Call to Pasadena: Tiger Squadron to fly Rose Parade
by Garth Meyer Apart three feet, back three feet and down three feet from each other, the formation planes will arrive over Pasadena with a certain time in mind: 9:13 a.m. and 12 seconds New Year’s Day. The Torrance Airport-based Tiger Squadron graces the Rose Parade as the first civilian formation to be granted the honor. The South Bay pilots fly Chinese-made combat trainer prop planes. They ran an abbreviated practice Sunday morning, Dec. 3. “Tigers check,” founder Craig Ekberg called on the radio from the cockpit of the lead plane as eight others aligned at Zamperini Field. “Two.” “Three.” “Four,” pilots answered, a mix of men in their 40s to 60s; an attorney, a real estate broker, a retired engineer, an aerospace worker, a custom-homes builder and investment brokers. They took off in threes, then lined up in the sky for four passes over the airport, one with smoke trailing. A Tiger Squadron videographer took footage from the tarmac. The planes landed, and the men wheeled in the 1960s-’80s two-seater machines back into their hangars, then converged at Ekberg’s for a debriefing. He owns a roofing company. “I can promise the plane on the outside is way tighter than the inside,”…
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