THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 22, 1995 TAG: 9507210067
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
LISTENING TO OBie O'Brien describing Freedom Flight America, I could picture airplanes swarming and buzzing over the head of Liberty like a cloud of bees.
``There's never been anything like it,'' he said.
He was talking about a cross-country flight by Allied military planes from World War II that will begin in California and end with a circle of the Statue of Liberty in New York.
On Aug. 11, 300 to 500 aircraft - from single-engine AT-6 trainers to bombers - will take part in the mass flyover of the statue, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.
And OBie O'Brien and his Skytypers team will be leading the way on the last leg of the flight, flying North American AT-6s (also known as the SNJ or Harvard). They will be followed by a thunderous warbird formation - the likes of which will probably not be seen again - that will darken the sky over the Hudson River en route to Liberty Island.
All of the aircraft in Freedom Flight America are privately owned. The planes participating will include P-51 fighters, F-4U Corsairs, C-47 cargo planes, P-2V patrol planes and B-24 bombers, along with many others. The first formations will leave Long Beach (Calif.) Airport on July 31.
O'Brien is a retired Navy commander living in Virginia Beach who flew combat missions in Korea and was air boss on the aircraft carrier Bonhomme Richard from 1965 to 1966 - said the event was organized by Dallas businessman Morey Darznieks.
Dzarnieks, the owner of Dallas-based Lance Aircraft, immigrated to the United States from Latvia in 1950.
``He wanted to show his appreciation for the country that gave him a new start in life by arranging a flight to the statue by 50 warbird owners. But hundreds of pilots have pre-registered for all or part of the flight,'' O'Brien said.
The route of the cross-country flight will be from Long Beach to Phoenix, El Paso, Dallas, Kansas City, Chicago, Dayton, Washington, D.C., and Trenton, N.J.
``Our Skytyping team will be a day ahead of the formation, plugging it in the sky,'' O'Brien said.
Skytyping team? Welcome to the new world of computer skywriting. Mort Arken, a 71-year-old New Yorker who owns six of the 11 remaining SNJ-2s, is using them to spit out commercial messages that are 1,000 feet tall and six to eight miles long in the sky.
It's an unusual and interesting way for military pilots in retirement - the pilots' average age is 60 - to stay involved with aviation. Even if the flying is with a three-wheeled antique that was built to train military pilots and was phased out in 1957.
``Old-time skywriting was done with a lot of loops and rolls,'' O'Brien said. ``We fly side by side in formation, at 10,000 feet, with our heads turned toward the other planes trying to keep abreast,'' he explained.
``We have stripes on the fuselage and wings of the planes which help us keep aligned exactly. . . . A 50-gallon drum of paraffin-based oil replaces the rear seat of the plane. The oil in the drum is heated when it's run through the manifold, then discharged through the exhaust, creating dots of steam.''
A punch tape in the lead plane flown by Arken sends signals to transmitters in the five or six planes engaged in Skytyping. ``We don't do anything except fly the plane. The computer does it all,'' he said.
Unlike skywriting with smoke, the steam writing is approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. The message planted in the sky resembles the work of a massive dot printer, spewing white letters five city blocks high across a blue sky background.
``We fly in a tight formation and can do up to 25 letters across the sky in about 30 seconds,'' O'Brien said.
The messages - like ``It's Miller Time'' and ``Drink Coca-Cola'' - can be seen for more than 400 square miles and by as many as 2 million people. The team's participation in Freedom Flight America is being sponsored by MCI, the phone company. ``So we'll be doing MCI commercials along the route,'' O'Brien said.
There are three Skytypers in Hampton Roads. Vice Adm. John Ready and Capt. Walt Ohlrich of Virginia Beach, both retired, also wear the team's snappy blue flight suits and identifying patch.
The team also does stunts at air shows - lots of smoke and noise - and has entertained crowds with their loops and rolls at the Indianapolis 500 auto race.
And the work takes them to a lot of events around the country. Skytypers have spewed messages in the sky above the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl and above the Super Bowl. Locally, they have done advertising at the Neptune and Azalea festivals.
O'Brien said the most unusual assignment since he has been with the team came from a widow who wanted a happy birthday to her husband typed in the sky above the New York cemetery where he was buried. O'Brien said the cemetery greeting has become an annual event.
``And we once Skytyped the winning number at a drawing for a lawn tractor in Indiana at a farm show,'' he said.
Guess that's what happens to people who leave their retirement plans up in the air. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
OBie O'Brien of Virginia Beach and his team will lead Freedom Flight
America into New York.
The SNJ-2...
by CNB