Neosho sees visit from World War II Mustang, Tigercat planes

From Neosho Daily News: Neosho sees visit from World War II Mustang, Tigercat planes
Neosho, Mo. — Flying wing-to-wing formation on Monday morning, two vintage World War II planes landed at the Neosho Hugh Robinson Airport to refuel.

The two planes were a P-51 Mustang and a Grumman F7F Tigercat.

“The Grumman F7F Tigercat built was in the 1940s. It didn’t see a whole lot of action in World War II, but saw it toward the end,” said Stewart Dawson, pilot of the airplane. “The Navy originally had it, but they kept breaking it going aboard the boat with it, so they gave it to the Marines.”

The Tigercat is based in San Antonio, Texas and both planes were flying back from an Oshkosh air show.

“The plane was built as a fighter, and it was used as a fighter,” Dawson said. “It usually had six 50-inch machine guns in the nose. And one 20 mm cannon on one side, one 20 mm cannons on the other side. Then it was put to use as a night attack, because they had a back seat for a radar operator. It saw duty in Korea, had some kills in Korea, after it was retired from the military, the firefighters got a hold of it, and this was one of the best fire bombers that they had and they used a lot of them. There are only five of these flying now. There is two more in restoration, so there should be seven flying in a couple of years.”

The plane could hold up to 660 gallons.

“Some of them had drops (tanks) up under (the wings) for another 150 here and 150 on the other side,” he said.

On this particular plane, there was a painted decal of a blonde woman in a swimsuit on the nose of the plane.

“That is what the man that owns the airplane wanted on there,” Dawson said. “Everybody had nose art back then.”

Dawson has flown planes including for the airlines for a number of years. In 2002, he retired from piloting airlines.

“These type of planes are a lot more fun, it is a lot hotter,” he said. “It is pretty cool. This is one of my favorites.”

As he finished fueling up the plane, P-51 Mustang pilot Stuart Milson pulled up to the gas pump.

“It is recently restored, this is actually a very unique airplane, this airplane was a true combat veteran, it is one of two Mustangs that we know of existence that actually flew combat in Europe,” he said. “This is the only one that is flying and it is a true combat veteran. We were into the restoration and the gentleman that flew this passed away and his son was going through his records, log books and found the serial number of the airplane. He contacted us, showed us pictures of his dad actually flying this airplane, we painted it back with his markings just exactly the way that it was in Europe.”

Near the nose of the single propeller is the name, ‘The Brat III.”

“That is what the gentleman in the war, that is what he came up with,” Milson said. “He also flew a P-38, I think that was the original ‘Brat.’”

Milson stated the P-51 Mustang was a fighter plane.

“They would use for close in-ground support,” he said. “The thing a lot of people remember about the Mustang is that it escorted the bombers, and that is what really changed the war, we were able to really get the bombers deep into the enemy territory.”

The plane was equipped with six 50-inch machine guns, three on each side. There were also bombs underneath.

Milson said he flew Mustangs three or four years ago and stated the first time he flew this one was in early July.

“This is great,” he said.

On-lookers watched as the planes fueled up and later took off from the airport.

“It is good to get the young folks involved in it,” he said.