Jason’s solo was a local airport event, complete with spectators and coffee and doughnuts. He says he can’t describe how good it felt
to become a Pitts pilot that day.
appearance: “The airplane was far from being pretty. The
wings and wheelpants, for instance, were plain white. No
stripes, no nothin’…it was just ugly.” Jason came up with
the idea to paint stripes on the
wings and wheelpants.
‘The thought that went through
The original canopy was a
homebuilt affair and never
my head was so very clear: I’m a
did look right on the airplane, plus it didn’t work
Pitts pilot now.’ I don’t think I can
well. Somewhere in his pile
of spares left over from res-
describe how that made me feel.
cuing other Pitts, Joe found
a complete S-1S canopy that
slides on greased ball bearings and fit Jason’s airplane
perfectly.
Joe and Jason also got rid of the original tail wheel,
which manually locked and unlocked, and replaced it
with one of Aviation Products’ 6-inch steerable units.
Then they went through the airplane and replaced
anything that looked as if it was either suffering from
Katrina’s passing or was simply worn out. This included
the master cylinders, the bungees, and the five-point
seat belt system.
Joe says, “One of the last things we reworked was the
seat—Jason is much larger than the average Pitts pilot,
and he would have wound up crippled if he had tried
to fly with the old seat for
any length of time.”
At one point in time the
Flood family had three flying Pitts—Joseph’s, Jason’s,
and the family S-2A. Then
Joe the Elder had the bungees let go on Joseph’s airplane, and it went over
on its back. Then a three-
corner deal on the S-2A went sour, and they were down to
one Pitts—Jason’s. (Joseph eventually got another S-1C.)
“While all of this is going on, Jason was taking flying lessons from Tommy Weston in a Piper PA- 12 Super
Cruiser,” Joe explains. “Even though he had been flying
in dozens of different airplanes, none of it was logged,
and he wanted to solo on his 16th birthday. His birthday is September 23, so he started flying with Tommy
in May. They did about 25 hours, and Tommy said he
