Life

Two men, four wings and a dream

Dennis Dunlap and Ken Stubbs flew a 1943 Stearman biplane cross-country and back from June 10 to June 17. [PHOTO BY ASHLEY ELDER]

By Ashley Elder, Published: July 3, 2016

Landing back home in Hendersonville after a round trip to the Pacific Ocean, vintage airplane pilot Ken Stubbs summed his trip with his good friend and copilot, Dennis Dunlap.

“Between the two of us, we can get it out there and get it back,” said Stubbs, who at 73 is the same age as the 1943 open-cockpit Stearman PT-17 biplane the intrepid pilots had just flown on a coast-to-coast round trip.
Stubbs, who attended Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, and Dunlap, who got his pilot’s license at age 24, left Hendersonville on June 10 and flew east to Johns Island, outside of Charleston. They dipped their toes in the Atlantic before taking off on the cross-country adventure the next morning. Two and a half days later they reached Carlsbad, Calif., where they waded into the Pacific.
“We didn’t make a flight plan,” said Dunlap, a 59-year-old building contractor. “We just went as far as we could before we had to get gas.”
The two sat down with maps and drew a straight line across the United States. They stopped every two hours to refuel, covering at least three legs a day. They spent the night in Hot Springs, Ark., and Santa Rosa, N.M., before they reached Carlsbad.
The Stearman drew attention everywhere time they landed.
“Everybody liked us,” Stubbs said. “All the old pilots came out at every airport.”

Old-fashioned navigation

They used two handheld GPS units, a transponder and a pile of maps.
“I carried a map every inch,” Dunlap said. “Every inch” in this case translated to 4,652 miles roundtrip and 50 hours in the air, sometimes at top speed of 160 mph. They flew no higher than 8,500 feet to avoid thermals of hot air across the desert. Even up that high, the turbulence made for a bumpy ride.
“One time, if we hadn’t had on our seatbelts, I would have gotten thrown out of there,” Dunlap said.
One of the most interesting stops the pair made was in Black Rock, Ariz., home to the Zuni Indian tribe. It seemed like the whole town turned out to see the plane.
The airport had no fuel, so they had to get 5 gallons from a local gas station to make it to the next airport.
Powered by a 450-horsepower Pratt & Whitney radial engine, the vintage biplane only used about 930 gallons of fuel and a gallon and a half of oil for the whole trip.
One of the memorable sights was “when we flew over the Hoover Dam and down the Colorado River,” Stubbs said.
Friends for three decades, the pair spent a night in Vegas on the way back and ended up staying at the Flamingo Hotel.
“We stopped at a little oyster bar and ate some of the best seafood I’ve ever had. And the cook was the cook for the Blue Angels,” Dunlap said.
The Stearman touched down back home around 2 p.m. on June 17, ash still on its wings from wildfires blazing in Arizona and New Mexico.
“It was the best flight in a Stearman I’ve ever had,” Dunlap said. “We have stories to tell our grandkids one day.”
Dunlap’s daughter, Jill Wallen, tracked the flight throughout their journey. She greeted them at the airport upon their return.
“I’m so proud of him,” Wallen said of her dad.