Tom Danaher is pictured just after piloting Pearl around the patch in Witchita Falls, TX, at his airstrip in 1998. Tom is known to have shot down the last Japanese fighter in WWII in his Navy Grumman F4F Hellcat.

• Marine pilot, 1943-1945, piloting an F6F, F4F and an A3-D

• Crop duster, 1945-1946

• Charter pilot, 1947-1955

• Retired Reserve Marine pilot, 1977-1998

• Flew in 24 Hollywood movies, including Empire of the Sun, Out of Africa, and Cliff Hanger

• Has ferried 30 Air Tractors (crop duster) to Europe and Africa

• Owns a Sea Bee, Bonanza, Beech Baron, C-150, Nord, an antique Grumman Goose, and the aircraft he flew in the IMAX film Wings of Courage

• Stephen Speilberg thinks he can walk on water

• Total career time in flight: 20,000+, of which 15,000+ hours was logged as tail-dragger time

• He is the oldest Navy/Marine pilot to take off from an aircraft carrier (and did it in his own airplane, the antique Grumman Goose!) - the flight took place in Hawaii