By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
At 11:20 p.m. June 4 a 1980 Saratoga Piper left the airport at Berrien Springs, Michigan, with a three-person crew — Barry Behnfeldt, pilot, Aaron Wilson, co-pilot, and Thomas Twiddy, inflight technician.
That marked the start of the record-setting 48N48 flight. The goal was to touch down in all 48 contiguous states withi 48 hours. On June 6 at 3:07 p.m. – 44 hours and seven minutes after departing Michigan – the plane and crew arrived in Portland, Maine, having flown 5,008 miles, comfortably setting the Guinness record.
And while they set out to achieve that record, they had loftier goals in mind.
Behnfeldt and Wilson, both pilots for Delta and both Bowling Green State University graduates, returned to their alma mater Saturday afternoon to celebrate the success of the mission.
The 48N48 flight, Behnfeldt said he and Wilson were also promoting the aviation industry and aviation education, especially at BGSU, and to raise money and awareness for Veterans Airlift Command. Mission accomplished.
When they landed in Coffeyville Kansas at 11:30 Monday night for refueling they were greeted by a crowd of about 50 people, including children. “We have to shut down,” Behnfeldt told Wilson.
They pulled out the bag of T-shirts they were carrying to distribute along the way. Then a little girl, about 6, came up asked to have hers signed. As a grandfather himself, Behnfeldt obliged, and more requests came.
Yes, this was one of the longest stops – Behnfeldt had planned on refueling stops taking 18 minutes – but that was beside the point.
Behnfeldt assured the girl that girls can grow up to be pilots as well. “.The look in their eyes, the impact I think that was having on them, made it everything I hoped it to be.”
As they approached Maryland, an administrator from the Veterans Airlift Command contacted them. The nonprofit provides free transportation for medical and other support needs to wounded veterans. A member of their advisory board would meet them. He offered to bring them lunch. They placed their order.
When they touched down, they were greeted by the veteran. He was missing his right arm, and left leg. Here was someone who had given “a piece of himself” in service to the country, Behnfeldt said. This brought home the importance of that part of the 48N48 mission.
The idea for the flight came to Behnfeldt aptly midway during a conversation with another pilot. Another team had made a previous attempt, starting in Maine, a few years before, but ended with mechanical difficulties after landing in 18 states.
“That’s when I got a hold of it,” he said. “This is where the dream starts.”
Teaming up with Wilson was the result of another flight. “I knew within a few minutes of being with Aaron that he was an outstanding young man. … We just hit it off right away.” Wilson already had experience flying a Saratoga as well.
Flying across the country in a small plane was something on the younger pilot’s bucket list. “When you’re in a commercial airline you’re at 35,000 feet,” Wilson said. “You can’t see anything on the ground. Everything is just a tiny little speck. At 10,500, 10,000 feet, you can see everything.”
Behnfeldt planned the route, drawing straight lines across the country. They started in Berrien Springs because it was the furthest southwestern airport in the state and close to the plane’s home base at Henry County Airport. They headed west traveling around the country counterclockwise and “started checking off states,” he said. “You don’t go into any state further than you have to you,” he said. “You just bounce along the borders.”
The plan called for them to take eight minutes at stops where they just landed and took off again. They had to make sure there would be someone at the airport to sign the log to confirm they’d been there.
That fell to the operations team back at the Henry County Airport.
Ethan Mathias, Behnfeldt’s son-in-law, was part of the team. They handle social media for the mission, posting photos sent from the air along the way. BGSU President Rodney Rogers said Saturday that he followed the trip as it was in progress through the 48N48 Facebook page. The operations team kept track of fuel and time for the pilots, as well as making sure there would be someone to meet them.
At one airport, Mathias said, they couldn’t rouse the person who would meet the flight. They ended up calling the police station, and an officer went to the airport and signed the log, and as at every stop, signed the plane.
The Saratoga picked up more signatures during the BGSU visit including those of Rogers and Jennie Gallimore, dean of the College of Technology, Architecture and Applied Engineering, the home of the aviation program.
Behnfeldt said he majored in the nascent aerospace technology program, graduating in 1983. He served in the U.S. Navy for 30 years.
Wilson is a 2004 BGSU graduate. He majored in communications and was in the Air Force ROTC. He is still a member of the Air Force Reserves. Matthias is a 2014 BGSU graduate, and worked as a flight instructor, before leaving to join Delta.
Matthias said that when the flight turned the western corner and left California with the Rockies behind them, they were assured that the flight would succeed. But as his father-in-law and crew were heading up the East Coast on the final leg of the journey, he had to leave the operations center. His wife Megan was giving birth to a son Ashton. That was, Behnfeldt said, on Facebook yet another blessing.
Looking back at the flight, and all he and Wilson and Twiddy hoped to accomplish, the pilot’s assessment was simple: “We have knocked those out of the park.”
