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Air Born - WWII Pilot Flies with SVS Thanks to the Charlottesville Daily Progress and Mr. Maurer for permission to reprint this article. 
Glider pilot Graham Pitsenberger gives Robert MacGill some basic flight instruction before the pair takes off from Waynesboro Eagles Nest Airport. By David Maurer As their numbers dwindle, World War II Navy fighter pilots like Robert T. MacGill have reached god-like status in the eyes of their younger peers. The adulation is richly deserved. These are the men who pioneered the art of landing and taking off from pitching decks of aircraft carriers far smaller than those in service today. They are the pilots who swept Japanese Zero aircraft from the skies, helped lay waste to Japan’s formidable naval fleet and provided Marines and soldiers with close air support. Above all, they are admired and respected for stepping forward and putting their lives on the line in defense of their country when it was in grave peril. But even gods have dreams. At 11:52 a.m. July 26, MacGill realized one of his on his 87th birthday. Thanks to his daughter Carol M. Zimorski, he experienced the serenity and exhilaration of soaring high above wooded mountains and farm fields in a Super Blanik L-23 glider. The birthday surprise had been in the works for months, orchestrated and pulled off magnificently by Zimorski. A few days before the flight, she spoke about how it came about. “Years ago my dad said before he cashed in his chips he wanted to take a ride in a glider plane and also a ride in a hot air balloon,” said Zimorski, who retired three years ago as director of Special Education and Student Services for Charlottesville City Schools. “When my parents moved here from Charlotte [N.C.] last November, I realized Dad’s 87th birthday was coming up, and I wanted to do something memorable. I knew that Eagle Nest Airport in Waynesboro offered glider plane rides, because my friend’s son took glider lessons there. “I contacted Ben Johnson, the secretary of the Shenandoah Valley Soaring club, and he helped me set it all up. I went out there to observe some flights, and it looked so peaceful and soothing.” When MacGill was flying combat missions in the Pacific Theater during the war, his flights were anything but peaceful and soothing. Aside from the tension associated with the possibility of engaging Japanese Zeros in aerial dogfights, there was the matter of taking off and landing on what MacGill called a “tossing cork in the middle of the ocean.” The stress associated with this unnerving task is compounded when darkness and foul weather are thrown into the mix. Such was the case when MacGill made a night landing in driving rain onto the deck of the U.S.S. Corrigidor Bay CVE-58. “We didn’t have any electronics to help guide us in like they do now,” MacGill said before his glider flight. “There was a guy on the corner of the flight deck with two paddles and we had to watch him. “He would tell us whether we were high or low or needed to go left, right or whatever it was. On this particular night landing, it was raining and the LSO [landing signal officer] cut me a little high so that when I flared out, I was still too high. “On top of that, the air officer had an itchy finger and pulled the crash siren on me. I thought, ‘Holy Christmas, is something I don’t know happening here?’ But I got her down a little lower and made a normal landing.” As MacGill was being driven west on Interstate 64 toward the Waynesboro airport, Graham A. Pitsenberger was doing a pre-flight check on the glider. The retired Federal Aviation Administration safety inspector is licensed to fly everything from helicopters to jets, but he has a special fondness for gliders. “I think it’s the association with Mother Nature that I most enjoy about flying gliders,” said Pitsenberger, who has been a flight instructor for 43 years and is the president of the soaring club. “You’re essentially trying to work with Mother Nature all the time and figure out how to utilize what she’s putting out to your best advantage. All fixed-wing airplanes fly the same, but they have different glide ratios. “For example, this glider has a glide ratio of 28 to 1, which means if you are a mile high you can go 28 miles. In comparison a Boeing 747 is 17 to 1, and the space shuttle is 1 to 1.” When Pitsenberger finished checking everything from wings to cables, he talked about the upcoming flight. “It’s quite a privilege for me to be taking up a World War II fighter pilot,” Pitsenberger said as a cooling breeze wafted across the grassy field where the glider rested. “This will be special, and it’s a real honor to do it. “We’ll be towed up to at least 3,000 feet before we’ll release from the tow plane. I suspect this will be different for him, but he’ll catch on right away. I’ll do the take off and landing, but he’ll do most of the flying.” While Pitsenberger was preparing for the flight, Zimorski was springing the surprise on her father and mother, Dorothy. When she picked up her parents at the Colonnades retirement community near Charlottesville, they were expecting her to take them to Monticello for a picnic. Something is up in the air MacGill sensed something was amiss when his daughter started driving in the opposite direction of Thomas Jefferson’s home. He was about to question his daughter’s directional acuity when she handed him a gift certificate with his original flight wings pinned to it. “He opened the card, but all that was coming out was, ‘Oh, ooh, oooh,’ ” Zimorski said after reaching the airport. “Then he said, ‘I’m going to fly in a glider?’ “I said, ‘Oh, yeah, you are.’ The next thing he said was, ‘Oh, wow.’ ” MacGill’s dream of soaring with the birds started many years ago after a conversation he had with one of his fighter plane buddies who had flown a glider. Just before his birthday flight, MacGill recalled the chat. “My friend told me it was the most wonderful feeling, and so quiet you can whisper to talk,” said MacGill, who was a sales manager for Ryerson Steel for more than 30 years before he retired. “And he said the controls are so sensitive you can almost think about a turn and it’ll do it for you. “I thought I just had to get a piece of that. It’s been on my mind for a long time, and now I’m going to do it.” Jay Darmstadter started the Shenandoah Valley Soaring club in the late 1980s. He chose an ideal location, because the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains can provide “mountain waves” of air that can provide the lift glider pilots look for. The most common means of lift comes from warm-air thermals created by heat rising up from the ground. When a pilot locates a thermal, he will begin circling within the column of rising air to gain altitude. “The purpose of the sport, once you get good at keeping the glider in the air, is not just about floating over the airport for an hour,” Darmstadter said. “It’s about going someplace. “There’s a series of badges you can get as a glider pilot that require progressively more difficult tasks to get higher badges. I have a silver badge that requires a five-hour flight after tow, an altitude gain of 1,000 meters and a distance flight of 50 kilometers. “The ultimate badge would be three diamonds. There’s a diamond for an altitude gain of 5,000 meters. A diamond for a declared-goal flight of 300 kilometers and a diamond for a distance flight of 500 kilometers without a declared goal.” Pitsenberger’s wife, Jeanne, has been flying airplanes since 1969 and gliders since 2006. A few months ago she managed to stay aloft for four hours and 20 minutes and reached an altitude of 14,000 feet. On the recent Saturday morning, her thoughts were on the fighter pilot who had an appointment with a dream. “When I learned we were going to have a World War II fighter pilot come for a ride, I was thrilled,” Jeanne Pitsenberger said. “My father was in the Navy during the war, and was on a destroyer when I was born in 1945. “This generation of Americans is quickly leaving us, and we owe our very freedom to them. They were so brave and so young.” A few minutes later, MacGill was being strapped into the front seat of the glider. After settling in, the pilot gave him a briefing on the controls. With the briefing finished and a few dozen photographs taken, it was time to fly. Larry Burruss taxied a single-seat Piper Pawnee 235 airplane into position, and the tow line was hooked up. When the OK was signaled, the Pawnee taxied slowly toward the runway as slack started being taken out of the towline. When the line went taut Burruss started the former crop duster down the runway and within seconds both aircraft were in the air. Another of MacGill’s daughters, Janice Altman, had traveled with her husband and daughter from their home in Maryland to help celebrate the special event. Some years ago her father had proudly pinned Navy aviation wings on her son, Lt. Kenneth Padgett, during a graduation ceremony in Norfolk. “My heart is soaring with my dad,” Altman said as she watched the glider lift from the ground. “I know this is a supreme moment for him. “He is having the time of his life, and that means so much to me. It’s just incredible.” Within a few minutes the tow plane and glider had become distinctive specks against a backdrop of white cumulus clouds. When the glider released from the tow plane it banked off to the side and began its search for rising thermals. Down to Earth With the wind whistling by the canopy, MacGill’s thoughts returned to the exciting days when he was a young man going through pilot training. The aged patina of the silver wings pinned to his white shirt told of the years that have passed. The last time MacGill had been at the controls of an aircraft was in 1950. His final flight had been in an F-8 Bearcat — the fastest piston-engine aircraft of its time. Back then the Navy judged an aircraft by how fast it could get to 10,000 feet directly overhead. It took Lt. MacGill just two minutes and 10 seconds to reach the stated altitude. The glider didn’t get near that height, but the ride was just as memorable. Before Pitsenberger brought it in for a landing after a 25-minute flight, the glider did a flyby above the cheering spectators. Later, Pitsenberger had high praise for his co-pilot. “He did beautifully,” Pitsenberger said just before signing MacGill’s flight log book that Zimorski had thought to bring. “He did most of the flying. “During the flight he mentioned how wonderful it was.” A few minutes later a beaming MacGill relaxed in a folding chair. When asked how this ranked as far as birthday surprises, he had a ready answer. “This is absolute tops,” MacGill said as a broad smile spread across his face. “It came as a total 100 percent surprise. “I had absolutely no idea this was going to happen. I couldn’t believe it, because this was one of the things I wanted to do so bad. “Carol is known for this kind of thing, but she really outdid herself this time.” | |