That aircraft again

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Subaru Sakai a Japanese pilot flew 000's back to base after a dogfight with a good portion of his scalp missing and an uncontrolled dive being unconscious when a fifty round came through the front screen and nearly took his head off.

Hi CINDERS,
The Dallas location of the CAF was the maintenance unit of the CAF and we had many great WARBIRDS pass through there over the years. We had a Corsair and a real Zero at our location at our hangar several years....

We have a large hangar, and always have visitors stop by to look at whatever aircraft we were working on and/or restoring on Saturday. One Saturday an older oriental gentleman was looking around our hangar viewing the aircraft. Long story short, the older gentleman who'd been looking at the aircraft turned out to be the ace Subaru Sakai! He had been looking at both the Corsair and Zero with reverence and respect, so he didn't even touch either aircraft. When visitors hit the hangar we try to tell them about the aircraft. Mr. Sakai was with his grandson who translated for him. As it turned out, they flew to Dallas just to see the planes that he saw on our web site.

As you probably know, the CAF is 'hands on' and we often allow people to sit in the cockpits. He sat in the Zero for quite a while and then he sat in the Corsair cockpit for quite a while. As luck had it, the Corsair demo pilot stopped by that Saturday to go 'play' around (Um, I mean "practice") and he towed the Corsair out onto the ramp and started the Corsair, lowered the wings, and did some low fly-bys before he headed out the aerobatic box just south of our uncontrolled field.

We had lunch at the greasy spoon little diner at the FBO, and one of our regular pilots showed up and was thrilled to meet Mr. Sakai. He offered to take him up in his own AT-6 Texan and let him have some stick time from the rear seat. We've had a LOT of very cool days like that.

He was happy to sign every photo we had of the Zero.




The Corsair is MASSIVE and Mr. Sakai was impressed and commented how big it was...
The Zero is compact and very light, and the Corsair is like a NASCAR on steroids




Privately owned 'T-6' that lives in our hangar