By Gustavo J. Mas, EAA Lifetime 853532
I had just recently moved to Florida’s Gulf Coast and was enjoying some early morning salt water fishing near New Pass on Fort Myers Beach when I heard the distinct sound of big radial engines approaching. As I looked up in the direction where I thought the aircraft were coming from, I didn’t see a thing, but the rumble kept getting louder and louder. Quite suddenly, a flight of four DC-3s in formation appeared over the treetops, literally, spewing smoke at no more than 100 feet off the ground! They flew directly over my head with a glorious, thundering roar from their radial engines then disappeared as quickly as they had arrived. To most non-aviation-oriented people, that would have been a jarring and frightening few seconds of sensory overload, but I relished the moment as my adrenaline pumped. After a few more low passes, each farther away from my location, they climbed out and headed northeast toward the mainland. As I packed up my fishing gear and headed for a hot breakfast, I remembered hearing about this outfit from my local FBO, but I’d never seen them in action until that morning; they were from the Lee County Mosquito Control District based out of Buckingham Field, originally a WWII Army Air Corps B-24 and B-17 training base just east of Fort Myers, and their mission was to kill adult mosquitos.
I thought about how interesting, not to mention how much fun that would be and since I was a commercial multi-engine IFR-rated pilot, I decided to apply for a part-time copilot seat flying the venerable and much admired “Gooney Birds” that were actually ex-military C-47s. This mosquito killer squadron was a very tightly knit group of aviators and it was tough to get a cool, paid flying gig like this coming in the front door, but through persistence, some luck, and a good preacher friend already in, I managed to get hired through the back door about a year later and flew my first mission a few days afterward. The chief pilot usually called us the previous evening for the next day’s early morning flights which meant reporting for work at the airfield at 4 a.m. for coffee and mission briefing. The other copilots, like myself, had “day jobs” and most were professionals in fields other than aviation and flew on an as-needed basis. Up until that point in time, the largest airplane I’d flown as PIC was a Piper Twin Comanche, so the DC-3/C-47 was quite intimidating and made me feel just a bit uneasy; but in a good way! The typical mission began with the chief pilot’s briefing, which included assigning aircraft to each crew, discussing departure and rendezvous procedures, and analyzing the target area to be fogged. Weather was never an issue because unless the forecast called for other than clear skies and winds less than 5 knots, no one got the call the previous evening to fly. In fact, those criteria were essential to successfully fly each sortie VFR and to prevent the fogging pattern from drifting and dispersing unnecessarily off the designated areas.
It was the morning of my seventh flight, and I was starting to feel quite at home in the right seat lowering and retracting the flaps and landing gear, opening and closing the cowl flaps, reading off checklists, handling radio communications, and generally helping the captain in any way he desired. Stick time was at his discretion, usually to and from the target for a low-timer like myself but he was very generous and had actually let me fly a few passes on previous flights. The copilot also had the very important job during the fogging runs to look out for power lines, trees, microwave towers, and anything else that could be hazardous to our flying during pre-dawn hours zipping along at 75 feet AGL at 120 knots.
After the briefing, Captain Jim and I walked out to our assigned aircraft, N211GB, and began our preflight. It was still dark outside so a good flashlight was absolutely essential. I had flown with Jim twice before and enjoyed his cockpit demeanor; he was DC-3 type-rated with several thousand total flight hours including having flown three combat tours in Air Force F-100s and F-4s over Vietnam so I trusted this guy; he had the “Right Stuff” and I enjoyed watching his techniques while learning a great deal. The preflight included checking out the 800-gallon tank inside the airplane that contained the mosquito poison Baytex mixed with a diesel-like oil used as the dispersant. This mixture would then be pumped out and injected over the exhaust stacks on each engine to form the fog spray not unlike the smoke systems used by aerobatic pilots at air shows. The funky smelling fog was deadly to mosquitoes but harmless to humans.
On August 27, 1988, at first light, this particular summer morning’s mission deployed three aircraft to fog the Pine, Captiva, and Sanibel Islands on the Gulf Coast. The three aircraft taxied to the active runway, took off single file, climbed out, then formed up in a diamond formation with Jim and I in the lead airplane and the other two airplanes at our 4 and 8 o’clock positions off our wings. As we approached our target zone heading SW and descending to our working altitude, everything was “thumbs up” and normal, with the sun slowly peeking up over our left shoulders to the east unfolding a textbook perfect morning with a CAVU sky, winds from the north at less than 3 knots, and the gorgeous shimmering Gulf of Mexico in front of us colored pale teal in the early morning light.
We made several low fogging passes over the vacation islands under ideal conditions, enjoying the great scenery and killing mosquitos simultaneously. I probably would have done this low-level semi-hazardous job for free given it was so much fun; but the pay was the icing on the cake. Flying an old warbird very low and not so slow with some really good, experienced pilots and getting paid for it was a bona-fide thrilling learning experience!
After another 180-degree turn to roll out over our next line, we switched on the “fogging pots” as
usual, when unexpectedly without any warning whatsoever, a huge flock of starlings rose up from the trees just ahead of us, most likely spooked by the thunderous roar and spiking vibrations coming from our six Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radial engines. Instinctively, Jim and I both ducked and hit our own heads together as the windscreen filled with the sight of those small black birds trying desperately to get out of our way to survive. At that moment, I thought to myself that at such an extremely low altitude, losing an engine (or both) to bird strikes would not turn out very well. We penetrated the flock, hearing what sounded like snow balls slushing against the airframe, and after we came out the other side in just a few seconds, I found myself unusually calm but very cautious while Jim continued flying the airplane rock steady checking the gauges and not deviating from our heading and altitude.
Once we regained our composure, we got back on the radio and realized that the other two airplanes had missed the flock entirely with only us in the lead airplane getting peppered with bird strikes. We ended the mission immediately and returned to base where once on the ground, we surveyed the damage which was looking visually very minor. There were scarlet and black splatters glued to the leading edges of the wings, horizontal and vertical stabilizers, under and around the nose, and also on the right propeller tips from the blood and feathers. I found out the next day that the right engine and propeller would be removed from the aircraft, inspected, and overhauled since it was near TBO anyway. That was a logical decision due to the nature of the accident which required immediate attention, with the aircraft eventually flying again for many hours without any problems. My hat’s off to Douglas Aircraft for building such a great and tough airplane which gave its pilots confidence. I flew a few more missions that summer as well as the following mosquito season without incident giving thanks for the luck that I’d had on that “bird strike flight,” as entered in my pilot’s logbook. So, watching the film Sully: Miracle on the Hudson a few years ago really struck a chord with me about luck and good airmanship.