[Rhodes22-list] Air Races - Mary Dilda

Wed Jun 1 09:17:18 EDT 2005

Brad,

A friend of mine used to own a T6 in the Confederate Airforce back in
Houston.  He always tells the story of being at an airshow with a
bunch of other T6s and as he is on final for landing he hears the
tower "White T6, your gear's up".  Well, he looked around and thought
"That fool behind me forgot to drop his gear."  As he continues on
down to the runway, the tower calls out "White T6, your gear's still
up".  He then remembers thinking, "That fool must not have his radio
on, either!"  Just about then he touches down on his belly and makes a
nice slide down the runway.  OOPS!

Trivia 101.  Hollywood used the T6 to re-create the Japanese Zoro for
the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!"

Hank

On 6/1/05, brad haslett <flybrad at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Here is an article from today's Memphis Commercial
> Apppeal. You've heard me talk about Mary before. I've
> attached the photos from the article to spare you
> registering with the paper to view them, but they may
> be small (there is no news value in actually reading
> the Appeal and unless you need to line a bird cage, no
> reason to buy a hard copy).
> 
> http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_3820744,00.html
> 
> 
> Photos by Thomas Busler/The Commercial Appeal
> 
> Mary Dilda, a FedEx pilot, aerobat and competitive
> airplane racer, will compete in the Tunica Air Races
> this week.
> 
> Heart for flying
> Dashing around pylons, pilot lives for aerial thrill
> 
> By Oliver Staley
> Contact
> May 31, 2005
> 
> Mary Dilda slices through the early evening air at
> sickening speed.
> 
> The speedometer creeps up -- 200, 210, 220 mph -- as
> the plane screams down, hurtling toward the Olive
> Branch runway.
> 
> 
> As the passenger behind her turns first white, then
> green, Dilda banks her T6 so steeply that its left
> wing is sticking straight up and the tip of the right
> wing is just 10 feet off the ground.
> 
> Her husband, standing on the ground, flickers past and
> Dilda pulls back hard on the stick, lifting the plane
> skyward, ready to do it again.
> 
> After about 20 minutes Dilda is back on the ground,
> laughing. Her passenger is soaked with sweat and
> quivering, but she looks as fresh as when she climbed
> in the cockpit.
> 
> In truth, the flight wasn't much of a workout for
> Dilda, a FedEx pilot, aerobat and competitive airplane
> racer. With the Tunica Air Races just weeks away,
> Dilda was tuning up her T6 Two of Hearts, a
> single-engine World War II propeller plane she owns
> with her husband, Steve, in preparation for three days
> of racing.
> 
> A race, she said, is a mental and physical battle,
> with as many as six planes banking in unison around a
> five-mile course of pylons.
> 
> "You've got planes on either side of you," she said.
> "It's incredible."
> 
> During racing the planes are sealed to be as
> aerodynamic as possible, and the temperature in the
> cockpits climbs well past 100 degrees. The noise can
> be deafening and pilots fight centrifugal forces that
> can approach 10 Gs. And unlike in auto racing, where
> the drag of a car in front can help, the slipstream of
> another plane is no place to be.
> 
> "If you get into any wake turbulence it has a tendency
> to knock you around," potentially into the pylons or
> other planes, Dilda said. "They have had planes
> connect and they never make it."
> 
> Death is a reality in air racing. Fourteen pilots have
> been killed since 1964 at the Reno Air Races -- until
> this year the sport's only regular venue -- and given
> how few people compete in the extraordinarily
> expensive pastime, few other sports have as high a
> fatality rate.
> 
> It's the sport's danger, though, that creates the
> thrills. It's why NASCAR is more exciting than track
> meets and why people go to the rodeo.
> 
> Dilda is up front about the risk but doesn't dwell on
> it.
> 
> "It is dangerous but these things can happen at any
> point in time," she said. Besides, she said, the
> pilots she races "are the cream of the crop."
> 
> At 46, Dilda is blonde, trim and disarmingly friendly.
> But her ready smile belies the cut- throat instincts
> of a competitor.
> 
> In her eight years of racing at Reno she has finished
> in the top five of the T6 class in all but her first
> year, with two second-place finishes. In 2002, flying
> a borrowed Czech fighter at more than 400 mph, she won
> the jet class, beating a field that included a pair of
> astronauts.
> 
> Dilda has been flying since she was a teenager in
> rural New Mexico, tagging along with her rancher
> father in his Cessna. At Oklahoma State University,
> Dilda gave flying lessons and soon after joined the
> Air Force.
> 
> She served for 10 years, including during the first
> Gulf War when she flew massive C141 cargo planes.
> 
> She has been with FedEx since 1994 as a simulator
> instructor and more recently a cargo pilot. Racing and
> stunt flying followed, after she and Steve bought Two
> of Hearts in 1996. Steve has raced in the past but
> he'll serve as the "air boss" at the Tunica races,
> directing the planes from the ground.
> 
> Her dedication to flying has resulted in some
> sacrifices, notably not having children.
> 
> "When I was young I decided I was going to be a mother
> or a pilot but I couldn't do both," she said. "I give
> credit to all the women who do it, but gosh ..."
> 
> No children, of course, means more time to spend aloft
> and tinkering with Two of Hearts.
> 
> The plane set a T6 record of 239 mph in 2003, and in
> the weeks leading up to race it has been further tuned
> and modified. Dilda's flight over Olive Branch was to
> work out a new propeller.
> 
> "We've done just about everything we can do to make it
> faster," she said back in the hangar.
> 
> Now, after a rash of strong showings in Reno, Dilda's
> aspirations for the inaugural race in her backyard are
> obvious.
> 
> "Knock on wood, I plan on winning," she said, smiling
> sweetly.
> 
> -- Oliver Staley: 529-6515
> 
> Copyright 2005, commercialappeal.com - Memphis, TN.
> All Rights Reserved.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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