Thousands Enjoy Thrill of Flying

At 81, former World War II pilot Jim Modes still enjoys the thrill of flying.

Modes also gets a kick out of thrilling others with his daredevil antics, as he did Sunday at the 19th annual Camarillo Air Show.

The veteran pilot flew a vintage AT-6--the same type of plane that he used to train military pilots 50 years ago--to perform his trick flying.

Shooting into the sky in a loop-de-loop, Modes left a ring of smoke before buzzing his plane close to the ground.

His skills and endurance are an inspiration to younger pilots, said Steve Barber, who performed similar stunts in an F6F Hellcat, a World War II-era fighter plane.

“It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on,” Barber said after completing his flight. “It’s the sense of freedom that makes you want to fly.”

Organized by the Experimental Aircraft Assn. with help from the Southern California Wing of the Confederate Air Force and the Camarillo Chamber of Commerce, the two-day air show was expected to draw about 25,000 people over the weekend, said Cecil Hatfield of the aircraft association.

Proceeds from the event help pay for hangar space and the Young Eagle program, in which members give free rides to children the first Saturday of every month.

The sunny day was the perfect Father’s Day gift for Dean Konell, whose son and daughter-in-law took him out for the day.

Konell, of Downey, performed maintenance on B-24 bombers from 1943 to 1945. At the air show, he inspected a B-25 bomber called Executive Sweet with the kind of attention only someone familiar with the planes could.

“I know most of these planes by name,” he said.

Executive Sweet, however, is in need of some help. The plane, decorated with a racy ‘40s pinup, is corroding and is receiving some tender care from the Camarillo-based American Aeronautical Assn.

Alex Nurse of Chatsworth volunteers his weekends to work on the plane.

“This is therapy for me. I like the warbirds,” he said. “And it’s easy to find people to fly the planes; it’s harder to find people to turn the wrenches.”

Elsewhere on the ground, museums and private owners displayed their planes, home-built and bought, on the tarmac.

Wayne Jones owns an EC-121T, an early radar plane of the 1950s that he uses as a flying museum and stores at Camarillo Airport.

“We make Camarillo glamorous,” he joked.

For Pete Poland of Camarillo, who showed his French Cap 10B, nicknamed Honey B, in competition, his love of airplanes goes back as far as he can remember. As a child, he slept on a biplane pillowcase made for him by his grandmother.

Even after he was forced to bail out of a plane in 1992 when its left wing snapped off, Poland had to get back into the sky. For one thing, he’s a commercial airline pilot. But secondly, he could never part from the rush of acrobatic flying.

“I just said, ‘I guess I gotta get my parachute repacked,’ ” he said.

Unlike the Point Mugu Air Show in April, which drew about 200,000 people, the Camarillo show is more of a community fair for those enamored of flight and classic airplanes, and those eager to share their love with others, organizers said.

Bob Phelps, president of the Aviation Museum of Santa Paula, has been flying since 1935 when, as a teenager, he would do odd jobs in exchange for free flight time. And though times--and technology--have changed, Phelps thinks of flying the same way some people think of riding a bicycle. Once you learn, you never forget.

“The air’s the same; the ground’s in the same place,” he said. “It doesn’t take a superhuman to fly.”