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Ray Cote's "Shoestring" racer, Race 16, during its sponsorship by Circus-Circus Hotels and Casinos. The colorful aircraft wore these colors after 1978, with Ray and the crew occasionally dressing up in clown outfits to promote this major sponsor. In the background, rookie Jon Sharp's Cassut Racer, "Bilbo," which eventually became National Champion "Aero Magic," Race 43. Sharp went on to multiple National Championships with his own design, "Nemesis," and will make his Sport Class Air Racing veteran outing in NemesisNXT's debut, hopefully this year.

The ramp at the California National Air Races, Mojave, California, in 1976. The heat was measured at 100 degrees in the shade, 125 degrees on this concrete. I bought so many cold drinks at this one event that the Pepsi vendor insisted on my having free drinks all Sunday. No joke.

Start of an AT-6 heat race at the 1979 California National Air Races, Mojave, California. Light leaks caused by poor optics plagued me throughout this event. I've used a lens hood ever since. The wingtip at the lower left is that of Frank Sanders' Sea Fury, "924." Sanders flew an aerobatic routine in the Hawker fighter plane during the 1979 event.

A close call for some friends of mine in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)...a Boeing CH-47C Chinook helicopter after the failure of the combining transmission at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, during full run up.

The Company A, 159th Aviation Battalion medium-lift helicopter came apart causing minor injuries to six crew members. One of the crew, Hector Colon, of San Juan, Puerto Rico, a martial arts expert, pulled the pilot from harm's way after he jettisoned the doors and attempted an escape from the helicopter's controls, which literally beat both pilots up when the rotor blades meshed after the combining transmission failed. The combining transmission can be seen just forward of the # 2 engine in yellow, behind the tunnel covers. The combining transmission directs torque to the forward and aft rotors to the transmissions in front of each of the two Avco Lycoming T-55 Turbofans that power the Chinook.

As fate would have it, one of the inspectors who came out immediately after the accident, looked at the helicopter and went to check the maintenance records of the transmission with numbers he wrote down from a similar accident in Korea years earlier. Sure enough, the serial numbers matched. The same transmission had made it through depot after the Korea accident, was not properly identified as "crash damaged," and was never properly fixed.

The transmission made it into this helicopter and slipped during full power run-up, and the rest is history. Rotor blade wreckage not only overflew the hangars to the left of the picture, one blade spar penetrated the Chinook (not pictured) at this aircraft's immediate five o'clock position, penetrating into the cabin floor on the inside. Hector Colon had been climbing down that helicopter when the accident occurred, and had that blade spar miss him by no more than six feet when it hit the second Chinook. Hecotr then turned and saved the pilot from imminent danger of being struck by the remaining forward blades. In getting to the pilot, Hector was knocked down twice by one of those blades...a miracle that he survived at all. He wound up with bruises, scratches, and one leg temporarily in a cast.

Cheat lines and logotype of a Pacific Southwest Airlines Boeing 727-214 Advanced at Hollywood-Burbank Airport, California, in the early 1970s (approximately Summer, 1973).

One of the most beautiful Air Racing patches ever produced belonged to the very first National Air Racing Association (NARA), and was designed by famed Aviation photographer and artist, Don "Bucky" Dawson, of the National Air Racing Group (NAG). Dawson's design won out over several other competitors during an open competition in the late 1970s (circa 1977-78).

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