WARBIRDS NORTH AMERICAN B-25 MITCHELL
46 FLYPAST March 2018
WARBIRDS NORTH AMERICAN B-25 MITCHELL
Top left
Syd Jones checking the
starboard wing fuel
tank during the pre-
fl ight walk round.Top right
Larry airborne with
102-year-old Doolittle
Raid veteran Lt Col
Richard E Cole (right) in
‘Panchito’. ROBERT SEALEabout to stall.
I immediately
increased
power and
rolled the
wings level
to prevent the stall.
Tom pulled the power back and
said – quite rightly – that when
you go to full flaps on a B-25,
the turbulence hits the elevator
and shakes the aircraft, just like
a stall buffet does. The fact we
were loading the wings in the
turn made it feel even worse.
We landed and then next
morning we took the B-25 to
an airshow in Maryland and
a couple more shows over the
following weekends.
“After three weeks we flew
back to Florida and Tom
taught me to fly the airplane
as pilot in command. I
needed a commercial licence
too, as I receive fees for flying
at shows – I got my B-25 type
rating and commercial licence
on the same check-flight.”Enter the B-25
Larry’s dream had always been
to own a B-25 Mitchell – and in
1997, after selling the business he’d
built up over 30 years, he had the
chance to make it a reality. “I found
myself in a better financial situation
and I woke up one morning and
thought ‘I can finally buy a B-25’. I
called [legendary warbird restorer]
Tom Reilly the following Monday
afternoon and asked him what
was available. He told me Panchito
was for sale. He said it was the
third B-25 he’d restored and that
he would love to have it back to
maintain.
“He gave me the phone number of
the broker in Fort Lauderdale who
was marketing it. I got all the details
on the aircraft from the broker and
by Friday, after a frenzy of activity
by Tom and myself, I had purchased
the B-25.
“I had signed all the paperwork
and the aircraft was mine. We
were ready to roll it out of the
hangar at Tico in Florida
to fly it home. Iwas qualified to
be second pilot
under instruction,
Tom was type
rated and the aircraft
was insured, so we were
legal and ready to go. I looked at
Tom and said, ‘how do you get in
it?’. I’d never even been in a B-25
before and now I owned one! I
was looking for a door in the side
of the aeroplane like a B-17’s, and
I couldn’t find one. He smiled,
walked over and dropped the
forward hatch and we climbed up.
“Tom said for me to get in the left
seat and I looked at all the switches
and said ‘how do you start it?’.
He said ‘watch me and follow me
through’. We started it up, called the
tower and took off bound for Tom’s
workshop at Kissimmee, Florida.
“I thought the B-25 was a dream
to fly, it’s heavy on the controls
but responsive – it was like driving
a school bus. We came into land
and when we went to full flaps
in a 45 degree turn, the whole
aircraft started shaking like it was