Evan FlIEs
Dean Wright
Dean "Wilbur" Wright flies the number one position in the L-39 equipped Patriots Jet Team. Before joining the Patriots, Wilbur flew with the USAF which included combat mission over Iraq in an A-10 Thunderbolt, and two years with the awesome Thunderbirds!
Were you into flying as a kid?
I was into flying and into airplanes but I got into them because I saw a Thunderbird demonstration when I was a little bit younger than you and I saw them in Austin Texas when I was seven and that's what inspired me to fly. And truly, that was my dream, to become a Thunderbird.
How old were you when you went on your first flight?
Well see now there's the thing; even though I was into flying, I never did actually pursue flying as a child. I pursued becoming an Air Force pilot. My first solo was when I was 18 years old at the Air Force Academy.
So that's when you got your pilots license?
No, kind of surprising but I didn't pursue a pilots license because in the Air Force you don't need a pilots license. I didn't have a license for my entire career. I didn't actually get a license until I started flying for this team, the Patriots Jet Team, in 2004.
Why did you choose the Air Force over the Navy or the Marines?
Well who flies the Thunderbirds?! That made my decision making - pretty simple!
You must've been a very good pilot to get into the Thunderbirds. Did you practice a lot and was it hard to qualify?
First of all, I wouldn't say that I was any significantly better than other pilots to make the Thunderbirds. Here's something that a lot of people don't know about the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels; that those guys are pretty fair representations of all the fighter pilots that are in the service. There are a lot of fantastic fighter pilots. There are a lot of fighter pilots that are much, much better than me that didn't want to be a Thunderbird. It was hard to qualify; it was hard to fly for the team and to make the team. They get about 50 or 60 applicants a year and then they only choose three. But what it really boils right down to is they choose those guys based more on their personality. Because by the time you get to those top 10 guys their flying skills are all relatively equal.
Wow! So how did you like flying with the Thunderbirds in all your shows?
I loved it. It was a dream come true for me, like I mentioned before. That was purely what inspired me to become a pilot in the first place… to be a Thunderbird. So to actually have a chance to live out my dream was unbelievable and it was it went too fast. I wanted to slow down time because I didn't want it to go too fast. But that didn't work and the time did go by very quickly for me. If I could turn back time, I would do it all again.
How did you get to join the Patriots?
The Patriots, well, I first became acquainted with their owner, Mr. Randy Howell, when I met him at the Reno Air Races in 1999 when I was a Thunderbird. I was Thunderbird number six and he was flying two red MiG-17’s called the Stoli MiGs and he and I became good friends. Fast forward about 5 years and in 2004, he called me up and said, “Hey Wilbur, are you interested in coming out and flying lead pilot for a new team I have called the Patriots?” And so I thought about it for about 10 seconds and immediately accepted. And so I came out here and got checked out in the L-39 and immediately started flying that very next season.
Do you like flying with the Patriots? Is it a good environment?
Love it! It's a fantastic environment. In a lot of ways it's a better environment than the Thunderbirds was. The Thunderbirds was very regimented military squadron. And it was very big, there were 120 people in that squadron. In the Patriots we have four airplanes and we have about 25 people that are involved with this team. It's a big group effort; everybody's a volunteer so everybody that's here really wants to be because nobody's getting paid to do this. For me personally, it gives me a way to use those skills that I developed in the Thunderbirds so that dream of becoming a Thunderbird pilot now lives on with me being a Patriot pilot.
How did the Patriots first get started?
Well Mr. Howell had the Mig 17’s and after the 9/11 catastrophe the sponsorship for that team disappeared and so he wanted an airplane that was a little more marketable for sponsorships and along came the L-39. It's a very affordable airplane. It's a very safe airplane. It's a very efficient airplane. It doesn't use a lot of fuel and it's easy to maintain and it's easy to fly. It's the perfect airshow airplane. So he bought a bunch of them and shipped them over here and as you can see in this hangar, is putting them together by hand. He, hands down, puts together the best L-39’s in the country. And I think that anybody that knows anything about these airplanes would agree with me on that. They're incredibly well-built airplanes. And that's how the Patriots started. He started with a two ship in 2003 and then I came along in 2004 adding a third airplane. We did that for two years and then in 2006 we added a fourth airplane. And now guess what were doing next year?
Can you tell me about flying with the Patriots?
It's a unique team. We don't want to be compared to the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds because we’re a very different team. First of all, there are only four of us even though we have a plan to become six. Even with six airplanes, we don't want to be compared to those other teams. It's a very different style of airshow we do. With the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds, they have the classic diamond and two solos. We’re not going to fit that same mold. So you're basically going to see six airplanes all doing six different things. We may pair them up so that you'll have three pairs of airplanes. And because of the nature of this airplane being a little bit slower and having a turning radius that will practically turn inside this hangar, the whole airshow stays right in front of the crowd. When you watch the Thunderbirds or Blue Angels show, they disappear for about a minute and a half after each maneuver and then they reappear… and that’s because of their speed. Well because of our slower speed, we keep everything right in front of the crowd so that the noise and the activity and excitement and all the adrenaline are focused right there in front of the crowd the entire time. We also do a couple of maneuvers that those teams don't do and one of them is the tail slide.
How do you pick pilots to become Patriots?
Good Question. It’s very similar to the way we picked them in the Thunderbirds. There a lot of guys out there that are qualified to do this but it really boils down to whom we get along with. The Patriots are more than just a team… we’re a family. We enjoy spending time together and hanging out with each other everyday while we’re on the road. So we need somebody that we’re looking forward to hanging out with, someone we want to join us as a member of this family. The two guys that we hire will most likely be ex-Thunderbirds, Blue Angels or maybe an ex-Snowbird because they already have the skills that we need to be able to do this. And they're probably going to be people that we already know just because we already have an idea of what their personalities are like.
If you ever have a chance to go to an airshow where the Patriots are performing, you HAVE TO GO! They are incredible! Also be sure to check out the Patriots website.
They have a lot of really cool stuff there All photo's by me and my dad