An Interview with Dick Becker

Join us in this thoroughly fascinating two hour interview with the engaging and entertaining Dick Becker. Dick relates his early days as a pre-World War Two, “white hat” sailor who personally witnessed, hours before the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor, what were “truly the first shots of World War Two”. Then follow his personal quest to become a naval aviator and test pilot at the storied Patuxent River Naval Aviation Test Center—first as one of the elite, enlisted naval aviators and ultimately as a commissioned officer.

Following the war and a tour of duty in the Far East, Dick teamed with the much-decorated, former Navy pilot, Cook Cleland with whom Dick had become fast-friends while at Pax River. Dick and Cook joined forces in a flying business in Cleveland, Ohio, and also in racing the rare Goodyear F2G Super Corsairs in the Thompson Trophy Race held in the post-war years of 1946 through 1949. The Thompson Race was the most famous, “Unlimited Gold”, closed-course race of its time held at the Cleveland National Air Races. The Thompson attracted the fastest planes in the world to compete each September for the magnificent Thompson Trophy and prize money. Listen in rapt awe to Dick’s “insider stories” of what it was like to fly the brutish, highly modified, quirky, 4000+ horsepower Super Corsairs from the dangerous horse race start through the fast, low, high-G bank turns of the pylon course—enduring punishment and pushing the planes, their bodies and the flight envelope to, and sometimes past, their extreme outer limits!

At the conclusion of his air racing adventures, Dick actively participated in the burgeoning home-built movement completing and flying several successful, innovative and original design projects.

The entire interview is liberally illustrated with pictures and air race film from the period, much of which has never before been published.