Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
World War II warplanes landed in Warsaw yesterday.
North American Top-Gun Inc. came to the Warsaw Municiple Airport yesterday and will stay until Monday when they will continue their travels to Racine, Wis.
Top-Gun, owned by Bruce Moore and headquartered in St. Augustine, Fla, has been in business for 10 years and flown approximately 15,000 people, according to pilot Josh Wilson.
The company owns five planes, two of which can be seen at the airport this weekend. The company's chief occupation is to take the customers up in the planes and let them fly or sightsee or do whatever they want. It's not an airshow, according to Wilson. Air shows like the Blue Angels Squadron are crowd pleasers.
"We're not so much for the crowd," Wilson said. "We're more for the customers."
Wilson, 24, has been with Top-Gun for four months and he is enjoying himself immensely. He enjoys taking the customers up and letting them experience flying.
"Everybody loves it," he said. "These planes are very very easy to fly."
Wilson and the other pilot that can be seen at the airport this weekend, Dennis Van Swoll, fly a 44 AT6-D Texan and an SNJ. These planes were built in Texas and are advanced training planes.
They weren't actually combat planes. Their chief purpose was to train the pilots in all techniques.
They had machine guns, a bomb rack and we're used to dog-fight in order to train the pilots for real combat.
"They fly very very light on the controls," said Wilson. Which makes them ideal training planes and ideal for allowing people with no prior flying experience to fly.
Wilson and Van Swoll take the customers up and then give them the controls.
If they want to do aerobatics like loops and rolls, the pilots explain how to do it and then give the customers the freedom to do what they want.
If patrons would rather sightsee and let the pilots do the flying, that's okay too. They take everyone up from ages 5 to 80.
The planes were manufactured by Pratt & Whitley and have a 600 horse power engine with nine super-charged cylinders. About 15,000 were built initially. Only 400 fly today. There are three different versions of these particular models; an Airforce version, a Navy version and a Harvard version which was used by the British and Canadians. The Airforce version and the Navy version are represented at the airport this weekend.
Wilson flew with the French Connection Air Shows for six years teaching aerobatics before he worked with Top-Gun. He is from Daytona Beach, Fla., and his wife, Camille, 24, is employed as an intern with the company selling souvenirs.
Van Swoll, 47, is from Everest, Kan., and was a physics and astronomy professor at Highland College in northeast Kansas. He's been flying more than 30 years and has done all sorts of flying, "except crop dusting." He has also been with Top-Gun for four months.
"I like flying upside down," Wilson said with a grin."It's a blast. There's a lot of grin factor."
Most of the flight time has been booked in advance. Call the airport, 269-1337, for more information.
