I have had to take a day since hearing of Phil's passing to get my thoughts together before posting here.
The above comments and remembrances of Phil only serve to display this great man's affect on people. It is clear that we are all experiencing a great deal of pain over this loss to our community.
Many of you may or may not know that Phil was battling a number of health issues for the past few years. I won't go into detail here in regards to specifics. Let me just say that he dealt with the knowledge of his decline with such amazing grace and courage; and with his typical humor...
I've known Phil since around 1973, and my life has been much richer for having him as a close friend. I spent some time with Phil and his wife, Kathleen at their very unique and beautiful home in the Oakland Hills, and in the evenings there we had some wide ranging discussions about the hobby and about life in general. I came to know a much deeper Phil Granderson during that visit. Phil was a unique, intelligent, insightful, patient, and caring individual. And, he was perhaps the funniest person I have ever known. And, there are several very funny people in our hobby/sport. If you ever had the chance to see Phil and Billy Werwage together at a contest, then you know all about funny; and you probably remember how much your sides hurt from laughing.
During that visit Phil and I traveled to the Golden State Stunt Championships that were held at that time in Clovis, California. Phil lent me his first Diva stunt model to fly at that event (sans appearance points of course...). Flying that model gave me a whole new respect for Phil's designing, building and finishing skills, which were all at the very top level. His choice of a piped Magnum 36 engine was a combination that was unheard of at that time, and he had it performing beautifully. That model flew magnificently, and it was one of the highlights of my career in stunt. And, again, my sides hurt for several days after I returned home from laughing so much.
I'll finish this tribute to my old pal Phil with a story that happened at the 1974 Nats in Lake Charles, Louisiana. It pretty much sums up the outstanding wit of the man.
Lake Charles in July is a pretty hot and humid place. Not a problem for those of us who compete, but a real problem for our spouses or girlfriends. I married my wife of almost 49 years now, Marianne, that past December, and reasoned that a trip to the Nats would be a great honeymoon trip (yeah, I'm amazed too that she is still my wife...). We traveled caravan style to Louisiana with Bob Wiegand and his girlfriend CK (never did know what "CK" stood for), and with Mark Sullivan - who had just received his driver's license. Somehow we convinced Mark to convinced his father that we needed his large station wagon in which to transport all our planes. Marianne and I drove down in her aging, and quite ugly (she said she bought it because she felt sorry for it...) iridescent green Mercury Comet with a hounds tooth vinyl top. Being very optimistic about how many practice flights I would get before that contest, i brought along 15 gallons of fuel in a green barrel that was nestled in a custom built (thanks, Dad...) wooden cradle. In what seemed like a reasonable thing to do, I labeled that barrel "White Lightning." Hey what bad thing could possibly happen by driving a very conspicuous car through the deep south in the 1970s with long hair and a big barrel in the trunk?
Well, nothing bad did happen, except that we blew a head gasket. It ran like that all the way to Lake Charles and all the way home! Okay, after only a few hours at the field, CK and Marianne declared that they would prefer to stay in the air conditioned room we all shared (yeah, it was very Bohemian...). In that room was a color TV that had a bad green gun. Every thing - and every one - on that TV was green!
Back at the field I saw Phil Granderson walking towards me with a rather forlorn look on his face. "Bobby, do you have any extra fuel with you; I'm all out." I told him that I did have way more fuel than I needed, but I had left the big green barrel at the motel room. We headed back to the room to fetch Phil some go juice. When we got there I opened the door to find the girls watching the defective TV with all the green people on it. Phil took one look at the TV and said, "Now there's a real minority." That was Phil in a nutshell.
Godspeed my old and very dear friend; I will miss our long phone conversations, and I will miss you every day of my life.
Peace - Bob Hunt