Warbirds bring back memories, dreams
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
A pilot and a guest begin taxiing to take a ride in a 1940s Stearman biplane provided by History Flight during Warbird Weekend Saturday at the Punta Gorda Airport. Some 8,000 of the venerable planes were built to train U.S. military pilots during World War II, after which they were sold for crop dusters or relegated to the "bone yard" for military surplus.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Visitors to Warbird Weekend at the Punta Gorda Airport ogle a row of T-28 planes, which served as trainers for jet pilots during the late 1950s and '60s.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Bob Haas smiles after visiting a plane similar to the PT-19 he owned for 25 years at Warbird Weekend Saturday.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
This DC-3 cargo plane was the workhorse for both military and commercial airline traffic until the jet age began in the 1960s. It was among two dozen on display this weekend at the Punta Gorda Airport.
SUN PHOTO BY GREG MARTIN
Wearing a World War II pilot's uniform, Joe Gibson poses with his 1943 Jeep as part of Warbird Weekend. The American flag mounted on the Jeep has 48 stars, which is authentic for the 1940s.
PUNTA GORDA — A gathering of vintage military planes for Warbird Weekend now under way at the Punta Gorda Airport brought back many memories for 80-year-old Henry Kast and his 76-year-old brother, who both retired from careers in the U.S. Air Force.
Henry, for example, pointed to the mock rockets mounted beneath the wing of a big T-28 Texan plane. The rockets reminded him of the ones filled with phosphorus that he once fired into the jungles of Laos and Vietnam to mark enemy supply routes for mortar targeting, as a forward air controller in a small, twin-tailed Cessna O2 Skymaster.
