Clarence Strance spent almost 40 years as a military pilot. He’s been flying in to the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Annual Fly-In since it started more than a decade ago.
“I’ve had this type of airplane 16-17 years,” he said of his L-19. “I go everyplace like this to display my airplane and see my friends.”
He had a special passenger at this year’s Aug. 13 fly-in, a salute to Will and Wiley, two champions of aviation who died Aug. 15, 1935 in an Alaskan plane crash. Planes land on a 2,000 foot grass strip near Oologah (OK), adjacent to the house where Will Rogers was born Nov. 4,1879.
Strance and Jim Hartz, Will Rogers Memorial Commission chairman, circled the ranch and Oologah Lake, a Corps of Engineers lake, which covers most of the ranch where Will’s father started his ranching empire in Indian Territory days.
Hartz, a former television newsman whose career started in Tulsa, hosted NBC’s “Today Show” and covered space flights and moon landings and NBC TV’s lunar flight reports.
He has rubbed shoulders with the greats in flying and was granted the privilege of riding in the Nov. 2 seat of the SR71 that reached cruising speed of Mach 3, three times the speed of sound, nearly 16 miles from earth.
At the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Fly-In, he flew in the No. 2 seat of Strance’s “Birddog.”
The L-19, Strance said, was made for Korea in the 1950s. “Most of the action of the liaison planes was spotting targets for the artillery … that’s how it got its name.”
The “Birddog” was also equipped to drop medical supplies, drop and pick up messages and route reconnaissance.
A retired Army pilot, Strance spent 38 years on flight status. After returning from a tour in Germany, where he flew helicopters, he joined the Guard, where he spent 38 years.
A native of Bowlegs (OK) he lives on a private housing-airstrip in western Rogers County.
Pilots from four states participated in t he tribute to Will and Wiley.
Will Rogers, cowboy philosopher, actor, author and much sought speaker, never flew a plane, but was one of aviation’s most avid boosters at the time of his death. Wiley Post, a fellow Oklahoman, flew around the world twice. He is credited with invention of the first space suit.
Will was accompanying Wiley on a quest for a new mail route to Russia, where their plane went down in the icy waters near Point Barrow, Alaska.
Their bodies were recovered and returned to Oklahoma where Will is buried at the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore and Wiley is buried in an Oklahoma City cemetery.
The Fly-In is an annual event of the Sunday nearest the date of their death.
(The Will Rogers Museum in Claremore and Dog Iron Birthplace Ranch and Park near Oologah are open 365 days a year from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is by donation. For information see the website at willrogers.com or call 918-341-0719.)