Source: 2007 Q2 Beartracks, Pat & Carol Fagan
The world of aviation is an incredibly small universe. The normal 6 degrees of separation is often as little as 1 or 2 degrees. It is a world of beauty and sadly, tragedy. On our trip to Oshkosh this year, Carol and I received a refresher course in these facts.
We were fortunate to find ourselves with 3 weeks of vacation this summer that happened to coincide with the EAA shows at Arlington and Oshkosh. Planning to fly across the top of the states from one show to the other, we were presented with the opportunity to spend the night in North Dakota. You would be right to ask, “Why the heck would we want to do that?” We once purchased one of those state maps you see on motor homes with the multi colored states to show where you have been. Our rule was drive-bys weren’t allowed. We couldn’t apply a sticker unless we spent the night in the state. Not surprisingly, we never managed to fill North Dakota since it isn’t on the normal tourist route, and let’s face it, there isn’t much to see.
I mentioned our plans to Budd Davisson and he told us about a guy somewhere in North Dakota who scratch builds full sized P51 Mustangs from the original drawings. Budd wasn’t sure where the guy was located, but offered to look it up if we were interested. I didn’t think we would have the time, so I told Budd not to bother.
We had been doing some low level recon on the west side of the North Dakota (which will be covered in a future article) and were getting beat up pretty good with the wind and thermals. Carol and made a pact that we would depart Mott, where we had stopped for fuel, and climb to 9500’. If the air wasn’t smooth there, we would land at Ashley for the night. The air was smooth, with a nice tailwind, so now we had to determine how far we could go and still remain in the state overnight. We set our sights on Wahpeton, on the Minnesota border.
The next morning we headed back to the airport, happy that we had finally knocked of North Dakota. While I was preflighting the plane, a fellow walked over to see what we were flying. We chatted for a while and with a jerk of his thumb, he indicated that he worked in the hanger behind him. The hanger doors were open and peeking out was a lime green wing leading edge attached to some kind of warbird. I didn’t recognize it because of a scoop above the propeller. I asked if it was an Aircobra. He replied, “No, it’s a P51 A model. We build them.” We had just happened to blunder into the very same shop, Tri-State Aviation, that Budd had told us about. This particular Mustang had been built from scratch and was used in the filming of the new movie “Thunder Over Reno”. It was painted to mimic the famous race Mustang “Precious Metal”. Hanger mates included a B25, a TBM, and all manner of other projects. He showed us through the rest of the shop where they were just getting started on building a “D” model fuselage. I looked at the drawing he was working from and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I would have had to blow the thing up 10X to figure anything out, but he was perfectly happy with it. The next hanger over had 4 “D” models in various stages of finish, including one they were getting ready to fly to Oshkosh.

We thanked him for our tour and went on our way, marveling at the coincidence. We arrived at Oshkosh on Sunday. Tuesday, while walking back to our tent, I was surprised to see the lime green wings of “Precious Metal” parked in Aeroshell Square. I told Carol about it and we speculated about what misfortune must have befallen the aircraft they had planned to bring. On Friday, the owner of Tri-State Aviation, Gerald Beck, was killed and “Precious Metal” was destroyed when the plane collided with another Mustang after a routine air show performance. Per his wishes, Mr. Beck was buried in a modified propeller crate. For us, the tragedy closed a circle in our incredibly small world of aviation.