Forget gravity: Fly-In gives public chance to get up close and personal with planes and pilots

Even sitting still and unoccupied just outside its hangar, the single-seat, open-cockpit, red, white, blue and silver biplane screams action.

You almost get the feeling it could jump into the sky without a pilot and start doing loops and spins, rolls and tailslides.

It’s just that hot.

Emilio Verastegui owns the plane, a 16-foot long Skyote with a 20-foot wingspan.

“It’s an acrobatic plane,” Verastegui said earlier this week at Double Eagle II Airport. “But I’m not a hardcore acrobatic pilot. Just enough to scare myself. I’m still learning this plane.”

Verastegui, 73, is a member of Albuquerque Chapter 179 of the Experimental Aircraft Association.

On Saturday, he and his bi-wing wind dancer will be part of EAA Chapter 179’s 34th annual Land of Enchantment Fly-In at Double Eagle II, 7401 Atrisco Vista NW.

During the program, which is free, aircraft fly into the airport to be judged.

Scores of amateur-built, antique, contemporary and military aircraft will be on display. Visitors will have a chance to meet and talk to pilots, builders and restorers.

And there will be information and educational programs — a Youth Aviators Center, a Builders Corner and “Girls in Aviation Day” for girls 8-17.

‘I’ll have fun’

The Experimental Aircraft Association, founded in 1953, is an international organization of aviation enthusiasts. Many of its members build their planes.

Verastegui built his Skyote, but it was not exactly an overnight project. He bought the pieces of the aircraft in 1993, when he was still living in Knoxville, Tennessee, and shipped them to Albuquerque when he moved here in 2000.

“It sat for a long time without any work being done on it,” he said. “About seven years ago, I started working on it in earnest. I finished it this past April. It’s a small plane, but a big challenge. Probably a dozen people helped me from time to time. Some had tools I didn’t have.”

Verastegui was born in Mexico, but moved to Knoxville with his family when he was about 2. His father, a physician, would fly when he had to but didn’t like doing it.

Verastegui, however, said he had been drawn to flying from as far back as he can remember. There is a picture of him sitting on the wing of a plane when he’s just a couple of years old.

“They told me every time a plane went by, I would point to the sky and start making noises,” he said.

He soloed in January 1968, when he was 17.

“My dad said I would never make any money flying,” Verastegui said. “I said, ‘But I’ll have fun.’”

He flew 9,600 hours in lighter aircraft as an instructor and while working as a charter pilot before joining FedEx as a pilot in April 1995. Flying for FedEx meant getting behind the controls of larger aircraft such as the twin-engine, wide-body Airbus A300 and the tri-jet, wide-body McDonald Douglas MD-11. He logged about 7,600 hours flying for the transport company, a year in Europe but mostly in the continental U.S.

He hasn’t had a chance to put in many hours with the Skyote, but he has flown the plane enough to know that it’s fun. He describes piloting the plane, which cruises at a speed of 105 mph, as like riding a motorcycle in the sky.

The Skyote not only appeals to Verastegui’s sense of adventure but also to his affection for aviation’s romantic past, as expressed in the plane’s slightly swept-back bi-wings, the open cockpit, the Iron Crosses emblazoned on the tail in homage to Germany’s World War I fighter aircraft.

“I like it for the nostalgia,” he said.

Freedom

Mark Wilson smiles a lot when showing people Miss Blu, his AutoGyro Cavalon 915iS, an aircraft that combines elements of a helicopter and a plane. They are also known as gyrocopters and gyroplanes.

It seems as if just being close to his autogyro makes Wilson happy.

“They look like toys, but they can really perform,” said Wilson, an EAA Chapter 179 board member. Wilson and Miss Blu will take part in Saturday’s Fly-In.

“I love parking it next to a jet,” he said. “People come out, walk past the jet and say, ‘What’s this?’”

Like helicopters, autogyros have rotor blades, but autogyro rotors are unpowered. Air flowing upward across the autogyro’s rotor makes it turn. An engine-driven propeller provides forward thrust for the aircraft.

Wilson, 72, was on a beach in Costa Rica four or five years ago when he became fascinated by autogyros.

“Two of them, one right behind the other, came flying 50 feet over the beach at about 100 mph,” he said. “I was in awe, exhilarated.”

He bought Miss Blu, factory built in Germany, in 2022, did his gyro training in California and flew Miss Blu to Albuquerque.

Wilson is an Albuquerque native, a 1970 graduate of Del Norte High School, who made his living in the auto parts business. He had an early interest in flying, earned his pilot’s license when he was 19, flew for about 10 years, was a flight instructor and also got involved in hot air ballooning for 10 years.

But he said life, business and family kept him out of aviation for 40 years before those autogyros buzzing the beach in Costa Rica pushed him to get back into the sky.

“I like the (autogyro’s) maneuverability and the view,” he said. “It all comes down to one word: freedom. Freedom from gravity.”