- Argus Leader
- Sioux Falls, SD
- Thursday, August 16, 2001
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By Chuck Cecil
For The Argus Leader
published: 8/16/01
60-year-old plane to be on display at open house
BROOKINGS-Harry Thompson and Tigger tool around South Dakota in an old WW II
aircraft.
He's a converted parachutist, his airplane is a 60-year-old AT-6, and Tigger is
a stuffed animal of "Winnie the Pooh" fame who, Thompson says,
"watches my six o'clock."
With Tigger in the back seat, Thompson sits on a seatpack parachute up front so
at 5 feet 8 inches tall he can watch his 12 o'clock out beyond the long blue
cowling. The inseparable pair fly to air shows and special events, or just for
the pleasure of it. Often, Thompson appears at air shows and airport fly-ins
dressed in a
WW II Army uniform. Tigger is always in his orange stripes.
Thompson, 58, Tigger and his rare AT-6 will be at Business Aviation's open house
Saturday and Sunday in Sioux Falls.
"It's a big deal to have the plane," Tim Bond, admissions
representative for Business Aviation, said. "It's really a piece of
history." Events are open to the public.
Thompson will give rides on the plane for $75 each.
The former resident of Crookston and Alexandria, Minn. enrolled at the
University of North Dakota after a two-year stint in the Army from 1966-68.
He received his degree in geography with an aerial photography specialty in
1971. Two years before Army service, he started sport parachute jumping and
continued leaping out of airplanes for 20 years.
He's jumped 1,725 times, including many at national jump competitions. In
parachute jumping circles, he's Gold Wing Number 381, which means he was the
381st person to complete 1,000 jumps. In North Dakota, he's Gold Wing Number
One. Speaking of his target jumping in the vernacular, he says he jumped so much
he could "come down and crush a beer can in the target bullseye with my
heel."
After co-owning a successful aluminum extrusion business in Alexandria for 25
years, he retired at 54. Now, he's either tinkering with or at the controls of
his AT-6, an old WW II C-47 Dakota (called the Jolly Green Dragon in Vietnam and
now known as a DC-3), another aircraft he converted for parachuting, or his
collection of vintage cars. He and a friend are also building a Glasair kit
plane.
Thompson moved to Brookings after retirement because he liked the town and the
people and met some other aircraft enthusiasts at the Brookings Airport,
including now good friends Dr. Jim Bailey and Rob McLaughlin. Bailey and
McLaughlin are also building or restoring aircraft, so when the three gather,
it's mostly shop talk.
Last summer, Thompson tried bush pilot work, ferrying fishermen into remote
areas of Lake of the Woods in Canada aboard a Cessna 185 float plane. "That
was fun and something different to do," Thompson said.
"I think I still hold the record for flying in 27 cases of beer to a resort
up there that was planning a big party," he says. "I wasn't sure I
could cram that many cases in, but I did."
His favorite aircraft is his AT-6, a reliable old workhorse which was the
trainer for nearly every WW II warplane pilot, fighter or bomber. Thompson said
the AT-6 was arguably the most prolific trainer. "Every pilot in every
service learned to fly it."
Because of its ponderous size and huge 600 horsepower radial engine, it takes a
specially trained hand to keep it on the straight and level. Veteran pilot
Bailey, a retired South Dakota State University veterinarian with 43 years in
the air, admires Thompson's flying skills.
"He's a very good pilot, especially with that heavy plane," Bailey
said. "He's also a heck of a good guy."
Thompson bought the plane (known as the SNJ by Navy and Marine pilots) from the
Polar Aviation Museum in Minneapolis in 1997. He's tracked its genealogy back to
its pre-WW II birth. It rolled off the North American Aviation assembly line in
Dallas on Jan. 17, 1941. In all, more than 15,000 of the planes were built.
America had not yet entered WW II, so Thompson's AT-6 was part of about 30
planes sent to Canada to train pilots. By the 1960s, it was owned by a Seattle
pilot who used it as an air racer. It became the first AT-6 to go more than 200
miles an hour in a Reno race.
"It's a stripped down model, really light. No munitions or guns, but you
can still see where the guns were placed on the wings," Thompson said.
Thompson's blue veteran with Marine markings (Marines paint a tiger on the
fuselage) eventually ended up at the Polar museum where he bought it.
The aircraft has 9,000 hours of airtime. At its average speed of 165 miles an
hour, that's nearly 1.5 million air miles. Thompson thinks that the plane has
had at least ten new engines. Parts are still available, but the supply is
dwindling.
In 1995, the AT-6 was used as a fighter-bomber aircraft in the South African Air
Force. The country up-graded to another aircraft and sold off AT-6s and enough
AT-6 spare parts to build ten other AT-6s from scratch, Thompson said.
He is currently recovering from an operation for cancer, but is now able to
hoist himself back into the AT-6 cockpit for a "buzz around the
patch," which is pilotese for "a trip around the airport."
He's happy to be back flying again, and having Tigger watch his six o'clock.