Devoted pilot
Ken Dearing, retired Williams Cos. Corporate jet pilot, and a longtime regular at the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Fly-In looks at a replica of the plane Will and Wiley were in when they crashed Aug. 15,1935 in Alaska. The model is in the crash scene room at the Claremore Will Rogers Memorial.
Flying in
Ed Fogel (getting out of plane on left) lands at the Claremore airport after takeoff from the Sageeyah airport. A United Airlines pilot, he plans to fly this plane to the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Fly-In.
Many pilots have been coming to the Will Rogers Birthplace Ranch for the almost two decades of the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Fly-In. Each year on the Sunday closest to Aug. 15, the anniversary of their death in a 1935 plane crash, pilots land on a 2,000-foot grass strip adjacent to the ranch home where Will was born.
Some 50 or more pilots are expected for the Sunday, Aug. 16 event where they will showcase their planes, visit with friends and pay tribute to Will and Wiley.
Spectators will have an opportunity to vote a “People’s Choice” favorite plane. The plane’s owner will receive a Will Rogers statue.
Concessions will be available. Inflatbles and face painting on the grounds for children along with antique cars including some early model Fords, a reminder of Will’s long friendship with Henry Ford.
It is also an opportunity to visit the house and see the log-walled room where Will was born.
Pilots start landing as early as 8:30 a.m., according to Dale Frakes, a retired corporate pilot, who has chaired the Fly-In since it started.
A short program at 9 a.m. will include a patriotic song by Mary West of Oologah and flag salute, led by Clarence Strance of Collinsville, veteran U.S. Army pilot and regular at the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Fly-In. Andy Hogan, Will Rogers' interpreter and Will Rogers Memorial historical guide, will welcome guests.
Frakes said pilots will come from nearby airfields like Tulsa Harvey, Gundy’s, Airman Acres, Sandridge, Broken Arrow, Grove, Jones Riverside and Jenks. Other regulars come from Coffeyville and Independence, Kansas, Siloam Springs, Ark., Tenkiller, Cushing, Vinita, Miami and Chelsea.
Most of the pilots who hangar plans at the Claremore airport will be taking off for the Rogers’ Ranch event.
“Pilots just like to go places,” said Ken Dearing, a retired corporate pilot and former small plane owner, who has been at the ranch fly-in most years since it started.
Ed Fogel flies for a living, but he is planning to work the Will Rogers-Wiley Post Fly-In into his schedule. He will fly his small plane to the ranch in the early morning hours from the Sageeyah airstrip where he lives. Later in the day he will be in the cockpit of a United Airlines jet for his regular workday.
Will never flew a plane, but he circled the world in the air and was aviation’s biggest booster when he lost his life Aug. 15, 1935 while accompanying Wiley Post on a search for a new route to Alaska.
Dearing said the fly-in in a “wonderful occasion, a place for pilots to not only celebrate and show off their planes, but an opportunity to pay tribute to Will and Wiley.
He spent most of his life in the cockpit of an airplane or working on aircraft engines. He learned to fly in 1955 in Guymon and moved to Tulsa where he earned his A&P at Spartan Aircraft, then worked seven years for Continental Airlines as a mechanic.
He flew 20 years for Williams Cos. mostly in the U.S. and Canada, but some to Brazil and Mexico. Williams’ air fleet was a big business he said, with five planes and 15 pilots.
The Williams’ jet fleet included Lear 36, Falcon 20, Hawker 700 and 800 and Cessna Citation.
A resident of Claremore about 30 years, Dearing flew his own Cessna 172 or an Aeronca. Grounded this year after selling his planes, he said he would still come to the Will and Wiley fly-in because he enjoys the camaraderie with the pilots and the memory of the occasion.
