It is unlikely that when the Navy's Blue Angels thunder down the runway for the Oregon International Air Show next summer, that any of them will give a thought to Swede Ralston.
Most likely, they won't even know who he was. And that's a shame.
Norman "Swede" Ralston, veteran pilot, flying instructor, air show performer and successful owner of Aero Air at the Hillsboro Airport, died recently. He would have been 91 today.
It was back in 1947 that Ralston and a few of his flying friends presented the first air show over the Washington County airport --at that time, not much more than a paved runway and a few buildings. Enough people came to the show that Ralston and his buddies decided to take it on the road, putting on aerial demonstrations up and down the West Coast.
They were flying military surplus planes, never designed for the rigors of stunt flying.
But Ralston had a feel for his craft, with a deft touch on the controls to get more from an airplane than it was ever supposed to give.
"I would have never been able to survive the same sort of stunts that Swede performed back then," said air show performer Sean Tucker, when Ralston was inducted into the International Council of Air Shows Hall of Fame in 2002.
"What is so cool about Swede is that he survived," Tucker said. "And he taught other pilots how to stay alive."
In spite of a lifetime of honors, accolades and awards, Ralston's greatest contribution to flying was probably teaching other pilots how to come home.
During World War II, he was stationed in California to train Army Air Forces recruits before sending them into combat.
He never stopped teaching.
Jerry VanGrunsven took lessons from Ralston in the 1950s and became a commercial airline pilot.
"We'd hang around the airport and hear the engines rev up, and it was just music to me," he says. "I was just a farm kid, so I could only afford a lesson every couple of weeks.
"Swede was an easy guy to like," he says. "He always had such energy for flying."
There may have been a time that Ralston didn't want to be a pilot, but he was too young to remember it.
He fell in love with flying the instant he saw a plane land near the family farm outside of Forest Grove. He was about 3 at the time. And the time was about 1920.
As a teen, Ralston bought his first plane --a two-seater American Eaglet --for $300 and spent that much more to refurbish it. The project was the beginning of a half-century of work that eventually gained him the Federal Aviation Administration's Charles Taylor Master Mechanic award, named for the mechanic on the Wright brothers' plane.
As a youth, Ralston didn't own a car, so he'd pick up his future wife for dates by landing his plane in her parents' backyard.
Over the years, Ralston, who also worked as a crop-duster, helped create a near endless supply of flying tales. The best one is when he flew his North American AT-6 --with his name written on it upside down --through the blimp hangar at the Tillamook Airport.
Ralston said he thought the air show promoters were joking when they suggested it. They figured he was joking when he agreed.
It was just Swede being Swede.
He had the plane. He had the nerve. He had the skill.
In announcing Ralston's death to its members, the International Council of Air Shows called him "one of the best stick-and-rudder pilots ever."
There may be no better praise.
Jerry F. Boone: 503-294-5960; [email protected] or [email protected]; 1675 S.W. Marlow Ave., Suite 325, Portland, OR 97225
