Ad
Featured
‘This is his dream’: Soon-to-be 100-year-old WWII vet flies in P-51 for first time since Korean War
Published
Modified
Dwight D. Eisenhower was president when Bernie Armstrong last got inside a P-51 Mustang and “danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.”
“It’s a pretty day for flying,” he said following a 20-minute flight around Albuquerque on a sunny Wednesday morning.
The 99-year-old Cerrillos resident last sat inside the plane when he was in the Air Force during the Korean War.
“It was a fast airplane,” he said.
For years, Armstrong said he has been wanting to get back inside the P-51. Thanks to his family and a traveling World War II plane show, Armstrong was able to fulfill his yearslong dream, a month shy of his 100th birthday.
“This is what he really wanted to do,” his son Blane Armstrong said. “This was the one thing he wanted for his 100th birthday. He just loved the airplane.”
‘Makes my heart so happy’
In 1943, Bernie Armstrong was a 17-year-old high school student in Big Rapids, Michigan, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps (now the U.S. Air Force) during World War II.
“I wanted to get out of high school early,” he said.
Armstrong flew 8-hour missions escorting B-29s out of Iwo Jima, Japan. During the Korean War, he also escorted bombers in the P-51, his daughter Mary Medina said. Each time Armstrong flew, he said he “wondered if I was going to come back.”
Ad
After leaving the Air Force as a major, Armstrong and his family moved to New Mexico, where he flew for charter companies out of Gallup and Farmington. Medina said part of his duties included transporting Diné children to hospitals.
She said Armstrong later became a chief pilot for the state of New Mexico before retiring.
However, he had one thing left to do.
“Even though he was a pilot all of his life,” Blane Armstrong said, “he always wanted to fly the P-51 again.”
Bernie Armstrong would get another opportunity.
‘Where are the keys?’
On Sunday, Armstrong’s granddaughter, Amber Gibson, said her husband found out about a tour involving two World War II planes — the P-51 “Gunfighter” and the B-29 Superfortress “Doc” — at Cutter Aviation in Albuquerque.
“He sent them an email explaining who grandpa was — his military background — and they emailed Mikey back right away and asked if we could have him here,” she said.
Bernie Armstrong came to Cutter Aviation on Tuesday to look at the P-51. The pilot, Joe Shetterly, asked if the family would be OK with Armstrong going on a flight, she said.
“We were like, ‘Of course,’” she said. “Like, this is his dream. And so, we asked grandpa and he was like, ‘Well, yeah.’”
On Wednesday morning, Armstrong came ready to go.
“We would ask him, ‘Are you nervous?’” Medina said.
“Nope.”
“Are you excited?”
“Nope.”
“Then the minute we got there,” Medina said, “he was like, ‘OK, where are the keys?’”
As Armstrong went inside the P-51, his family took photos and started to cheer. Those cheers grew louder as the plane accelerated down the runway and began its ascent.
Medina and Gibson hugged and cried as the plane flew toward the Sandia Mountains.
“It’s something I never thought I’d get to see happen,” Gibson said. “And knowing this was one thing he wanted to cross off his bucket list just makes my heart so happy, so full. I’m so happy for him.”
While family members embraced, Shetterly said he and Armstrong “‘danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings,’ as the poem goes, and chased around the clouds and (it) put a big smile on his face.”
“And you can just see he was in another place and another time,” he said.
About 20 minutes later, the “Gunfighter” landed. As Shetterly and Armstrong got out, he said Armstrong told him how to operate the plane during the flight.
“He didn’t need me,” Shetterly said.
Armstrong’s family came up and posed for pictures with their hero in front of the plane.
“I was very happy for him and proud of him because it was something he wanted for such a long time and it was nice he could accomplish it,” Medina said.
Hours after the flight, Medina said, Armstrong told her he was “ready to go do it again.”
