Myrtle Rose, a 75-year-old widow who lives in an affluent subdivision just outside of Chicago, flew into my heralded Hall of Heroes this week when she calmly ignored two swarming F-16 jet fighters during her daily fly-about.

Myrtle, whose late husband’s company still supplies all the McDonald’s restaurants in the country with the Canadian bacon they plop down on Egg McMuffins every morning, had some house guests on Wednesday and, just after they left, she jumped in her little bright-blue-and-yellow airplane to take a leisurely afternoon spin.

Now you need to understand that Mrs. Rose has a landing strip right outside her house in the exclusive South Barrington area – which her late husband founded – and she adores to fly her little Kitfox Model 2, an antique Cub made of wood and canvas that, as a matter of fact, was just named “Best in Show” at this year’s Oshkosh Air Show.

So Wednesday afternoon she was tooling around in the sky about 30 miles from O'Hare International when these two F-16s came screaming up. Now Myrtle’s cruising speed is about 60 knots but those F-16s idle at about 300 knots and she waved, thinking the pilots were admiring her little cute airplane, nicknamed “Winston.” I mean, you know how fellow pilots are!

But, no, it seems Air Force One was on its way to Chicago, where President Obama was having a campaign fundraiser on his birthday, and Myrtle (a Republican) was – in fact – violating Federal air space. She had no idea Barack was coming back to town.

Unbeknownst to her, NORAD scrambled the two jet fighters to keep the President safe and she said they were “very respectful,” keeping a good distance so the jet’s wash wouldn’t knock “The Best In Show” out of the sky.

Finally Mrs. Rose – who was once a wing walker, believe it or not – wiggled Winston’s cute little wings and tooled back to her Cub back to her private landing strip at what her family calls Mill Rose Farm. She was kind of tickled at the F-16s actually, but then the police cars started showing up.

South Barrington Police Chief Ray Cordell, who said “We don’t have F-16s fly over our village often,” informed the Federal Aviation Administration that our jaunty pilot was “surprised” by the uproar, and explained Mrs. Rose’s computer was acting up before she left and that she hadn’t bothered to turn the plane’s radio on since she was just having fun.

Well, the NORAD people, who scrambled the fighters from a base near Toledo, Ohio, at the expense of roughly $9,000 an hour for each, said Myrtle should have known better. Mrs. Rose, who has been an avid aviator since the mid-60s, said she is usually more careful and was kind of miffed herself, saying the FAA should not have revealed her age in the ensuing report. “That’s not nice.”

Myrtle, who flies “almost every day the weather is nice, is currently the focal point of an investigation but "is not thought to be dangerous” by Federal authorities. NORAD’s Stacey Knott admitted “there are no lines drawn in the air” when temporary flight restrictions are in place and they acknowledge “it was probably just a mistake.”

Myrtle Rose is also saying it’s no big deal. “Oh dear, maybe I should send (President Obama) a belated birthday card and say, ‘You should have stayed home and had Michelle bake you a birthday cake.’”

But, as for me, I love her style and moxie. Can’t you just see her, sitting in the cockpit of her cute airplane, the precious blue-and-yellow Cub she calls Winston, and waving at those big, bad F-16s? I think it is priceless but I’ll bet the next time she taxis out of her hanger she’ll turn the radio on.

After all, had there been terrorists in those F-16s you know she would have wanted to call somebody.

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