New crew

In the past year, the Tunison Foundation has answered just that question with a D-Day veteran Douglas C–47, which tours the country and performs parachute drops and formation flights, crewed entirely by people age 30 or under.

It started with Garrett Fleishman, 24, an Oxford, Connecticut, native who was the kid at the airport fence until he moved up to the kid sweeping the hangar floor for a local charter company. Placid Lassie, the C–47 towering over the trainers on the ramp, was hard to miss. Fleishman was flying RC airplanes, but his parents were initially hesitant to let him start flying lessons. Fast-forward a few years, and Placid Lassie had been donated to the new Tunison Foundation, with plans for a trip to Europe for the seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day. Fleishman, now a pilot and student at Embry-Riddle, started helping out and became a student boardmember of the foundation. He flew Lassie as second in command throughout the six-week, 8,400-nautical-mile voyage. “I never expected to fly her,” he said, noting that he had only 300 hours of total time when he got his type rating. In the years since their return, he continued crewing the C–47, eventually becoming one of the team’s key captains. In the past year or so, though, Fleishman has had his eyes on a new goal: bringing in a new, young team, as the Tunison leadership made a strategic decision to pass on skills from older crew to the next generation.

Enter Justin Zgoda, 25, Fleishman’s college friend. An Orange County, New York, native who says he first learned about World War II history through the History Channel, Zgoda cleaned airplanes for his local flight school in exchange for training for his private pilot certificate before going to Embry-Riddle and then the airlines. His involvement with Placid Lassie started with a ride at an airshow in Titusville, Florida, in 2017—his first in a warbird. Five years later, Fleishman invited him to join the crew because of Zgoda’s strong tailwheel background towing gliders in college.

Finding young people with experience in round-engine airplanes was tough, so Fleishman had an immediate affinity for the energetic young man he met at Sun ’n Fun 2021 who told him he flew old radials. Iain Wayman, 24, grew up in Peyton, Colorado, working on airplane projects with his father. Eventually, an aspiring airplane collector hired Wayman to manage his Max Holste Broussard. They started a Beech 18 restoration while Wayman was finishing his A&P license, and the collector bought a DST (an early DC–3 variant). Wayman was restoring the huge, derelict bird in Hemet, California, when Fleishman stopped by on a cross-country ferry flight. Wayman, too, was invited to join the crew.

Few people, however, can rival Billy Janus for radial time; at 30, he’s the old man of the group. “I was just a dorky kid that liked airplanes,” he said. He started work at North American Restorations in Westfield, Massachusetts, his hometown, then went to Embry-Riddle and was an onboard air tours intern for the Experimental Aircraft Association’s B–17, Aluminum Overcast. He flew taildraggers in Alaska, doing scenic tours in bushplanes and skiplanes, and got a big step up when he started flying the legendary DC–6 on fuel and cargo charters; he was one of the last people typed on the DC–6 before the aircraft were largely withdrawn from service. Janus joined the crew in the fall of 2022.

Fleishman’s plan finally came together at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh this past summer. In the late July heat, a next-generation warbird crew assembled, and not just pilots. Clara McGee, 26, of Oxford, Connecticut, is a talented mechanic whose first project as an A&P was the C–47.

The four young pilots have their own adventures, too. Fleishman is now assistant chief pilot for the charter operator he used to sweep hangars for. Zgoda moved to Atlanta, where he flies the Boeing 757/767 for a major airline. Wayman is restoring the DST and hopes to fly professionally soon. Janus is getting ready to start work for a major airline, when he isn’t working on his 1929 Command Aire biplane project. But they share an indomitable passion for history and a talent for old airplanes. “I have a problem,” Janus admits; he just bought a Seabee.

Luc Zipkin is the founder and president of the Executive Board of Young Pilots USA.