This was really a slow week for the kinds of aviation articles that I like to pass along to you. To give this article a little more body I’ll combine it with a little coverage of the West Coast Swift Fly-in that I attended last weekend. I do have one link which I’ll put at the end of the article.

The Globe/Temco Swift group is pretty active overall. The Swift Museum Foundation owns the type certificate for the airframe and maintains a Parts Store at the Association headquarters in Tennessee.  Each year there is a National Fly-in and a West Coast Fly-in. The West Coast version is traditionally held in Jackson, CA at the Westover-Amador County airport (KJAQ).

This year there were about 30 Swifts in attendance. Arrivals began on Thursday and most participants were on their way home by mid-afternoon on Sunday. The Friday night BBQ dinner on the airport fed 65 people and the Saturday awards banquet had 55 in attendance. This was the registration tent and souvenir store.

One day there was a Formation flying clinic – the Swift Formation training program is certified by the FAA and, when completed, results in the awarding of a Formation Qualification card – required by the FAA in order to participate in any airshow formation flights.

On another day there were two fly-outs. One to the San Francisco Bay area to view the clouds covering the Golden Gate Bridge – the group settled for lunch near one of the bay area sport flying airports. The other fly-out was to the Pine Mountain Lake Airport (E45). A Swift owner there invited the group over to be ‘guests of honor’ at their airport’s open house/fly-in. This was the Swift parking area at Pine Mountain Lake airport.

Several different awards were given out at the banquet on Saturday night. The award winners were

Longest traveled:  Bill Whelchel from Costa Rica
Best Paint:  Nate Andrews, N98338, Graham, WA
Best Polish: Karl & Donna Johanson, N78103, San Diego, CA
Best Original:  Denis Arbeau, N3307K, Napa, CA
Best Custom:  Paul Ross, N3890K, Lakeside, CA
Viewers Choice:  Kyle Hook, N90383, Portland, OR
Bud Knox Grand Champion:  Scott & Sandy Naumann, N817CC, Arroyo Grande, CA

One of the attendees sent a few shots he took on the way home. At a fuel stop they crossed paths with two of Eddie Andreini’s planes on the way home from an airshow – a Super Stearman and a Yak-9U.  I’ll also include a link to a NSFW (Not Safe For Work) balloon photo that he sent along – saying he saw it near Napa, CA. (Maybe in a bad dream.)

NSFW Balloon photo

Many, many thanks go out to Gerry and Carol Hampton who organized the Swift Fly-in. My wife and I have been involved with the planning of a similar event and we know that the work load is tremendous. They did a super job. Thanks also to Don Thomson and Karl Johanson who both supplied photos for this article.

Here’s the only article I found this week that I wanted to pass along:

A Georgia boy and Ohio aviation history
This is from Douglasville, GA. The author’s father told her the story of the first time he had ever seen an airplane. She did some research and the story expanded to aviation history in Cincinnati and Atlanta. A lot of familiar names. Good read.