Cropdusting Fighter Pilots
Excerpt from the book Highways in the Sky by David B. Freeman
Date: 3/10/76
A/C Type: Cessna Agwagon
A/C Registration: N4783Q
Route of Flight: Wichita (Cessna) – UOX
It was easy to imagine the I was flying a WWII fighter plane. With its single-seat cockpit, canopy, low wings, a control stick, the plane was powerful for its size and weight. And, it was responsive. I was flying trail in a flight of four. We had been in the air nearly three hours, flying high, above the haze, and with a good tailwind. My bladder was ready for a break and the fuel gauge indicated less than fourth of a tank.
There had been no sign of enemy aircraft, no sign of bombers needing fighter support, just a long stretch of Kansas prairie, blending into the mountains of southern Missouri and northern Arkansas . I hated to admit it, but the novelty of the flight was beginning to wear off. We weren’t even flying a tight enough formation to keep the adrenaline flowing.
I couldn’t contact lead. Radio silence was in effect, not to conceal our presence from the enemy, but because we had no radios. I hoped lead’s fuel and bladder situation were similar to mine and we would be letting down soon.
The sleek, single-seat fighter I was flying wasn’t a fighter at all, but a Cessna Agwagon—a cropduster. The mission wasn’t a military one, but a simple ferry flight. Still, one can dream.
Suddenly, lead broke to his left in a tight downward spiral. He must have picked out the airport where we would stop for fuel. Two and three broke off behind him, and I followed. The controls stiffened as I dove to catch up with the others, and I could actually imagine myself making a strafing run. Then I saw them—three Grumman Agcats, a couple of thousand feet below us. In tight formation and unsuspecting, they were flying straight and level on a southwesterly heading. The element of surprise was definitely in our favor.
What were the odds that a ferry flight of three cropdusters from the Grumman factory in Elmira , New York , would cross paths over northern Arkansas with a flight of four Cessna cropdusters bound from Wichita , Kansas to Houston, Mississippi ? It didn’t matter! The odds in the impending dogfight were definitely with us. We had them outnumbered and we had the element of surprise!
Lead lined up above and behind the gray and yellow Grummans biplanes. He slowed so as not to overtake them and waited for the rest of us to catch up. It was then that one of the Grumman pilots spotted us and wagged his wings at the others. They broke formation, the two trailing planes turning outside to meet us head on. Man they could turn tight! We dove through where their formation had been, the and the lead Grumman looped and came around on my tail. I pushed the nose over and began to jink from side to side, but couldn’t shake him. He stayed right on my tail and I could hear his imaginary machineguns firing, feel the imaginary bullets raking my fuselage and canopy. I pulled up into a hammerhead, and snapped off to the right. He turned the opposite direction, one of those slow, tight turns the biplanes are so good at and as I came out of my dive, he was right there waiting for me, approaching me head on. I was dead. I hoped my wingmen had faired better.
I saluted the Grumman pilot that had bettered me and turned in my seat to locate the others. They were below us, one Grumman diving with a Cessna right on his tail. The other Grumman was caught in a crossfire between the remaining two Cessnas as they strafed him from the side, one pulling up and going over him, the other diving under him at the latest minute.
It is over in a couple of minutes. Two Grummans pilots were dead, but only because they had been surprised and outnumbered. Among the Cessna pilots, there was one dead—me. The Agcats rejoined their formation and continued on their southwesterly heading. We flew by them in loose trail and saluted. The grins on their faces were as big as the grins on ours. Lead took us to the nearest airport to refuel and rearm.