The men of Tiger Squadron are a special breed.
They belong to an elite set of pilots capable of flying in formation and performing aerobatic maneuvers in fighter planes. But not just any fighter planes — those from the World War II era.
And they are ubiquitous — for those who look to the sky — during large public events throughout Southern California.
They perform overhead at Rams and Chargers games. They do the same for USC and UCLA. The squadron, based in Torrance, performs during events at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library three times a year and the Richard Nixon Library & Museum once a year. The planes also soar above the Tour de Pier in the South Bay and and dazzle at various cancer charities.
Aside from the Blue Angels, the Tiger Squadron is perhaps the most elite flying team in the United States, its leaders say.
“We’re always able to put four or five planes together to do an event,” said Wayne Grau, a senior pilot with the group, “but other people, they might have the only war bird in their area.”
And this weekend, Tiger Squadron will be at it again. The group will host a formation clinic at Torrance Airport on Saturday and Sunday, July 17 and 18. Two dozen pilots, some local and others flying in, will get together and take to the air in mixed groups, with members of the Tiger Squadron — which also endorses pilots — teaching them how to perform the complex formations.
Spectators will be able to see the classic warplanes in groups of four flying in formation above the South Bay from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Airport visitors will have a chance to view some of the planes up close — free of charge.
The event, Grau said, was also a way for the squadron, which hadn’t trained in a while, to get back on the same page. Being in sync is crucial when flying aircraft within feet of each other at nearly 200 miles per hour and thousands of feet above the ground.
“We have a syllabus that talks about how you fly in formation, what the gouge lines are, what the formations are and how to rejoin,” Grau said, “so it gets everybody tuned up again.”
In other words, flying in formation isn’t easy.
Craig Eckberg, another senior pilot, estimated it takes more than 100 hours of flying in formation as a copilot before someone has the skills to fly in tight formation on their own.
“Formation flying,” he said, “is not something you learn very quickly.”
Eckberg and Grau joined fellow Tiger Squadron members Joe Cogan and John Perchulyn on a recent weekday afternoon at Torrance Airport to talk about the team.
While the ability to fly these antiquated planes is special in itself, something else sets the Tiger Squadron apart: They have the money to own an historic plane and the time required to practice.
Most of the members own their planes. Some, like Eckberg and Grau, own multiple aircraft. And none have a set up quite like Eckberg, whose Torrance Airport hangar — where the crew met earlier this week — is essentially a museum to historic and pricey planes and cars: A Chinese Nanchang CJ6A. A Russian Yak-50. A Ford GT and a 1928 Bentley.
Still, despite the group’s considerable disposable income, the Tiger Squadron mostly flies Chinese- and Russian-made aircraft because they are cheaper, the pilots said. A Chinese- or Russian-made warplane sells for less than half of an American T-34, an equivalent aircraft often valued at around $250,000. The Chinese and Russian planes, the squadron said, are also better and more enjoyable to fly.
“This is really a more fun airplane,” Eckberg said of his Nanchang CJ6A, which China uses to this day as training planes. “It’s not quite as fast in forward speed (as the T-34) but it climbs better, turns better, it’s more aerobatic and much more durable.”
At Eckberg’s hangar, the men sipped wine on leather seats around a glass table. A shelf displayed artwork under a flat screen television, the walls lined with awards and photos of past flying events. A giant mural filled another wall. A collection of liquor bottles and a fridge filled with beer offers guests plenty of reasons to stay awhile and tell stories — as pilots are wont do.
To be sure, there will be plenty of socializing among pilots this weekend.
“This is a friendship,” Eckberg said, “a bunch of us coming together, putting flights together. We check pilots that come out and endorse people to fly stadium events.”
The Federal Aviation Administration does not qualify pilots to fly in events, so the agency instead relies on groups like the Tiger Squadron to endorse their own pilots. It’s not a responsibility the group takes lightly, which is why events such as the one this weekend are so important, they said.
“It takes a huge amount of practice and instruction,” Eckberg said. “It’s a lot more complex and rigorous than a lot of people think.”
When Eckberg and other members of the group see a photo of themselves flying in formation, with every plane seemingly in perfect position to make the shot look just right, they don’t just marvel at the spectacle of it — the way non-pilots would. Rather, Eckberg said, they bear a special appreciation for how much practice it took to make it all work.
“That doesn’t happen by accident,” Eckberg said. “If we weren’t very good, I’m sure people wouldn’t want to pay us to go do this stuff.”