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Reserve dentist pulls G's not teeth on weekends

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Charlie Miller
  • 445th Airlift Wing Public Affairs g
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  Lt. Col. (Dr.) Scott Sayre regularly trades his dental instruments and dentist chair for a pilot's seat and cockpit flight instruments, but not in a military aircraft. The colonel flies a Beech T-34 Mentor with the Lima Lima Flight Team, a precision formation flying group.

Colonel Sayre is assigned to Air Force Reserve Command's 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB and has been flying for more than 35 years. He does not see himself piloting a wing C-5 Galaxy aircraft but he has aspirations to fly on it.

"My dream is to go to flight surgeon school and get my wings so I can help in the overall mission," said the colonel, who has been with the 445th Aerospace Medicine Squadron for more than two years. "However, I would love to fly any aircraft that the Air Force Reserve would want me to fly."

He has a better chance of going to the flight surgeon school than piloting a C-5.

"With the training I'd need and my age, piloting a C-5, would never happen," said Colonel Sayre, who is more than 50 years old.

When he's not at Wright-Patt for drill weekends or tending to patients at his private dental practice in Cincinnati, Colonel Sayre can be found hop scotching the Midwest performing with Lima Lima at air shows.

"The team does anywhere from 10 to 20 events a year," he said.

Some weekends, Colonel Sayre and Lima Lima may do multiple shows. For the long Independence Day weekend, the team did two shows in one day in Indiana and few to Michigan in between the shows for a briefing on three more upcoming shows there.

"Out of the potential millions of air show patrons that see us each year, if we could get a couple of young people to explore aviation or the Air Force as a career, then I would be very happy. I do air shows because it is a really great thing to let the non-flying public see these old planes and get a taste of aviation past, present and future."

A lot of practice time goes into a performance because, after all, it is a precision formation flying group.

"We have many practice days. We practice for a week or so in the spring and, then for each show we do, we will have a practice day. Since the team members come from all parts of the country we need seasoned formation pilots who can practice on their own and then come together and also practice as a team," said Colonel Sayre, who had a small air show team with T-34s and T-6s before joining Lima Lima.

"The military guys have an advantage because they flew jets and had military flying experience. With me it's the opposite; I can take this back with me to the 445th. The discipline of formation flying that I've learned as a civilian pilot can be helpful in a military setting," Colonel Sayre said.

There is an extraordinary amount of mental stress involved with formation and acrobatic flying, he said.

"This is a very challenging and unique form of flying," the colonel stressed.

It's physically tiring, too. Colonel Sayre said he pulls up to 4 G's 10 or more times per show.

"When I land, I'm done," he said.

If the weather is dicey, especially with windy conditions, the mental and physical aspects of the job get cranked up another notch.

"If there is a lot of wind, then I have to fight the plane to keep it smooth. My plane weighs 2,900 pounds. A fighter jet weighs like 25,000 pounds and just cuts through most winds," he said.

Colonel Sayre, nicknamed "painless," is kind of the odd man out with the Lima Lima team. All of the current and former team pilots have a military flying background, fly full time with a commercial airline or are retired from an airline.

"Scott is an excellent pilot, a solid formation pilot," said retired Lt. Col. Skip Aldous, a Lima Lima pilot who flew F-102s and F-16s for 20 years while on active duty and with the Florida Air National Guard.

"It's usually a 2- to 3-year process to learn to do it the way we do it," Colonel Aldous said. "He learned to fly with us faster without a military background. For those of us with a military background, it was just learning a few new procedures."

Colonel Sayre plans on flying with Lima Lima for another 10 years or longer.

"In the past, most team members finish by about age 65 but I may go a little longer," he said. "I think I have another 10 years of good flying in me without any problems."

Colonel Sayre has about 4,000 hours of flying time and several different pilots' licenses. His father and uncles were U.S. Navy pilots in World War II and after.

"They got me hooked on aviation as a child, but I have always loved dentistry and medicine," he said. "I'm happy to not be a full-time commercial pilot. I'm suited better in my vocation as a dentist. However, I love formation and aerobatic flight, so this is a great combination. Had I been able to fly fighters then maybe I would have preferred a different career path."

Colonel Sayre has been practicing general and implant dentistry in the Cincinnati area since 1977. (AFRC News Service)