The author takes flight. “That was great,” Matt says. “Now let’s have a dogfight.”

"David would have loved this," I think to myself as the 1920s Travel Air Biplane taxis out to the runway at Palomar airport. My late brother David, who was ten years my senior, was a pilot for an aerial-photography company out of Burbank. In June of 1994, while circling a target in Banning Pass near Palm Springs, David’s plane was struck in midair by an airplane being flown by a student pilot. Both planes went down; David, his photographer, and the student pilot died. David was the aviation buff of all time. Vintage aircraft like this one and especially World War II-era fighter planes were his passion. The sight of a P-51 Mustang or a P-38 Lightning brought a joyous smile to his face. His enthusiasm for aviation spread to his four younger brothers, myself included.

My thoughts are with David as I sit in the open cockpit of this old biplane getting ready to take off. Crammed into the front cockpit with me is my friend Matthew, looking ridiculous in leather flying cap and goggles. His face tells me I look ridiculous in mine too. In the rear cockpit, our pilot, “Vintage” Vic Schneider, stops the plane at the west end of the runway. Word comes from the tower that we’re clear to take off. The plane shakes as the radial engine winds up to a constant roar and we start to move down the runway. Ahead of us and to the right, another blue-and-red Travel Air Biplane races down the runway. The two planes lift off simultaneously and in seconds, as the plane climbs in a gradual left turn over the Pacific, all of coastal North County comes into view. After circling a few migrating gray whales we spot from above, we turn left over Batiquitos Lagoon and fly inland above the mansions of Rancho Santa Fe and Olivenhain before returning to land in formation.

The two biplanes belong to Biplane and Air Combat Adventures, a company started in 1992 by “Cash Register” Kate Lister and “Tailspin” Tom Harnish. Harnish was a retired Navy pilot and owner of a struggling Philadelphia computer company. Lister was a successful venture capitalist with an interest in Harnish’s computer company. She was also a student pilot. “We were sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean up in San Francisco,” Kate tells me when I’m back on the ground. She’s tall with long blond hair and a smiling face. ‘Toni’s business was failing and we were sitting there discussing what to do next. lust then, a biplane flew down the coast in front of us. It was flying so low we were actually looking down on it. I said, ‘How ’bout biplane rides?’ ”

The couple purchased their 1929 Travel Air Biplane in Sonoma and on Memorial Day 1992 took off on an overland flight to Philadelphia. “We didn’t have any navigation equipment,” Kate recalls, shaking her head with the memory. “We were following roads and train tracks on the ground.”

They started the biplane ride business in Philadelphia but found that open-cockpit biplanes and Eastern-Pennsylvania weather didn’t mix. In February of 1994, they flew the biplane back to California and settled in San Diego, where they could fly year-round. Since then, business has steadily grown and they’ve acquired another biplane, a Piper Super Cruiser, a World War II-era SNJ-4, and two Varga VG-2Is.

It’s the two Vargas that I’m interested in today; while the biplane ride was nice, the Vargas are used for dogfighting. They represent the “Air Combat” in Biplane and Air Combat Adventures. I’ve brought my brother James with me today to do battle for family bragging rights in the skies above North County.

Before our dogfight, James and I are led to a small office inside a hangar that serves as preflight briefing room. There, Matt “Opie” Taylor, a Marine F-18 pilot who moonlights with the company, conducts our preflight briefing. After running through some basic safety information — the accompanying pilot will take off and land the plane, a 500-foot bubble between the planes must be maintained at all times, no more than a 60-degree angle of bank is allowed — Matt begins a discussion of tactics. “To start each dogfight,” he explains, “you will pass each other off your left wing tips and either I or the other pilot will say, ‘Fight’s on,’ and the first one to get around within a 30-degree cone behind the other plane wins the fight. When you get within the cone, you push the radio button on the stick and yell, ‘GUNS, GUNS, GUNS!’ or make your best machine-gun noise. The pilot will be the final judge on whether it’s a good kill or not.

“Now," Matt picks up a pointer in each hand, a little fighter plane model attached on each pointer’s end, “obviously, if you have two planes with equal performance capabilities flying around in a circle trying to get behind each other, neither one will ever get behind the other, right?”

“Right.’

“We’ll, I’m going to teach you two maneuvers that were used by Eddie Richenbacher and the Red Baron in World War I and are still used today in F-18s. They’re called high and low yo-yos. To get around the circle faster than your adversary,” he demonstrates with the models, “you need to cut across the circle. That’s where the low yo-yo comes in. As James here in the Mustang is circling left, trying to get behind Ernie in the Messerschmidt, he pushes the stick forward and left. When he pushes the stick forward, the plane starts diving and what happens?”

“I pick up speed,” James answers.

“Right,” Matt continues, “you pick up speed and you cut across the circle you were flying in to get behind Ernie. The problem now is, you’re below him, you’re flying in a direction perpendicular to the direction he’s flying in, and you have a lot of airspeed. The more airspeed you have, the more room you need to make a turn. It’s just like in a car, you can’t make a sharp turn at high speed. You have to slow it down first: So James has picked up all this airspeed from his low yo-yo; now he needs to slow down and turn the plane to the left. That’s where the high yoyo comes in. James pulls the stick back into his lap. That makes the plane climb, which...”

“...slows it down.”

“Right. Then he pushes the stick a little left and settles in behind Ernie. So the low yo-yo gave him the speed to get across the circle, and the high yo-yo slowed him down so he could make a turn in a short distance and get behind Ernie. Easy, right?”

“Right,” we answer, a little tentatively.

“Problem is, Ernie’s trying the same maneuvers to get behind James. The guy who does it best wins.”

Matt closes the briefing with a final warning. “You’ll be pulling three, three an‘d a half Gs up there, and you may start to feel sick. There are ‘lunch review’ bags in the plane for that reason. But if you feel it coming on, let us know, and we’ll fly straight for a little bit and get a little fresh air in the cockpit until you’re feeling better.”

The 40-minute briefing over, James and I swagger out to our waiting war birds, each confident that he will be returning victorious. “James is on the far side of the hill,” I think to myself. “There’s no way he can keep up with a young stallion like me.”

Actually, James at 31 is only three years older than I am, and he’s in much better shape. But dang it, when we were kids I had to give up the front seat to him so many times because “he’s older” that I am going to flaunt the fact that I’m younger now.

Our fraternal contest will be fought using the Varga VG-21, a small, single-engine prop plane. It seats two in tandem and has duplicate joy-stick controls. James’s plane sports red-and-white U.S. Navy markings. Mine bears the orange KAF logo of the imaginary “Karakistani Air Force”—“Or Kate’s Air Force,” Matt says—and seven or eight bullet-hole decals. After I climb into the back seat. Matt takes the front seat and starts the engine. Followed by James and his pilot Chuck “Bronco” Buckley, we taxi to the east end of the runway and take off in formation. Once in the air we climb in a broad left turn until we’re over the airport at about 3500 feet. “I’m going to demonstrate the high and low yo-yo for you while Chuck flies in a circle. Then I’ll circle and he’ll demonstrate it for James.”

While we head south. Chuck and James, who have spun off to the south, now circle around and head north. The two planes pass each other on the left at about 500 feet; Matt puts the plane into a diving left turn. After a few seconds he pulls up and the heavy feeling of three or so Gs hits me and then eases as he levels the plane in behind James and Chuck. The sight of the other plane as we approach from above and left reminds me of countless World War II flying movies.

After resetting the dogfight, this time with us flying north and them flying south, Matt circles while Chuck demonstrates the yo-yos for James. “Now it’s your turn to practice,” Matt tells me.

I take the stick, gulp down the lump in my throat, and push it forward and left for a few seconds. I pull up and feel the Gs again. “That was great,” Matt says. “Now let’s have a dogfight.” We’re flying south, and out of the mist straight ahead comes James in his Varga VG-21. As he passes my left wing tip, Matt yells, “Fight’s on!” and I push the stick forward and left for a second then slowly ease it back to my lap. When I pull up, the Gs hit me hard and my vision goes a little bit tunneled. But at the end of that tunnel I can see James in front and a little left of me. I level the plane and bank in behind him. Pressing the red button on top of the stick, I yell, “GUNS GUNS GUNS!” “That’s a kill,.” Matt says, extending a hand back over his shoulder for a high five. “Good job. That was a great high and low yo-yo!”

Score: Ernie-1, James-0. There’s enough time for two more fights; if I win the next one. I’m ensured family bragging rights, no matter what happens in the third match. This time the fight starts with us flying north. After the “ Fight’s on” call, I put the plane into a good low yo-yo only to pull up too hard and lose too much speed. Matt is laughing in the front seat. “We’re getting close to stalling here,” he says, referring to the condition when a plane stops flying and starts falling.

In my eagerness to perform a good yo-yo, I’ve been watching the stick, not the other plane, and I can’t see him anywhere. “Where’s James?” I ask.

“I think you’ll find him right behind you,” Matt answers, still laughing.

I crane my neck back and, looking over my left shoulder, spot James just as I hear him yelling, “GUNS GUNS GUNS!” over the radio. I’m dead.

Ernie-1, James-1. It’s rubber match time. Winner takes all, loser goes home crying to his (our) mommy. But as we’re setting up for the third and decisive dogfight, over the radio comes Chuck’s voice, “We’re a little hot in the cockpit here.”

“Uh-oh,” Matt says. “James is feeling a little woozy.”

I bet he’s feeling woozy. The fear of losing to me in the third and final dogfight is making him nauseous. While Chuck and James fly straight and level, Matt lets me fly behind them, trying to hold the gun sight — really a sticker on the canopy in front of me—on their plane. After five minutes or so, James isn’t feeling any better and our 40 minutes is nearly up, so we circle around and land. Final score, Ernie-1, James-1. No winner, no loser, no bragging rights. At least I didn’t get sick.