Keeping a Legacy Alive

Strangely enough a plane never brought George Lancaster home until eight years ago when he bought the one now sitting at ILM. Born in Lexington North Carolina in 1938 Lancaster demonstrated an early interest in aviation and learned to fly while still in high school. He had an older brother Jack a first lieutenant in the Air Force who might have seen action in North Korea had a training accident in Albuquerque not ended his military career and his life. George was 16 at the time and instead of scaring him away from airplanes it seemed to strengthen his resolve to become a pilot.

“You gotta go where your heart is ” he says “and my heart was in aviation.”

His heart wasnt enough to get him into the Armed Forces however. At the end of the Korean War when Lancaster was eligible to join the Air Force with more pilots than it really knew what to do with had tightened its enlistment criteria and without a college degree George was denied training as a pilot. Eyes on the prize though three years out of high school he went to work as a purser (before they became known as flight attendants) for Piedmont Airlines in 1960. He bought his first airplane three years after that a two-seater 85-horsepower Luscombe similar to the one hed flown while still a student in high school. He traded that for a training plane known as a North American T-6 in 1965 thereby graduating from 85 to 600 horses. He began flying for Piedmont Airlines in 1968.

Through 28 years as a pilot for that airline later flying as USAir he never lost his interest in military aircraft although in the beginning that interest was not tied to preserving its history. Lancaster just wanted to fly bigger airplanes and in the end it enhanced the resume attached to his application to pilot for Piedmont.

“Flying the T-6 was quite an adventure ” he recalls. “There was a lot more work involved flying that airplane more of a challenge too and I was looking for that experience.”

His interest in the historical preservation side of military aviation didnt occur until long after his retirement when in 2000 he bought the A-26 Invader from a museum in Texas and a group of volunteers came forward to help him maintain it. One of those volunteers was historian Scott Lindley of Greensboro who convinced Lancaster to repaint the aircrafts fuselage its current and highly distinctive red and black to commemorate the work of Old Rotten Bills 13th Bomb Squadron. Known then (and to this day) as “The Devils Own Grim Reapers ” the 13th squadron was part of the 3rd Bomb Group of the Fifth Air Force during the Korean War.

“He got me to paint it in those Korean colors ” said Lancaster “and when I started doing air shows with it I realized how important the airplane was in the Korean and Vietnam War.”

Lancaster’s A-26 one of only 2 200 built is a veteran of 300 bombing missions and has the patched bullet holes to prove it. It was however not a veteran of the Korean War. Built in the spring of 1945 it was built too late to see combat in World War II although others among the 2 200 did see action in the Pacific. Lancasters plane went immediately from the assembly line into a long-term storage depot where in 1950 it became one of 25 Invaders sent by the United States to the lArme de lAir (French Air Force) for use in combating communist aggression in Southeast Asia during the French-Indochina war of the 1950s. The airplane was stationed in Da Nang Saigon and other bases in Southeast Asia names that would become highly familiar to Americans a decade later.

“The timing of this aircraft was unique ” says Lindley still a member of Lancasters volunteer crew. “It came out in the last 9 months of WWII and flew through three conventional wars.

“Its a little-known aircraft ” he adds “not one that comes to mind when you think of those three wars but they did their job well.”

While it was Lindley who finally convinced Lancaster to use his airplane to commemorate the 13th Bomb Squadrons work in Korea it was Old Rotten Bill Cowan who supplied Lindley with the ammunition to do the convincing.

“To the people who flew that airplane it was more than just a hunk of iron ” says Cowan. “It was a love affair and thats what George has got right now; a love affair with that airplane and Im to blame for it. Scott called me and I loaded him up with information.”

Now equipped with that information Lancaster and his crew of volunteers not only offer air show spectators a glimpse of the sight and sound of the A-26 Invader they relay the information itself to any and all who inquire which is just as likely as not to include some colorful tales from Old Rotten Bill himself.

“When you go to an air show ” says Lindley “you’ll see planes just parked with sometimes people selling knick-knacks. We relate the history both in words and photos.

“We don’t hawk T-shirts or keychains ” he adds. “Our thrust on the ground is education. We want these people to be knowledgeable about this airplane and the work that it performed in the service of the 13th Bomb Squadron.”

Like Lancaster Lindley is cognizant and appreciative of the work that the volunteer crew of this aircraft donates to its continued existence and ability to fly.

“Without the people on the ground ” he said “you’ve got nothing but acres of yard art.”

On an early Sunday evening in August of this year The Spirit of North Carolina took off from ILM with a crew of three and four passengers (who contributed funds to its general upkeep for the privilege). At the helm of the aircraft were two men approaching 70 years of age: George Lancaster in the pilot seat and co-pilot Jerry Tate on his right. It had taken the volunteer ground crew the better part of two days to prepare her for the flight. She headed east toward the Atlantic Ocean and a date with a few beach-situated photographers from WBM.

For those accustomed to modern whisper jets which create barely enough noise to drown out your basic MP3 player the sound feel and distinctive roar of twin 2 000-horsepower R-28 Pratt and Whitney radial engines can be a bit disconcerting. So can the flight itself which slips slides banks and accelerates in ways that would scare the living daylights out of your average commercial flight passenger.

Wilmington’s Lisa Wayne the only female passenger on the Sunday flight stood on the tarmac afterwards and reflected on the experience. Her thoughts formed in the belly of the “hunk of iron” as it was flying over Wrightsville Beach were focused intently on the humans at the helm.

“What did you think?” she was asked.

“I think ” she said still a bit breathless “that those are two excellent pilots.”

Yes. And one incredible airplane.

Want to learn more?
Visit www.a-26invaderspiritofnc.com  and www.13thbombsquadron.org