62 http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com AEROPLANE SEPTEMBER 2017T
he audience at IWM
Duxford on Tuesday 4 July
applauded with good reason.
As Lee Lauderback climbed
out of Comanche Fighters’ P-51B
Mustang Berlin Express, he was
completing a journey that followed
in the fl ight paths of many American
aviators delivering aircraft to Britain
during the Second World War, one
that remains challenging even with
all the equipment and support at the
modern pilot’s disposal.
Going trans-Atlantic was one of the
few things Lee hadn’t accomplished
in a Mustang. He is by some margin
the world’s most experienced P-51
pilot, not just now but ever. Modestly,
he stresses that the late Bob Hoover
used to hold that accolade, with
more than 7,000 hours on type. Lee,
however, has around 9,750. “In a
sense”, he says, “for the last 30 years
all I’ve done is fl y P-51s”. Of course,
other types — including other warbird
types — have sometimes intervened.
But, as Lee outlined to me at Duxford
two days after his arrival, the North
American fi ghter has long dominated
his professional life.
Not just Lee’s, either. He’s the
second of fi ve brothers, and, as he
says, “four of us work together all
the time. My standard joke is that I
break Mustangs, my twin brothers fi x
and rebuild Mustangs, and my little
brother, ‘Johnny 5’, sells Mustangs. It’s
truly a symbiotic relationship.”
His father having been a US Navy
pilot on Consolidated PBY Catalinapatrol aircraft, no wonder Lee, in his
own words, “really had the passion
of wanting to fl y, wanting to become
a military pilot”. He began fl ying
gliders aged just 14, and went solo on
a powered aircraft, a Cessna, on his
16th birthday — 21 July 1966 — in
Orlando, Florida. Moving on from
his private pilot’s licence, he obtained
his commercial and multi-engine
licences and an instrument rating, and
instructed on sailplanes.
“I ended up going to LSU
[Louisiana State University] on an
athletics scholarship, majoring in
aeronautical engineering. That took
me out of the cockpit. At that time I
was an air force ROTC [member of
the Reserve Offi cer Training Corps].
I knew my vision wasn’t quite 20:20,
but I fi gured out I’d fi nd some way to
make it work. It didn’t. I just couldn’t
read the last line. Military aviation
was not in my destiny at that time.”
Fascinating experiences in civil
aviation, however, were. Not long out
of college, Lee started fl ying for golfer
Arnold Palmer. “I was fl ying a Shrike
Commander, a Baron and a bunch of
other different airplanes for a charter
company. Arnold Palmer came in with
his Learjet 24, and needed to take
the airplane back. Charlie Johnson,
who later became president of Cessna,
and I fl ew it home, and we hit it off.
I went from occasionally being used
to being a full-time co-pilot. Charlie
ended up going to Gates Learjet as
a production test pilot, and I became
Arnold Palmer’s chief pilot. I stayedFlying Comanche Fighters’ P-51B
Berlin Express across the North
Atlantic this summer was a very special
experience for the Stallion 51 founder,
the world’s highest-time Mustang pilot
LEE
LAUDERBACK
meets
WORDS: BEN DUNNELL
62-70_AM_AEROMEETS_Sept17_cc C.indd 62 31/07/2017 11:02