The Great Neck man celebrates his birthday by paying to engage in simulated combat over the Atlantic Ocean
Hermann Gross prepares for takeoff
Herman Gross was about five months late in celebrating his 87th birthday.
But when the retired Great Neck businessman finally got his birthday treat Monday, he was making narrow turns in the blue sky, thousands of feet above the Atlantic
Gross and Kaiser, 51, of Seaford, had paid about $1,000 each to take part in a simulated dogfight in modified NATO trainers at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton. Professional pilots both take the planes up and land them, but -- over the ocean -- Gross and Kaiser were doing all the flying. And shooting.
They flew up and down and in circles. They learned quickly that shooting up means the plane slows down, and that slower planes become targets.
And when Gross held down a button in his SAIA-Marchetti SF-260 cockpit, the one that fired fake bullets, real but harmless smoke poured out of Kaiser's plane.
"Look. There's the smoke," Gross said as he watched the dogfight being replayed on a video monitor, back at the airport after he landed.
When it was all over Gross had shot Kaiser down three times. Kaiser got Gross twice.
Gross said, modestly, that he got more kills only because he had been in a similar dogfight a few years ago, when he was only 80. "I got seven kills that time," he said.
And Monday was Gross' last dogfight. "Twice is enough," he said.
Gross, who earned a law degree from Harvard and was in practice for a year when World War II broke out, was one of the U.S. Navy's "90-day wonders," someone who took three months of training and became an officer.
He was eventually promoted to lieutenant commander, and spent the war in San Diego, overseeing the installation and replacement of radio and radar equipment on carrier-based planes.
After the war, he set up several businesses importing goods from Japan, having seven different corporations operating at different times.
Eventually, he sold them all, and got involved in another business, building indoor tennis courts on Long Island.
Now that he is retired, he plays tennis almost every day, except in the summer, when he goes scuba diving. He has a 116-foot power boat, "The Tiffany," on which he sails to the Caribbean, the Pacific and Australia with his wife, Gertrude.
That's why, when his dogfight had to be canceled because of the weather in May, he had to put it off for several months, until Monday.
"I just like the idea of being able to do it at 87. That's the best part," he said.
And, he added, the simulated aircraft fighting is as exciting as scuba diving is peaceful.
Gross said there was one more thing that made it good. It wasn't real. "If you know you were really shooting at someone, that would be different," he explained.
For Kaiser, whose family had paid for his flight, it was a dream come true. "It was absolutely perfect," he said. "I've wanted to do this for a long time."
Dave
