Today we had a great experience in the skies of Philadelphia. We had two warbirds on the prowl looking for the enemy. Dan Banjock and my son Shawn were flying simultaneously using their Fox powered planes. Dan's being a unique homegrown variety of grafted 40th anniversary cases. My F-82 being powered with 60th anniversary engines. Dan being the builder of both of these aircraft in 1985. I rebuilt the F-82 as it went through a full blown reconstruction in 2006. The talk was to fly level. This amazingly lasted about 3 laps when both went into the wingover and now the fun began. The Fox's sounded great, Dan's twin having a sound unlike any other engine on the field was just music to our ears while my Fox's on the Mustang sounded great going from a deep growling 4 stroke breaking into a 2 on the climbs. Both planes to my surprise were matched for speed. They both burned 8oz's a flight and they really ran approx the same time. That was something none of us expected. All engines running on the piston ruining Powermaster GMA 11/22 fuel didn't miss a beat.
Dan while inverted had the rudder just missing the ground by less than a foot. Shawn had the F-82 settled just above the belly of the Bearcat and this went on for several laps. One near miss took both pilots by surprise but their combat instincts took over and it was game on once again. It really looked quite cool seeing both planes going into the wingovers revealing their insignias to us as we tried to get some pictures. Unfortunately, the skies were overcast which didn't result in good picture taking but it certainly made for good flying and the no breeze made it even nicer. Ken Cook
Topic: Twins (Read 1124 times)