Plowing the skies over the Jersey Shore

THERE'S NO NEED for mufflers in the blue skies above the surf, in the flying mules that strafe the Jersey Shore with half-price drink ads and marriage proposals all summer.

The 150-horsepower, straight-pipe sound is unmistakable to all who have ever planted their butts in the sand on a sunny weekend from Cape May to Sandy Hook.

Banner planes have flown above the breakers like sea gulls until sunset for as long as you can remember. At first, it's like a neighbor's lawnmower a few houses down, growing to a wood chipper, until finally it sounds like a World War I dogfight over your beach blanket.

The rare few who pilot the small, lightweight Piper Cubs for Paramount Air Services, the nation's oldest and largest flying banner company, have a unique view of the Shore. And their flights always include a stomach-dropping thrill ride that rivals anything on the boardwalk.

"Well, it's loud, but I guess the tranquility is what draws me to it. There's a serenity up there," said longtime pilot Mark Buganski, 53, of Cape May. "You get a whiff of the suntan lotion, the boardwalk and the ocean air. It's all mixed into one."

Paramount began in 1945 when founder Andre Tomalino and his brother-in-law, Grover Kauffman, returned to the Cape May County area after World War II. Tomalino had one of the more dangerous jobs during the war, piloting a Waco CG-4A glider. The gliders, nicknamed "The Flying Coffins," were towed into enemy territories, often under heavy gunfire.

Towing advertisements above the beach was a breeze compared with that, said Tomalino's daughter, Barbara Tomalino, who now owns the company.

Advertisers were strictly local at first, she said, mostly deals on clams casino at a restaurant or a crooner's show times at a cocktail lounge. Now, they've become more varied: Everyone from national insurance providers to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers pay to fly the coast. Prices range from about $400 for a one-day banner to thousands for a summerlong contract. Tomalino said each summer they've been in business has been better than the year before, and competition comes and goes.

"We will fly [banners] as large as 20 feet high and 60 feet long and we fly from Memorial Day to Labor Day," she said.

Marriage proposals are always popular, Tomalino said. There were a few close calls and some cold feet, but all the brides eventually said yes. The latest trend is baby gender reveals, she said.

Tomalino has a rule about the advertisements, considering millions of people will see them, whether they want to or not.

"I tell everyone to be positive. Say the same message in a positive way," she said. "Anything that I find objectionable or questionable for an 8-year-old on the beach isn't going up."

Banner planes mostly dragged the banners down a runway and took off with them attached before Andre Tomalino came around. His daughter said he invented a way to pick up the banners - reducing damage to the banner and making takeoffs easier - that's now the industry standard.

Down at Paramount's airstrip in Middle Township, just off the Delaware Bay about 8 miles west of the ocean, watching pilots pick up banners looks anything but easy.

First, the planes take off, then loop around and head back toward the strip, where the banner's tow line is stretched between poles like a clothesline, no more than 5 feet off the ground.

Pilots dive toward the poles, a hook extended from the fuselage grabs the tow line and the pilot soars upward just feet above the ground. It looks like a kamikaze mission, and it often takes new pilots a long time to master it. Some never do.

"Maybe he's a little nervous 'cause his family is watching," Tomalino said after one pilot pulled up without the banner as some onlookers watched.

Banner-plane pilots have been killed in crashes across the country, and there have been accidents in New Jersey, too. In 1996, a plane from Gloucester County crashed into the surf in Ocean City. In 2012, a Paramount pilot crashed into trees in Middle Township but was uninjured.

Jim Dahlen, Tomalino's husband, trains most of the pilots on the art of banner towing, no matter how much experience they have in aviation. Dahlen said the planes, which have fabric bodies, are usually averaging about 40 mph for onlookers on the beach.

"They're designed to go slow and low and stay in the sky. They're only 950 pounds," said Dahlen, 71.

Paramount's Piper Cubs were built in the 1940s and '50s, but the frames and the engines are rebuilt frequently, Tomalino said.

The cockpits are loud enough that most pilots wear both earplugs and noise-canceling headphones. The cockpits are spare, too, because the pilots fly by visualization only, during good weather only, and don't need instruments.

"Look at the instrumentation. There isn't any," said Joe McSherry, Paramount's mechanic. "They're just like John Deere in the sky, like tractors. They just do the same thing day in and day out, pulling banners."

Many pilots, like Steve Jordan, 22, of West Chester, pull banners as a way to build up their flight hours. Jordan, whose family has a vacation home in Avalon, is hoping to become an airline pilot.

"There's not much of a better way to build the hours you need than doing this," Jordan said as he prepped his plane for takeoff.

Buganski, who's been flying with Paramount for two decades, was accustomed to flying low as a former crop duster and fish spotter. He now has over 6,000 hours of flight time. Like every other banner pilot, he's seen schools of dolphins, fog banks, whales and sea turtles, and felt the fickle winds pulling on his plane like a "green monster" from the sea.

"I've seen great white sharks off the coast of Cape May," Buganski said.

During the week, Buganski works for the county's municipal utilities authority, but he doesn't dream of flying 747s.

"I love this job," he said of pulling banners. "I don't do it for the money."