A rare bird swings low in Santa Rosa to honor Colonel Pinsky

Perhaps only Santa Claus’ sleigh might have created more of an airborne stir than the sleek, black, long-winged aircraft that sliced through the air above Santa Rosa on Friday afternoon.

It was a Lockheed U-2, a storied and extraordinary, if dated, single-engine jet that’s most at home performing reconnaissance from about 70,000 feet up. The Air Force plane flew low and slow into town shortly before 1:30 p.m. for a graveside funeral at Santa Rosa Memorial Park.

The rare suburban flyover and also the military honors on the ground saluted Sonoma County’s well-known Dave Pinsky, who died Oct. 9 at age 80.

Pinsky was a doer who wore a lot of different hats around here.

He was Santa Rosa’s deputy director of public utilities from 1987 until 2005, then chief of the Pacific Coast Air Museum at the county airport, then a senior volunteer with the CHP. Along the way, he helped to produce several of Santa Rosa’s Rose Parades, he was deeply involved with the Santa Rosa Ski Club and he volunteered for a host of community nonprofits.

Before all that, Pinsky served a highflying and highly responsible career with the U.S. Air Force. He piloted an astounding array of aircraft, including the U-2 “Dragon Lady.”

First flown on Aug. 1, 1955, the aircraft is able to operate around the clock at high elevations as an eye in the sky. The U-2 has been world famous since May 1, 1960, the day the Soviet Union shot down the one Francis Gary Powers was flying for the CIA.

Dave Pinsky was well aware of the aircraft’s history and unique abilities. One of his favorite assignments made him wing commander over the U-2s and other aircraft at the sprawling Beale Air Force Base near Marysville.

He told interviewer Molly Graham in 2014 that in that post he commanded 5,200 people. “It was a very hectic time of my life,” Pinsky said, “because I had people and airplanes and missions going on around the clock around the world, never got a full night's sleep, never in 4½ years, never got a full night's sleep, but it was a wonderful experience.

“The reason it was so wonderful, first of all, I was flying the world's fastest aircraft, SR-71. I was flying the famous U-2. I was also flying the T-38 jet trainer, which is like a little sports car, but I was able to do things that affected people's lives.”

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AT THE MASKED and socially distanced graveside service for the late aviator on Friday, everyone looked up the instant they heard the approaching, throaty whine of the U-2.

“It was amazing,” said Aristotle Wolfe, one of the CHP officers there to honor former senior volunteer Pinsky.

“It came in real slow, then did kind of a high bank,” said Wolfe, the CHP’s former Santa Rosa area commander and now an assistant chief. “As it went up toward the sun, it disappeared from view.”

The unusual U-2 flyover was a thrill, too, to Tim Maloney, who’s general manager of Santa Rosa Memorial Park and also in the honor guard of American Legion Post 111 of Healdsdburg.

“It’s a beautiful aircraft,” Maloney said. “You very seldom get one overhead.”

He thought the flyover was the perfect salute to Pinsky. “This was a true representation of what he did in the Air Force, what his command was,” Maloney said.

The moment at the cemetery grew even sweeter when Pinsky’s widow, Betty, told those assembled that the pilot of the Beale-based U-2 had known and served under her husband, the colonel.

You can contact Chris Smith at 707 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.