Red Baron Pizza Squadron flies high and low over Albert Lea

By Joe Marks, staff writer

City officials, media representatives and a few workers from Hy-Vee Food Store showed up at the Albert Lea Airport Friday for a ride they’ll never forget.

Four pilots from the Red Baron Pizza Squadron flight team took passengers up for loops, rolls and even a hammerhead or two in their open-cockpit Boeing Stearman biplanes.

Each plane carried one passenger in front and a pilot in back. But who was in what plane didn’t

mean much when the planes were so close together, often less than six feet between the wings.

After taking off and circling around town, the pilots began to do their stuff. They ducked down and flipped over backwards, rolled over one direction, then the other and did hammerhead turns, a maneuver where the plane goes straight up and then straight down in succession.

&8220;There are other maneuvers we do in the show,&8221; John Bowman, one of the pilots, said as he casually drew on a pipe minutes after landing. &8220;We try not to hang the passengers from their (safety) straps too much though.&8221;

The flight was surprisingly smooth. Bowman said a lot of passengers tell him it wasn’t as scary as they thought it would be.

Al Schwan, chief executive officer of the Marshall, Minnesota-based Schwan Food Company, the parent company of Red Baron Frozen Pizza, was a World War II fighter pilot who trained in bi-planes. He formed the Red Baron Squadron.

The company gave away free pizza outside Hy-Vee Friday and will track Red Baron pizza sales in Albert Lea for several days after the squadron leaves town. They’ll donate a percentage of that money to support the Minnesota Elks Youth Camp.

Mayor Aaron Summer, one of the first passengers, said he was apprehensive about the flight at first but thought it worked out great.

&8220;I didn’t realize they’d be flying so close together,&8221; Summers said a few hours after landing. &8220;It

looked like the next plane was just over off the wing tip — I’m talking feet.&8221;

Jenny Fuller is a flight trainer at the Albert Lea Airport. When representatives from a Twin Cities radio station unexpectedly didn’t show up, she took one passenger’s place on only a few minutes notice. Fuller, who hasn’t done aerobatic flying before, was so thrilled by the ride she said she plans to take aerobatic flying lessons.

&8220;It was the coolest thing ever,&8221; she said of the flight.

Jim Keller, another Red Baron Squadron pilot, said he was never much interested in flying from point A to point B. He began taking flying lessons 25 years ago when he was working full time as an accountant.

&8220;It was a relief to go out and have fun on evenings and weekends and leave the numbers on the ground,&8221; he said.

When Keller joined the Red Baron Squadron full time in 1998, he said the decision wasn’t hard at all. He is one of about eight Red Baron Squadron pilots now who come from all walks of life.

Keller said the squadron is flying or training year round. Their next stop is near Eden Prairie.