Things only got crazier. For example, in 1970 Tom bought a twin-screw Cessna 310. "His total experience was that he was a seaman on a submarine," Jim Clark mused. "That didn't qualify him to be anything. "
"He hired Dave Pallai who was the instructor at Fullerton Airport as an ad salesman so he didn't have to pay him as an instructor," Jim said. "My first flight in the plane was with Tom as a student, Dave as a co-pilot, and with the owner of a nightclub." After stopping by a gentlemen's club near Pahrump called Ash Meadows, they took off to Las Vegas. Only there was a catch: 310s were infamous for not locking the nose gear. "We flew by the tower and they told us it's wagging like a train signal." They landed anyway, dropping the nose at the last minute. "It snoopy-dogged over into the median. Well that was my first flight with Tom."
Tom stepped up to jets almost immediately, but not the ordinary kind. "He bought a T33 at Fighter Imports in Chino," Jim said. For those that don't know, the Lockheed T33 was the trainer version of the F80 Shooting Star, one of the world's first successful fighter jets. "There were only six people in the US who owned ex-fighter jets at the time," Jim said.
Custom-painter of renown, Molly-the guy who later came up with Kawasaki Green, Yamaha's yellow with black strobe stripes, and Toyota's Lexus logo-painted it. "He custom-painted a lot of the bikes and all of Tom's planes except that 310," Jim noted.
The stories in that trainer are legendary. "I was in the T33 one time," RK said. "He puts this mask on me and says, 'see this little thing that goes in and out? Well if it stops moving, hit me in the head and we'll go back down so you can get some oxygen."
One of the most sensational events happened outside Chicago. "They (air-traffic controllers) vectored him right into this hailstorm," Jim began. "Well the hailstorm and the updrafts throw him into a tailspin. The spin tears the tip tank off the left side and it goes back and tears 18 inches off the left tail piece. Then the right one tears off. He's not wearing a G-suit so he blacks out.
"He comes to at 2,900 feet but inverted. Somehow he got out of the spin. He turns around and goes back to Chicago. Some farmer found a tank in his field so it gets reported to the FAA." Jim happened to be following on the road, so he stopped at the airport to take photographs...and reset the G meters so the FAA wouldn't ground the plane permanently.
Tom later put it up for sale at Ontario. "We go to meet (a prospective buyer) but he says he wants to ride first. Tom puts him in the back and takes off. He does some loops and dips and the guy heaves in the mask and all over the cockpit," he said, laughing. "They come back down and the guy staggers over and sits against the wall, trying to recover. 'I don't want to ever see that thing again,' he said."
The subjects of the destinations were just as colorful. For example, Tom went to Vegas frequently to play baccarat. "Rick Forsyth was the pit boss at the Baccarat pit at the International, which is now the Hilton, and he was one of our AEE dealers in Vegas," Jim said. Now bear in mind that this is the very early '70s. "They gave us 29th floor suites for free. Free shows, free dinners, free everything because Tom had a $50,000 credit line at the five major hotels. We kept a car at the airport; we'd drive to the Hilton, go up to the suites, and change our clothes."