Dave and Marian Cutting: Aviation Partners in Life - Part II
Flying the P51 was like “having a highschool sweetheart” for Dave Cutting: “I mean it was…I love the 51. It was a beautiful airplane.” Dave flew the long range, P51B model (there were A, B, C, D models), with a four-bladed propeller that could fly 440 mph, carry bombs, and six 50 caliber machine guns. The P51 and P47 were top airplanes during the war and there was a friendly rivalry between the pilots. The P47 was an excellent airplane but did not have quite the range of the P51. Dave reminisces that there were “twelve of us that were fully instructed in the P51 and P47 pilots just turned their nose up the P51 because they didn’t really know the airplane. They hadn’t flown it very much so there was quite a gap between the P51 and P47 pilots. One of my closest friends was a P47 pilot and he still rags me about the P51. I rag him about the P47!”Dave also flew the advanced AT6 trainer, which he describes as “probably the most beautiful, gorgeous airplane. Oh! I hope we get one of those for Christmas someday!” Dave explains that the AT6 had a very tight retractable gear: “You really had to land it softly, carefully so you didn’t ground loop it…[a ground loop is] when you haven’t made a three-point landing. We had quite a few cadets who pancaked in without putting the gear down and of course that was automatic wash. You know if you didn’t put your gear down…you’re gone!” The AT6 was easy to maneuver in all sorts of acrobatics. Dave especially loved doing Immelmans and described them to me as: “I’m coming in with a guy behind my tail and I pull my airplane up and do a half loop and at the top I roll out. This was in WWI, a man by the name of Immelman. It’s a half loop with a rollout at the top. He would get altitude very quickly, roll out and be ready for combat.”Dave built up a lot of confidence flying these and several other airplanes and had to demonstrate his skill frequently to stay on top. There was a lot of pressure on pilots to not “wash out.” Marian reminds him that he periodically demonstrated these skills to sunbathing girls in Florida. Dave says, “We put on more airshows for those girls! They’d be out on the deck stretched out sunning and we’d make a wake we were so low!” Dave learned later that the military’s scare tactic of witnessing a cadet wash out and having to leave with his possessions in a wheelbarrow in the middle of the night were most likely staged. (One wonders why the military thought they had to create pressure to a high pressure situation. These pilots weren’t exactly slackers.)Dave says he’s a dying breed of pilots—there are not many left. He flies right seat nowadays and lets Marian do the flying. When she told Dave, “you’re banking too steep, you can’t do that. Don’t do that!” Dave decided that because he’s “rather independent and didn’t like being bossed,” it was time to let Marian be PIC in the family. Their son, Rob Cutting, is also a pilot and member of the club. He flies a Piper Seneca twin engine. I asked Dave what advice he would give today’s pilots: “Get a good instructor. And listen. I think to be a good pilot you have to love to fly. Really love to be in the air. If you’re pushing yourself to do it and you have fear, then I say you shouldn’t be a pilot.Not long ago, Dave and Marian went to an Osh Kosh airshow and saw 22 WWII fighters on the flight line—3 were P51s. When Dave heard just the sound of the oncoming hum of WWII planes that he had flown, it brought tears to his eyes, “It was like seeing your highschool sweetheart….when we were in highschool!”
Elizabeth Grigoriu