Living in the wild blue yonder

The reasons pilots fly are as different as the flying machines in this weekend's Cape Girardeau Regional Air Festival.

Aerobatic biplane pilot Eddie Merchant got his pilot's license before he could drive. He soon shocked his father, also a pilot, by doing a roll and loop and was performing in air shows when he was still in high school. That was 30 years ago.

Bill "Fingers" Cherwin was in the Air Force ROTC but flunked the flight school physical, so he became a commercial pilot while still in his early 20s. He now is the leader of the Lima Lima Flight Team that flies formations in 1950s-era T-34 Navy trainers,

Until 1979, the United States government refused to acknowledge the existence of Darrell Porter and many other elite pilots who called themselves the Ravens and flew small observation planes called Forward Air Controllers in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He now wears a T-shirt that says "Ravens Nevermore."

Titled "Heroes & Legends," the festival began Friday at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport with a twilight show and a hangar dance. It continues with shows scheduled at noon today and Sunday.

A crowd of about 700 paying patrons plus another 400 vendors, volunteers and performers turned out on a pleasant moonlit evening. The show began with a roar from a Navy F-18 Hornet fighter and included free-fall skydivers, biplane aerobatics, a jet-powered Dodge Ram speeding on the runway and a Lima Lima demonstration.

More extensive performances are planned today and Sunday.

Among those strolling the grounds were Betty and Van Evans from St. Charles. He is a member of the Missouri Wing of the Commemorative Air Force, an international organization whose motto is "Lest We Forget." During World War II, Evans was a flight engineer and gunner aboard a B-24 bomber based in London.

On his uniformed chest were an array of medals, including a Silver Star awarded to him after his plane was shot up returning from a bombing raid into Germany in 1944. From his turret at the top of the plane, he noticed the plane wasn't flying the way it should and discovered that both the pilot and co-pilot had been wounded and no longer could fly the bomber. He and the radio operator pulled the pilot from his seat, and Evans flew the plane back to England.

He had flown a plane before, he said, but added, "It was my first landing."

The 77-year-old Evans is at the air show to lead tours of the B-25 bomber on display, the same kind of plane Jimmy Doolittle flew leading the daylight raids on Japan in World War II.

Merchant is a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, corporate pilot whose bright yellow plane is sponsored by Yellow Book USA. His eyes are a different color -- red -- after flying, the effect defying gravity has on blood vessels.

Aerobatic flying is very physically demanding, he says, citing an Air Force study that found that one-half hour of aerobic flying is equal to eight hours of hard labor.

"God didn't make us to do this," Merchant said.

The only problem with aerobatic flying is, it makes his corporate pilot job seem boring. "My fingers get sore from pushing all the buttons," he says. "This is seat-of-the-pants flying."

Cherwin's team of six Navy trainers call themselves "the Civilian Blue Angels." Cherwin is from Naperville, Ill. Other members of the team fly in for the shows from all over the country. One is a CEO, another is in lumber sales, another has a motorcycle dealership. Their formations include a wedge, double arrowhead and diamond along with the dramatic missing man tribute. The T-34 cruises at a speed of 195 mph.

The Ravens flew dangerous covert missions in Laos against North Vietnamese invaders. Their casualty rate was the highest of any group in the war.

"Those were pilots that were simply numbers," Porter says.

The Ravens flew low and slow -- 135 mph -- often just over the tree tops, to spot enemy troops and mark targets for the jets and bombers that might follow.

They were vulnerable to all kinds of enemy fire. "We had guys come back with crossbow arrows in their airplanes," he says.

The Ravens included both civilian pilots and military pilots on loan. Because of their secret mission, the Ravens wore civilian clothes. "We put our uniforms in a box and went to work," says Porter, now a truck driver in Harrisonville, Mo.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182