

Bird strike on Doug Doyle’s T-28 flown by Lynn "Chicken Hawk" Hunt. He handled the emergency very well. (We later saw a flock of geese overhead in a missing-man formation.)

Awards ceremony at Castle Air Museum

Hydration Engineer, Dan Roads. "Did somebody call me Water-Boy!!?"

Formation flights began Friday afternoon, reaching a peak on Saturday as 27 sorties were flown on that day alone. The “newby” ground instruction was held Friday afternoon with Doug Schuster and Marv Quaid presiding as the two instructors. A dinner was served Friday night in the recreation room near the sleeping quarters. Saturday night a banquet was served outside under the wing of a Boeing B-17 at the Castle AFB museum. Dusty Rhodes, a World War II fighter pilot as well as one of the original Blue Angels, entertained the group with a very inspiring and interesting talk. Colonel Jim Booth gave Dusty a ride in the backseat of his AT-6 in a three-ship formation flight just prior to the dinner. Jim turned the controls over to Dusty in the last half of the formation flight and remarked, “He flew it like there had been no time elapsed from sixty years ago.”

As Dusty stepped down from the aircraft after the flight, he remarked with a big grin on his face, “That was great!”

Colonel Phil Schasker had arranged for Dusty to speak to our group and he and his lovely wife, Shirley, transported Dusty to and from the Bay Area.

A view from above

Doug Schuster taxiing T-6 next to Stu Eberhardt’s Mustang

Fred "SKIPPY" Tedesco finishing the job

Part of the evening entertainment included presenting to Doug Schuster a plaque with the engraving, “Honorable Mention for the Best Single Ship Formation”. Dave King orchestrated this presentation with a number of choice remarks to emphasize the importance of the award. Doug, who is no slouch in his own ability to “dish it out”, accepted the reward with appropriate humility. If you ever visit this area, a visit to the Castle Air Museum is a must. Their web site address is:

The entire Eberhardt family was there to support the event as they always do. Marilyn, Stu’s wife, drove one of the vans both days. Stu was one of the check pilots and instructors and he organized and led the “attack on the Jeremiah O’Brien”. This was the second straight year a mission was launched from Castle to the Bay Area to perform fly-bys of the historic merchant ship in its annual Memorial Day cruise. Both of the Eberhardt’s sons, Bill and Jim also flew a number of formation flights throughout the weekend. They brought their AT-6 as well as “Merlins Magic”, Stu’s famous P-51.

All three Golden Gate Wing aircraft participated. Our SNJ was flown by Martin Michaud and the beautifully restored Lockheed T-33 and MiG-17 were on static display.

One of the byproducts of this event is the recruiting of new members. This year seven new Colonels signed up to join the Wing. They included Cliff Heathcoat, Lynn Hunt, Allan Krosner, Harry Hirschman, Ken Hansen, Ray O’Neal, and Ron Rich. Welcome to the Golden Gate Wing.

Unfortunately, an uncharacteristic cold front for this time of year moved in on Sunday afternoon, cutting short the formation flights and forcing the cancellation of the planned Sunday fly-by of the Jeremiah O”Brien. Nevertheless, all who attended and participated agreed it was a very successful weekend of flying activity and they all looked forward to coming back next year.

Scheduling Traron 2002
by Col Ross Bausone

As a third year veteran of scheduling, I did not know quite what to expect. When you arrive, you have no idea how many pilots, or what type aircraft will be in the event. Since scheduling requires knowledge of pilot ability, as well as aircraft performance, things cannot just be scheduled randomly, nor can they be done numerically. In short, it is more an art.

I am happy to report, that with the help of many cooperative pilots, we were able to schedule people in over 30 sorties during the weekend. This mostly done on Saturday, due to deteriorating weather conditions on Sunday.

Col Ross Bausone, Master of scheduling.

Ken Karas with Dan Roads along for the ride.

The T-6, SNJ flight line with our SNJ being marshalled into parking

Additionally, I was able to obtain back seat rides for almost all the volunteers. Saturday’s O’Brien Raid sortie was scheduled, took off as planned, and returned as planned. As a member of the ground staff, I often hear of catastrophic or unexpected events. One such event, involved our Wing Leader Col Dick Perkins.

This clinic provided two parachute riggers on site, and those folks packed chutes during the night and into the wee hours of the mornings so our pilots would have up to date packed chutes, should the need arise.

Well, as it turns out, after having the Golden Gate Wing chutes packed, our courageous Wing Leader decided to make a “jump”!

Maybe it was just the fact that he was in a T-28 Trojan? Maybe it was the high altitude the T-28 was flying at? Maybe it was just that his foot stuck in the step on the flap, and since the plane was on the ground, that made for a very short free fall. In fact, in another courageous move, he elected not to pull the rip cord!

One Marshaller (Col Tom Carter) thought he heard someone yell “Geronimo” but that story could not be corroborated at Press Time. Col Perkins landed safely, (on his elbows) exhibiting a new form that may be added to the USPA (United States Parachute Association) list of accepted landings under the category of “extreme style” landings. Stay tuned to this Newsletter for further information…

Quarters for the event were better than ever. This year’s accommodations were part of the Castle AFB quarters housing. The rooms were larger than those we experienced at Aviation Space Challenge. Beds were full size, bathrooms were private and we were able to get back and forth to the flight line with ease.

If you are considering a fun event, I would definitely put the TRARON on your list. The sheer value of seeing that many warbirds landing and taking off, and being seen in formations is worth the trip to Castle Field.

Hope we see you next time!