August Plane Crazy Saturday Honors Racers

The August edition of the Mojave Transportation Museum's Plane Crazy Saturday highlighted our local race teams, Nemesis NXT and Wasabi Racing, both of which are getting ready to head for the competition at Reno next month. For the first time at one of these monthly events, museum supporter and world-record-holding pilot Dick Rutan offered to give rides in his Cessna 150, with all proceeds going to the museum...and there were plenty of takers! Dick has indicated that he'll do this again next month, so if you've ever wanted to fly with Dick, put September 19th on your calendar!

On any given Saturday, you never know what's going to show up for our fly-in. Pilots chasing the $100 hamburger sometimes will show up to eat at the Voyager not even realizing that an event is going on. Below is a Scottish Aviation Model 120/121 Bulldog, a trainer built for the Royal Air Force, and registered to an owner in South Carolina...in either case, Mojave being a long way from home!

A rarity indeed is this gorgeous Polish PZL M26-01 Iskierka, or Airwolf. Only 14 of these trainers were built, and of those, only four are in the U.S. This beauty, here being flown by local warbird restorer Dean Soast, sports some unique air-brushed nose art, as well.

Meet on of the most unusual canard homebuilts around: the Avery JA-5 Walrus. Powered by a turbocharged Rotax engine, this one certainly got everyone's attention.

One of the neat things about Plane Crazy Saturday is that, except for the F-16s parked nearby, the planes here are not roped off. It's old-school airporting - you can get up close and personal with the planes and their owners, whether it's Dick Rutan's Berkut being inspected by a pair of future pilots (below left) or the XCOR Rocket Racer (right).

If you are a Facebook user, please consider becoming a supporter and fan of the Mojave Transportation Museum's Facebook page.

Mojave Plane Crazy Saturday Photos

This month's Plane Crazy Saturday was also tied in with the annual "Yuri's Night" festivities. This is a celebration of space achievement, typically held on April 12th, the day of Yuri Gagarin's launch as the first man into space, and also the date of the first Space Shuttle launch (for more info, visit http://yurisnight.net/). Representing Mojave's growing space development industry were XCOR Aerospace with several engines and their EZRocket, and Masten Space Systems displaying their rocket engine test stands. Right: XCOR's Aleta Jackson explains the concept of mach diamonds in a rocket's exhaust plume to a fascinated youngster.

Left:XCOR also makes really classy tables! Right: Masten's Ben Brockert explains some upcoming rocket engine testing that they will be doing for their X Prize Cup efforts.

Aleta Jackson kindly provided the two photos below. Left: "A young lad who wants to be a rocketship pilot poses by the EZ-Rocket." Right"A goodly representation of what happens at the Mojave Air and Space Port. Rockets, bi-planes, general aviation, a MiG, and the Nemisis NXT."

Left: Always a favorite is this stunning red Cessna 195 which lives at the nearby private Ancient Valley airport. Right: Hollywood aerial stunt coordinator Mike Patlin brought his latest student pilot and a gorgeous Siai-Marchetti SF-260C over.

Ronny and Paula Alldredge of Tehachapi brought down their gorgeously restored Beech T-34 Mentor for the first time. This plane was built in 1955 and served in the USAF before being transfered to the Indonesian Air Force in 1961. The Alldredges brought it back to the states in 1988 and did a wonderful job making it look new again.

An unexpected treat was the appearance of two Aero L-39s, which happened to arrive for lunch unaware that a public event was underway. 

Making it's first Plan Crazy Saturday appearance this month was Bob "Stambo" Stambovsky's ex-RAF BAC Mk5A Jet Provost, which was once based at Mojave, but now lives down at Fox Field.

After the crowds had headed home, Mojave warbird collector and restorer Al Hansen took the opportunity to do a few high-speed taxi runs and short hops in his latest rebuild project, a T-28 Trojan (which had been on display earlier in the day). Congrats, Al, that radial engine sure sounded good!

Cal City Recon

If you think the town of Mojave is out in the middle of nowhere, you've never been to the bustling metropolis of California City! Bypassed by both Hwys 14 and 58, Cal City is the home of a prison and not much more, so housing prices are some of the cheapest in all of southern California. The place does, however, have a pretty nifty airport, which is popular amongst the skydiving and gliding crowds. Here's a bit of an overview of the oddities to be found out there....

Below:Cal City is the base of operations for Baja Air, which operates a pair of DC-3s and a Cessna 414 in charter service down to Cabo.

Stuffed out behind some hangars on the east end of the airport are a bunch of what look like unfinished Curtis P-40 mockups, presumably from a movie set. If anyone has any information on the background of these, please leave a comment below! 

Cal City seems to have attracted more than its fair share of Fouga Magisters. The one above is marked "221", while the flyable ones, below, are (from top): N315VB, N315MB and N355F. (These shots are posted specifically for my Fouga friends in Finland!)

Completing the collection of the odd and forlorn are a Convair HC-131 sitting in a trailer park (the FAA shows it being registered to the "California Museum of Air and Space") and a rather dusty Yak 52.

Lastly, while leaving Mojave, I grabbed a shot of the Fun Bird for my good friends at Aloha!

Family Time at Mojave

The incoming inclement weather held off just long enough yesterday for another successful - if a bit breezy - Plane Crazy Saturday at Mojave. Antelope Valley Press aerospace reporter Allison Gatlin wrote a fantastic piece in Friday's paper about the event, and the result was a lot more families with eager young children attended. 

Most aviation enthusiasts can remember a time when they first discovered airplanes, often because someone simply took them to an airport. In this high-tech, high-security world we now live in, opportunities to do that are becoming rarer, which I suspect is why this monthly event has become such a big hit in the local community. A big thanks to all who brought their planes out to display (it was great to see XCOR trot out their world-record-holding EZRocket!), you'll never know if you somehow influenced a kid to grow up and seek a career as a pilot or aerospace engineer!

Does it look like fun? Put Saturday, April 18, on your calendar and bring your kids out to the airport!