The opportunity to fly the Pitts on barnstorming tours came through a family friend, L. Paul Soucy, who had two Pitts Specials and was on the air-show circuit. Soucy`s son Gene, who was only 21 when he won the U.S. aerobatic championship in 1968, flew in the shows with his father, but Soucy needed someone else to help fly the second Pitts Special, so he asked Tom if he could fill in.
”I did a little announcing at some air shows and practiced more and more in the Pitts,” Tom says. ”And I did my first aerobatic competition in a Pitts.”
In 1972 he qualified to become one of the five members of the U.S. aerobatic flight team that traveled to Europe to take part in the World Aerobatic Championship, which the U.S. team won.
Of the five U.S. team members, three-Poberezny, Gene Soucy and Charles Hillard-had already flown together as the Red Devils at various air shows to raise some of the money they needed to participate in the European
competition. ”We already had an act, and the three of us were used to flying together and putting on shows,” says Tom, grinning. ”So we won the team championship, and suddenly we were the World Champion Red Devils.”
Still flying together as a team, the three now each fly a Christen Eagle, a single-seat biplane, performing 20 to 25 times a year at various air shows as the Eagles Aerobatic Flight Team.
As for Paul and Audrey Poberezny, the EAA is still as much a part of their life as before. Their large frame home on the EAA grounds-which they rent from the association and which once served as a bunk house, meeting place and kitchen for convention volunteers-is filled with plaques, photos, awards and other memorabilia from many years of flying and the early days of the EAA. On a wall of the basement is the control yoke of a C-47 transport plane.
”I flew 6,700 hours on that wheel,” Poberezny says proudly.
Displayed on a plaque nearby are the military wings Poberezny earned in his 29 years of service in the Army and Air National Guards: glider pilot wings from World War II; service pilot; liaison pilot; Army aviator; Air Force pilot (”One of the first 100 issued,” Poberezny notes); and senior pilot and command pilot, both from the Air Force.
On another wall is another plaque with a picture of an old biplane that had crashed into a tree and, above it, the words: ”Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.”
The unforgiving element of flying has resulted in some deaths and serious injuries in aviation accidents at the EAA`s annual conventions. During last year`s fly-in, one woman was seriously injured when she was struck in the arm by a propeller. She has since recovered from her injury. The last fatal accident at the convention occurred in 1983, when a pilot from Europe, flying in his small plane, crashed. How have these accidents affected Paul Poberezny? Turning serious, his gravelly voice now at a whisper, he replies: ”I have been at every fatal and serious-injury accident since we started. Each time back then I wanted to quit, but it doesn`t affect me as much now as in earlier days. To continue to serve under those circumstances, you kind of have to take hold of the situation.”
Walking from his home to his nearby workshop, Poberezny grins as he sees a flock of birds flying toward a feeder in his back yard. Inside the workshop are signs of several ongoing projects-sections of an aircraft wing on one side, the framework for part of an aircraft fuselage on another.
Near the workshop door are the objects of his other love-three large Harley-Davidson motorcycles that he owns: a 1971, a 1983 and a new 1987 model. To Poberezny and other motorcycle enthusiasts, the machines are ”hawgs,” or, more properly, ”full-dress Harley hawgs.”
”Once a year, even though Audrey doesn`t like it, I take one of my bikes and drive out to the west and northwest,” he confides. ”I read about the history of the area first and then I ride.”
Near the bikes on the floor is a crumpled red-and-white panel from a twin-engine Cessna. ”Audrey and I were flying in a Cessna when a Mustang hit us in midair over Florida,” he explains. ”Understandably, Audrey`s enthusiasm about flying decreased after that accident.”
Though not a pilot, Audrey Poberezny has been up in all kinds of planes for more hours than she can remember, and on two occasions has taken part in an air show, as a wing-walker perched on top an aircraft. Asked about her performances as a stunt lady on an aerobatic plane, she says, ”It`s not nearly as scary as it looks.”
Poberezny is particularly proud of the aviation museum he has built on the EAA grounds, perhaps as an outgrowth of his compulsion to save everything. The modern building, designed by the Milwaukee firm of Brust-Heike Associates Inc., looks deceptively small from the outside. In fact, it has more than 62,000 square feet of display space and currently holds more than 80 full-size aircraft that mark the progress of human flight from the Wright Brothers`
Flyer to a replica of Voyager.
The original Voyager, which is now in the Smithsonian`s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, made its first public appearance at the 1984 EAA fly-in. A homebuilt designed by Burt Rutan, brother of its pilot Dick Rutan, Voyager had its roots in the EAA, and after its historic flight (25,012 miles nonstop around the world without refueling), Dick Rutan and copilot Jeana Yeager brought it back to Oshkosh for last summer`s fly-in.
In addition to the airplanes on display, the museum has aviation-related art and photo exhibits and areas where visitors can view EAA members restoring various aircraft. Friendly and knowledgeable volunteer guides are always on hand to greet and assist visitors.
Behind the museum is Pioneer Airport, a working field built to look like a small-town airport of the 1930s, complete with its own grass runway, hangar and the flight-service station that a few years ago was moved here, lock, stock and wind sock, from Lone Rock, Wis. On summer weekends volunteer EAA members fly vintage (and experimental) aircraft in and out of Pioneer Airport to give visitors the sight-sound-and-smell experience of a small vintage airport in operation.
Weeks before the 1988 fly-in, Poberezny is in his black Chevy El Camino pickup driving toward the main runway of Wittman Field. The area is largely deserted. The aircraft parking areas are empty fields of grass, and so are the campgrounds. But workmen are already getting the various facilities ready.
”I enjoy the bull-work part,” Poberezny says. ”If I had my choice, I`d be out here with the fellows. In the early years when there was nobody to help, I did a lot of it myself. It`s really nice to be on that mower hour after hour; you can see what you`ve done,” he says as he waves a hand toward one of the workers on a riding lawnmower. ”It`s like building something.”
Encountering a bumpy area near the runway, Poberezny pulls out a walkie-talkie from a leather carrier on his belt and speaks into it. ”Blue 1, this is Red 1, over,” he says.
Blue 1 is EAA maintence supervisor Vern Lichtenberg. ”Vern, if we can get into the area where the ultralight runway was and start rolling it, we are going to be ahead of the game rather than wait when it gets harder,”
Poberezny says. ”We`ll take care of it this afternoon,” Blue 1 replies.
An hour later a tractor pulling rollers is smoothing the area, and Poberezny, noticing the activity, smiles. ”Vern used to be a sergeant in SAC (Strategic Air Command) under (Gen. Curtis) LeMay,” he says. ”You tell him once, and it`s done. In some places, it would take four weeks to get that done, and you`d have to have meetings and memos to plan it out first.”
Things do get done at EAA with a minimum of bureaucracy, and a lot of it is due to the president`s own personal, hands-on style. The planting of scores of trees on the EAA grounds was done under his supervision, and he does the pruning of those trees himself. Through the years he has kept a handwritten diary of EAA activities, and as he has done from the very start of the organization, he still personally answers every letter addressed to him. ”We get as many as 300 letters a day,” he says. ”We direct those with technical questions to the proper departments, but if there is a personal note to me, I see it, and I answer it myself.”
To prepare for this year`s convention, Poberezny was personally involved in a meeting with municipal, state and FAA officials concerning plans to improve motor-vehicle-traffic flow into and out of the EAA grounds. The discussion brought up the need for new aerial photos of the area, so right after the meeting Poberezny stopped Jim Koepnick, the EAA`s chief
photographer, in the hall and told him: ”We need some aerial photos for the new road work. Get a plane ready and get it done right away.” Within an hour a plane was circling the area, with Carl Schuppel, an EAA staff photographer, taking all the necessary shots.
Back in his office, Poberezny looks out a window at the EAA complex outside. ”One thing is for certain-we have a home now, sport aviation has a home here in Oshkosh, and it will continue to grow,” he says.
To City Manager William Frueh, the relationship between Oshkosh and the EAA is ”a big love affair. It has lasted 18 years and is still strong.” Not since the 1970s has he known of anyone from the city of 50,000 complaining about noise from the planes, and the economic benefits are clear: Last year alone fly-in participants spent more than $47.8 million in Oshkosh and another $17.2 million elsewhere in the state.
The fields are empty now, but come July 29, they will be packed again with countless rows of aircraft. Ground traffic will be bumper-to-bumper. Tents, campers and people of all sizes and ages will be crowding one another all over the place. And overhead the air will be filled with the roaring excitement of fly-bys and air shows and the comings and goings of all kinds of aircraft.
After a week`s time-too soon, for sure, for the EAA`s aviation addicts-it will all be over. Wittman Field will once again yield the title of world`s busiest to O`Hare, and the silence of a Wisconsin countryside will descend once more on the EAA complex. But to Paul Poberezny, his family and his staff, there is no lasting respite. Work must start again to prepare for next year`s fly-in.
”One guy keeps telling me, `Go and smell the roses, Paul; you`re not getting any younger.` People always tell you to slow down, but how do you do that when you are propelled by something within you that you can`t even understand yourself?”
