Flight of a lifetime

By JODI HAUSEN Chronicle Staff Writer

BELGRADE - Johanna Schmidt stood on a ladder in an olive drab flight suit looking into the cockpit of a T-33 fighter jet at the Yellowstone Jet Center Friday, a helmet tucked under her arm.

SEAN SPERRY/CHRONICLE Johanna Schmidt stands on the ladder to the cockpit of a TE-33 jet she rode after an auction at the Cody Dieruf Foundation. Underneath the jumpsuit, she wore a T-shirt with the photo of a young ballerina. Around her neck, she wore a pair of Vietnam-era dog tags.

Schmidt was the recipient of a gift n a ride in a fighter jet n intended to help her feel what her father, Norman Schmidt, might have felt when, as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, he flew F-104 fighter jets.

“It was just incredible,” Johanna Schmidt said. “I always thought it would be something I’d love to experience.”

Norman Schmidt was a fighter pilot in both the Korean and Vietnam wars and was shot down over Vietnam in 1966. He was taken to a prisoner of war camp where he was severely tortured and placed in solitary confinement for months at a time.

His death is believed to have happened at that POW camp in 1967. Johanna Schmidt was only 2 years old at the time.

The dog tags she wore Friday were his.

“I wanted to have a little piece of him with me (during the flight),” Schmidt said. “I was so proud of my dad.”

The flight was a gift from a family friend, Ivan Dieruf, uncle of Cody Dieruf, a young woman who died of cystic fibrosis at the age of 23 and for whom the Cody Dieruf Benefit Foundation is named.

The flight was one of many items auctioned at a recent foundation benefit that raised nearly $74,000 to pay travel and other expenses not covered by insurance for families of patients with cystic fibrosis.

The ballerina on Schmidt’s T-shirt was Cody.

“Cody was a real daredevil,” Schmidt said. “She would have absolutely loved (the flight).”

Cody’s adventurous spirit gave Schmidt the courage to let she be strapped in and subject herself to the crazy acrobatics of pilot Dave Boyd, who included loops and barrel rolls in the airborne adventure.

But the only time Schmidt said felt at all queasy was on takeoff. Cody’s strength and spirit inspired her, she said.

“I didn’t want to chicken out,” she said. “Cody would have been so disappointed.”

Ivan Dieruf said he thought it would be interesting for Schmidt to experience some of the same things her father got to experience, so he bid on and won the flight donated by Boyd and the plane’s owner-pilot, Bob Green. His nearly $1,000 bid won the flight.

“Bob and Dave’s generosity is what gives these kids the opportunity for life,” Dieruf said. “It’s that kind of generosity that makes Bozeman such a great place to live.”

Jodi Hansen can be reached at jhausen@dailychronicle.com or 582-2630.

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