April 20th Mojave Experimental Fly-In! A huge success!!

Note from Elliot Seguin: Thank you to everyone forcoming out and sharing their airplanes and airplane ideas! The turnout was better than last year with 312 operations during the event, making it the busiest day in the Mojave Tower's recorded history. We had more than a dozen race teams on site, and everything from a Stits Playmate and a 65 hp Pietenpol, to the world’s hottest NXT and a recently restored D model P-51. Only two aircraft had any maintenance issues, both of which were resolved before sunset on Saturday.
      Thank you to everyone for the excitement and participation. I hope we can do this again in the future.

Elliot Seguin
Wasabi Air Racing

Event began the night before with a Mexican Buffet catered by Anthony’s Grill of Mojave in Hansen’s Hangar for the pilots and crews who were staying in Mojave’s motels. Around sixty people turned out and Char Spencer and Midge Wright handled the check-in/cashier duties. Thank you Char and Midge!
     Former NASA Astronaut, Capt. Kenneth Reightler, Jr., USN (ret) and LCPL Nicholas Piedmont, USMC, helicopter mechanic, stationed at Camp Pendleton. Piedmont is part of the Phantom Air Racing Team.

If you would like to help sponsor this beautiful air racer, you can contact the team at Phantom Air Racing, PO BOX 0994, Cedar Park, Texas 78630-0994. You can also join by purchasing a membership on eBay at http://stores.ebay.com/Phantom-Air-Racing
     Yes, they came to the Mojave EAA Fly-In from Cedar Park, TX! We had folks fly in from all over the country and had visitors from other countries, as well! Over 2,000 people came to the April Plane Crazy Saturday!

(LEFT Jon & Tricia Sharp’s Nemesis NXT. (RIGHT) Greg ‘Coach’ Nelson’s F-1 Rocket - 300 horsepower
Lycoming IO-540 C4B5.
     Great photos by Bill Deaver and Roy Gant – so-so photos by Cathy Hansen.

The Civil Air Patrol unit from Tehachapi came to help us with Flightline Safety and Dustin Riggs held a Safety Briefing in the airport Board Room at 0800.

Thank you to Dustin Riggs and the Tehachapi CAP for your generous volunteer work. I noticed that CHP Officer Ed Smith was one of the adult CAP workers on the ramp that day! Thank so much Ed!
     Special thanks to Lt. Col Carol Schaubschlager for setting everything up for the Tehachapi CAP to help last month. Also helping was CAP Mission Observer, Brian Bauer, from Quartz Hill.
     Bill Deaver took this photo of the BD-5 owned by Tony Landis from Tehachapi. It is set up with special sounds so when a youngster is in the pilot seat and turns the key, they can hear the motor! Kids love it! Thanks Tony for bringing your wonderful exhibit to Plane Crazy Saturday once again!
     You can see that the CAP had a nice presence on the flightline to help park aircraft and make sure the visitors had a safe aviation experience.

Chris and Riitta Martin chat with JoAnn Painter, while Ed Smith checks in with Bill Deaver and Midge Wright at the Mojave Transportation Museum Foundation promotions table.

‘Ole Blue’ was on display – Dick Rutan’s Long Eze that flew around the world on the EAA Friendship Tour with Mike Melvill’s Long Eze, back in 1997.
      I heard that Mike Melvill gave a great heart-pounding, edge of your seat presentation about the EAA Friendship Tour flight at 11 a.m. in the airport board room! The Plane Crazy talks are now restricted to only 49 people now, including the speaker. Unfortunately, no one from MTM was given the opportunity of introducing Mike, and even Sally Melvill was not given access to the talk.

Andy Chiavetta of Aero Chia flew his LT-1 to the event. Gene Sheehan, Mojave Airport tenant, had the all electric Quikie – The Green Flight Challenger on display too.

And Ralph Wise brought his GT-400 out for everyone to oooh and aaaah over!

Cloud Chaser Thunder Mustang was a big hit and sounded fantastic on the fly-by on Friday! All you saw was a flash of gold and heard the sound of power!

North American row with F-86 Sabre and F-100 Super Sabre.

XCOR Aerospace had their full scale mock-up on display for everyone to look at too!

A newly restored North American P-51D flew in for the festivities and lunch!
     Thank you to everyone from MTM, CAP, Scaled Composites and Mojave Air & Space Port for making this a memorable Plane Crazy Saturday!
     For more photos and information, Elliot Seguin has posted some great photos of the whole flightline on http://www.mojaveflyin.com/