Accelerating down the long runway at the former Castle Air Force Base in California's wide Central Valley, John Fulton guides a 50-year-old Lockheed T–33A tactical jet trainer smoothly into the air. Soon the airplane banks steeply right for an overhead departure and soars heavenward, gaining speed. Fulton puts the jet through multiple swoops and rolls, then pauses at flight idle to demonstrate the stall.
Few pilots can afford the extensive training and prohibitive costs of zooming around in jets for fun. But Fulton has found a way to fly American and Russian jets - among more than 200 different types of aircraft - by marrying his vocation to his avocation. The 37-year-old CFI has built a "fly everything" career by inspiring hundreds of students not only to become pilots but also to realize their aviation dreams. When they do, the amiable and solidly built Fulton is often in the cockpit with them.
Along the way, this instructor in single- and multiengine airplanes, seaplanes, helicopters, gliders, and gyroplanes has flown more than 16,000 hours as a general aviation pilot.
During the summer of 1998, for example, Fulton and former student Doug Cayne fulfilled Cayne's lifelong dream of flying around the world. The two pilots flew Cayne's Beech E90 King Air, specially outfitted with long-range fuel tanks, from California to Hawaii, across the South Pacific and Australia, over the Middle East via the Maldives, and back across Europe and the Atlantic. Supporters monitored the progress of the flight through a Web site ( www.ponceby.com), which still carries the details.
Other aviation dreams Fulton has realized with Cayne and dozens of other former students include crossing the Atlantic in a Bonanza, flying to 48 states in a Champ, flying skiplanes on Alaska's Mt. McKinley, touring South America in a small Piper twin, and flying the space shuttle approach profile in a T–38 at Edwards Air Force Base. Landing a Cessna 210 on an African jaunt once required a preliminary pass to buzz giraffes off the runway. "Then we had to pile prickly acacia leaves around the airplane's tires to keep hyenas from eating them," Fulton recalls. These days, he pilots a Grumman Albatross flying boat regularly with its owner, and last fall he completed MiG–21 training in Russia to prepare for flying that airplane in the United States with a pilot who recently bought one.
Fulton's aviation career began in the summer of 1981 when he took advantage of a deal to solo a Piper Tomahawk for $299 at a flight school in Georgetown, Texas. The bug bit hard, and flying has been a consuming passion since 1985 when Fulton left Princeton University to teach glider flying full time in Fremont, California. By 1989 he had 3,500 hours soaring.
He learned to fly powered airplanes and became a flight instructor at West Valley Flying Club in Palo Alto, California. His calm demeanor, encyclopedic aviation knowledge, consummate flying skill, and sincere interest in his students' success have inspired more than 300 of them to earn certificates and ratings, and a surprising number to embark on aviation adventures. Former students have gone on to aviation careers in the airlines, military, and even as shuttle astronauts. Even with all the expeditions and exotic aircraft, says Fulton, "teaching has been the most rewarding part of my flying experience."
It was shortly after returning from their circumnavigation that Cayne and Fulton's interests turned toward classic jets. When a T–33A became available for sponsorship through the Confederate Air Force, they jumped at the chance to maintain and fly it. They had already been working to keep Castle Airport, an old B–52 base in central California, viable for general aviation, and its 12,000-foot runway is ideal for jets. The airplane is kept in an old Tactical Air Command alert hangar that they are working to preserve for general aviation aircraft.
Previous experience in T–33As and the Czechoslovakian L–29 and L–39 gave Fulton a head start getting comfortable in the jet. There is a lot to learn, however - and, says Cayne, "Fulton studies harder than anyone I've ever met." According to Fulton, mastery of the aircraft has only come with two years of "living and breathing it."
Any 50-year-old airplane requires tender loving care, and the T-Bird is no exception. Flying it is a production that takes dedication and effort from many. Fulton spends days with A&Ps, many volunteering their time, inspecting every detail of the airplane. Often they pore over thick manuals, reading between the lines to reconstruct the know-how of the designers and mechanics that worked on the T-Bird half a century ago.
Prior to start, Fulton carefully runs through more than 50 checklist items in a routine that takes about a minute and a half. According to the flight manual, if a pilot turns on the starting fuel before ignition, "an explosion, followed by fire, will very likely occur." According to Fulton, "Witnesses to this phenomenon say that it's very strange to see fire shooting out both the front and back ends of the airplane!" Once the engine lights it emits a contented roar that slowly builds as the rpm approach idle thrust. Taxi to the runway is brisk. Then away he goes with a former student in the rear seat.
Jet flight is different from the piston or turboprop world that most of us know. The airplane feels solid and smooth. And fast. Pull nose up and the VSI pegs on the high end of the scale, beyond 6,000 feet per minute. You are an eagle with miles of sky as your playground.
So what's next? Fulton's latest idea is to break the 123,000-foot world altitude record set by Alexander Fedotov in a MiG–25 Foxbat prototype in 1977. He thinks it might be done in an F–104 Starfighter, a 1950's-era Mach 2 airplane used by NASA to train early astronauts (see " Rocketing Out of Obscurity," November 2000 Pilot). The needle-nosed jet has a wingspan half as long as that of a Cessna 172, and the flight characteristics are extreme. "Engine out, best glide speed is 275 knots indicated," says Fulton, adding with a chuckle, "Above 50,000 feet, that's supersonic, you know."
The altitude record is only a dream at this point. But making dreams come true is what John Fulton does for a living.
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