World War II-era fighter flies in tribute to Tuskegee Airmen
The Yuma Air Show is not all about modern military jets and helicopters.
The show will also be a public unveiling of sorts for a World War II-era fighter plane that pays homage to the nation’s first AfricanAmerican military pilots.
The Tuskegee Airmen, a P-51C Mustang that served as a trainer for aviators in that war, will fly Saturday in an exhibition shortly after 12:30 p.m. at the Marine Corps Air Station.
The flight will be one of the first for the plane after undergoing 11 months of restoration work for damage it sustained in a flying mishap.
The aircraft is named for the AfricanAmerican pilots who flew Mustangs and other aircraft as escorts to American bombers in missions against Nazi Germany.
Educated at Tuskegee University and trained as pilots at Tuskegee Army Air Field
in Alabama, the pilots were nonetheless segregated from other aviators and faced the challenge of proving their value as pilots.
By war’s end, they had flown nearly 1,400 combat missions, downed 112 enemy aircraft, earned 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 700 other awards, and were more successful in protecting their escorts than other fighter groups, according to the website of Commemorative Air Force’s Red Tail Squadron.
The squadron was founded in the mid-1990s at the initiative of Don Hinz, a retired Navy commander, to pay tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen. For the air show, the squadron has brought the P-51C and a mobile movie theater that will present the film “Rise Above” on a curved wideangle screen.
Projecting images that give the viewer the feeling of sitting in the cockpit of a Mustang, the documentary narrates the history of the Tuskegee Airmen, using their story as a lesson in tackling adversity.
“It’s important for people to understand the history, but (the film) is also very inspirational,” said Darcy Castro, public relations coordinator for the Red Tail Squadron.
The P-51C that pays tribute to the aviators was used for military pilot training in 1944 and 1945, then dropped from service. Acquired by the Commemorative Air Force, it was restored and included in an exhibit thanks to the efforts of Hinz, Castro said.
“He was so impressed by them, he thought, ‘Let’s not just restore the aircraft, let’s use it as an exciting tool to educate people about the Tuskegee Airmen’,” she said.
The P-51C’s rear sta- bilizers are painted red, as were the planes of the 100th Fighter Squadron, one of the units composed of Tuskegee Airmen. That marking also gave the aviators their nickname, the Red Tails.
The refurbished plane also bears on its fuselage “By Request.” An Tuskegee-trained aviator had given his plane that name, according to the Red Tail website, because the African-American pilots were specifically requested for escort duty, owing to their reputation for delivering bombers unharmed to their targets.
In February 2016, the P-51C was damaged because of a landing gear failure, Castro said, and vintage specialists went to work restoring it.
“It’s making its air show debut at the Yuma Air Show,” she said.
“It’s taken us a year to get it back into its pristine flying condition.”