Flight Report – Missing Man

On December 16th, Larry Flesner, and I did a two-plane missing man formation for a World War II veteran who just passed away at the age of 98. Thomas Engram was a B-24 pilot in World War II and lived in our area in for the rest of his life. He was given a full U.S. Air Force military honor guard ceremony.

We have done a couple of parade fly-bys but this was different. The big challenge was the timing of getting there at the right moment. We needed our arrival to happen right when the playing of Taps was finished. C-Rod was on the ground with his hand-held radio, giving us the progress of the ceremony. While we were waiting for the funeral procession to arrive at the cemetery, we had enough time to keep orbiting in the general area, practicing our approach. We flew at 150 mph and identified certain landmarks to help measure our time to the site.  The KR-2 was the lead aircraft and I did the pull-up for the missing man in my Q-200. 

All-in-all it worked out pretty well and I was happy that Chapter 277 could be part of the old aviator’s send off.

Here is Tom Engram’s obituary.