ArizonaJet Rally 25th Annual
25 years and still going strong, jet jocks from all over head to Arizona for great jet action!
By Greg Moore PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG MOORE F 50
or the last twenty-five years, on the weekend before Thanksgiving, pi- lots from all over the Southwest de- scend on The Superstition Air Park in Mesa, AZ for the annual Arizona Jet Rally. Warm temperatures, a very nice facil- ity, and going home with a suntan make it a perfect pre-winter escape. That is most years except this year; several of my Texas friends showed up along with the rain that seemed to have plagued them at more than a few of their events this year (nope! I’m not going to mention the rain that also hit Jets over Colorado). Well it rained so hard on Fri- day that some joking needed to be done. Joking aside, we all know that anytime we go anywhere, we take our chances with the weather, and I have figured out that over the last 16 years we have missed 1.5 days of flying at this event, so losing one this year wasn’t horrible, except that we all wanted to fly! Somewhat negating the loss
of Friday was the change to a Thursday through Sunday format, since Sunday now seems to be a “dead” day at many events as folks make the trip home earlier in the day (as I had to).
In spite of the weather forecast, 47 pilots came and flew, and flew and flew, and did so with a very eclectic mix of edf (high powered as well as small stuff) and turbine powered airplanes. Not only that, but they co-existed with each other in the air with the only re- trieval of downed airplanes being of the “I ran my battery down too far” variety. Bob Ruff, CD’ing the event for probably the 12th time, and Safety Officer John Mangino (also a multiple-time CD) made sure that the event was laid-back, calm and the flying smooth, with both of them even getting in some flying.
Thursday’s weather was warm (in the up- per 60s) with a high overcast that still pro- vided good flying. Saturday’s overcast was
much thicker, but at least we had pockets of that incredibly blue Arizona sky and much of the day we had five airplanes in the air. Alright, enough of the meteorology report, but at least you understand why there are not a lot of bright photos. Now onto the air- planes!
Coming back to Mesa following a three- year hiatus, Steve Haynes (formerly known as the QEFI columnist “Whistling Watts”) persuaded Mike Warren to take Steve’s Tazor out of storage and haul it down to Mesa from Colorado while he caught a jumbo jet from Heathrow. Yup, he lives outside Lon- don, England, so he caught a lot of bad jokes about feeling right at home with the weather. This Stumax powered airplane just looks so nice in the air, flying, and landing so smooth- ly that it is a shame it has not had a larger market presence. Now marketed in Europe as the Boomerang Exige, it would be great if the US were included in their sales plans.
JANUARY 2014
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