Gary Vacin A retired USAF lieutenant colonel who was one of the pilots onboard a mission gunship on the Son Tay prison camp raid in Vietnam some 45 years ago will be guest speaker at the Sun Lakes Aero Club (SLAC) gathering Monday, April 18 at the Sun Lakes Country Club Mirror Room. The session…
Gary Vacin “Scary.” That’s how a retired Navy fighter pilot described landing on an aircraft carrier at night during a presentation at a Sun Lakes Aero Club (SLAC) gathering February 15. A crowd of 95 turned out to hear Rear Admiral Denny Wisely describe his 34-year US Navy career, which included flying 350 missions over…
Gary Vacin Sun Lakes residents will have an opportunity to visit the Goldwater Gunnery Range on April 7 where they will see A-10 and F-16 U.S fighter attack jets in training exercise bombing and strafing ground targets at close range. The range is a military restricted area and can be accessed only by permission from…
Gary Vacin Eight Sun Lakes Aero Club (SLAC) members and guests completed a successful field trip to view the Titan Missile Museum south of Tucson January 28. The visitors descended into the underground launch control center where a crew of two once stood capable of launching the Titan II missile from the underground silo in…
Gary Vacin Eight Sun Lakes Aero Club (SLAC) members and two guests showed up at Ryan Field for the club’s first fly-in breakfast of the season. Gene Evans and Gary West were passengers in Steve Perkins’ Cessna 182. Jim Theobald rode with Bill Brown in Brown’s Cessna Cardinal. Bob DeLong and Jim Ingelmund were passengers…
Gary Vacin A Vietnam veteran who flew as flight leader of the Navy Blue Angels precision flying team will be featured speaker at the Sun Lakes Aero Club (SLAC) gathering on Monday, February 15 at the Sun Lakes Country Club Mirror Room. Open to the public, the event begins with coffee and camaraderie at 6:30…
Gary Vacin “When we saw all the airplanes circling overhead with the rising sun insignia, we knew what was happening.” That’s when Jack Holder knew the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. A Sun Lakes resident, Holder described his experiences during that fateful day during a presentation to the Sun Lakes Aero…
Gary Vacin “Going out on a call in a helicopter is just like going out in a squad car. But we can get to the scene a lot quicker through the air.” That’s how Darren Rigsby, a pilot and officer with the Mesa Police Department Aviation Section, described how his unit uses aircraft in law…
Gary Vacin Twenty-one Sun Lakes Aero Club members (SLAC) and guests showed up at Ryan Field February 19 for a breakfast fly-in. The group was joined by Jessica Cox, an honorary SLAC member and her husband, Patrick Chamberlain. Pilots, their planes and passengers: Steve Perkins, Piper Lance, Gene Evans, J.R. Scheidereiter and Hank Bielema; Dick…
Gary Vacin The largest crowd ever to attend a Sun Lakes Aero Club (SLAC) gathering turned out January 19 to hear Sun Lakes resident Don Palmer tell why the U.S. won the race to the moon and why the Soviet Union lost. Fifty-seven persons, including 18 guests, attended the session. In the 1960’s, Palmer was…