NEW WINDSOR – As anticipation builds in the Hudson Valley for the 2019 New York International Air Show, the Geico Skytypers, one of the featured aviation teams that will be performing over the weekend, invited reporters to take a ride in their 1940s era SNJ model propeller planes to get a taste of what it’s like to fly formations while in close proximity to other planes.
A team of four planes with journalists as passengers, including Mid-Hudson News’ Paul Ostrander, took flight from New York Stewart International Airport to West Point and back, on Thursday, to get an authentic experience of being in a military flying formation.
Pilot Chris Thomas, a 33-year veteran flyer serving his third year as the Skytyper’s number 2 pilot, said the entire team are true lovers of aviation and aviation history. According to Thomas, the planes they pilot would have been the training vessels for any fighter pilot in WWII and Korea; thusly, they are very significant to military aviation history and it’s an honor to be able to fly them, as well as expose people to their capabilities.
“We’re all very fortunate to be able to do this,” said Thomas. “We’re all, obviously, very enthusiastic about aviation and these airplanes are pieces of history. If somebody flew in WWII, or Korea, chances are they flew these airplanes to be trained before they went out into combat. These are essentially the planes that trained the world’s Greatest Generation.”
Although these planes weren’t used by the U.S. military past the 1950s, other countries continued to use them into the 80s.
The Geico Skytypers perform approximately 15, two-day, shows per year across the eastern U.S. A major focus of their performance is to give spectators and immersive experience of what a historic military air battle would look like.
Thomas outlined what spectators can expect this weekend at Stewart.
“We’re going to fly a 20-minute, low-level demonstration, highlighting maneuvers and tactics that you would have seen in WWII and Korea,” said Thomas. “When we fly, if you listen to our narration, the narrator is actually kind of telling a story: six airplanes come in, we separate later on, and the solos fight the foreship and the foreship fights the solos, the solos fight each other, the foreship repositions; so, there’s always action going on.”
The Geico Skytypers demonstration is at 12:30 Saturday and Sunday at the New York International Air Show, at New York Stewart International Airport.
