Wayne Foster spent much of her life chasing the horizon as a combat pilot, but she could face her hardest battle so far: separate with the Warbird she built by hand.
At 88, Foster is selling one of his planes: a lower-scale replica of a Warhawk P-40 Warhawk with the 1940 desert colors of the Royal Air Force of Squadron 112. The initial price is $ 45,000.
“It’s like losing an old friend,” he said, sitting in front of the plane stored inside a Quonset cabin in Indus, Alta., A village southeast of Calgary.
Foster, who joined the Canadian forces in 1956, served in the Navy, spent three years in France and worked in an electronic war unit in Montreal for another four years.
It was in the Navy that he obtained his nickname, Butch.
“I get the name of Butch from Butcher, from Dog Fighting, I guess,” Foster said in an interview. “We had a couple of boys in the squad whose name was Wayne. I got Butch and my Wingman got Chopper.”
During his time, he said, they made many dog fights in Europe. Dogfighting is a series of tactical maneuvers used in short -range air combat.
“I learned to dog fight quite well … by judgment and error,” he said. “Fortunately, I could make many mistakes when nobody shot me.”
Foster also had a tour in Puerto Rico. He was transferred to the United States Air Force for three years, where he trained pilots in the art of the dog fight.
“That was a wonderful tour. I turned the T-38 Talon, it goes like hell,” he laughed between teeth.
Flying with an ace
Foster said that he remembers briefly shared the sky with Chuck Yeager, an American flying AS and registration test pilot that, in October 1947, became the first pilot in the confirmed story that exceeded the speed of sound.
He said he tried to “bounce” Yeaager, an unexpected attack to start a dog fight.
“He came from Spain in a 104 and I couldn’t catch him,” Foster laughed. “It was much faster than me, but I had the opportunity to talk to him later in Germany.”
When selling his replica, Foster admits that he could never fly a true Warhawk P-40.
“But I have flown the P-51, and it is very similar in some way. It does not have a large horn engine, but fortunately, it does not have a large horn engine here,” he said.
The mechanic Pieter Terblanche has been working at the Warhawk.
“It is very good for the time that has been sitting,” he said. “Everyone who buy a plane has their own idea about what should be done to the plane. It can be done quite fast.”
Foster’s daughter, Tracy, said the plan was to place it in a museum, but there have been several people who expressed interest in buying it.
The offers have been extravagant, he added.
“We have received a couple of crazy offers, such as $ 500 and a beer case, and I was not. And then it was $ 5,000 and a beer case,” he said.
A person offered $ 200, said Tracy, but turned out that he thought it was a model that could fly using a remote control.
His father has never talked much about his time as a combat pilot, he said.
“Now that it is becoming a little older, it is opening a little more about what it experienced.”
