Forming up for a RAFE Thanksgiving!

For most things in life you start at the bottom and work your way up. Same for airshow performers. From their roots in aerobatics, formation or other types of airshow flying, they started at the small county airshows gaining experience until their reputations carried them into larger and larger venues. Rutan Aircraft Flying Experience did it backwards. RAFE’s first opportunity to fly in any airshow was the biggest one of them all: AirVenture 2019. That year, Burt Rutan attended Airventure and EAA called upon RAFE to get as many Rutan aircraft types as possible on display. We suggested we do one better - fly at least one of every Burt Rutan homebuilt designs in the airshow. This became known as the “Rutan Reunion Flight”. We did it again last year when Burt made another appearance at AirVenture 2024.

During the recent government shutdown, the military funding cutbacks included airshow flying. Big name teams like the Thunderbirds, Blue Angels, and demo teams for F-22 and F-35 appearances were uncertain. Wings Over Houston Airshow, one of the biggest fall

airshows in the southwest, usually has an impressive showing of military static and flying aircraft. The Thunderbirds were this year’s headliner. While everyone waited to see what might happened, the Wings Over Houston board of directors was not sitting still. They needed airplanes and airshow acts to fill what voids would be made if the military funding did not materialize. Less than a week from opening day, RAFE President Ryszard Zadow got a call from a WOH board member asking if RAFE could do what they did at Oshkosh for Wings Over Houston. Of course, Ryszard said “Yes” and immediately started calling all the past participants of the Rutan Reunion Flight. It’s no easy task to round up all these aircraft from all over the country on such short notice. Not everyone has the luxury of dropping everything and flying from California (Catbird) or Maine (Defiant) to Houston for an airshow. It became obvious the “Rutan Reunion Flight” would have to take on another form.

Airshows are all about time in front of the crowd. It’s measured in minutes. An aerobatic performance might only be 8 minutes. Military demos maybe 15 minutes. If your act runs long it affects the entire schedule and is considered unprofessional by fellow performers. At AirVenture 2024, RAFE had 15 minutes to get 9 airplanes airborne and fly around in front of the crowd while the official RAFE airshow announcer educated the crowd about each type of Rutan design passing before them. For Wings Over Houston, RAFE would get 12 minutes to put on a show, but we needed airplanes. 

Plan B: Most airshows have big dollar warbirds and shiny jets. World War 2 aircraft are worth millions. Exotic aerobatic airplanes are way out of reach for most, but LongEZs, Variezes and RVs are airplanes that get built in someone’s garage by people who don’t have P-51 budgets. These are the “common man’s” airplanes. Plan B’s goal was to inspire the public with a parade of homebuilts. The message would be; “If we can build it, maintain it, and fly it, then so can you”. Instead of the traditional Rutan Reunion Flight, RAFE reached out to other pilots in the Houston area and presented a plan to educate the crowd about airplanes they could relate to. RAFE enlisted the help of Bloke Maurer and Rodney Horn, two qualified and capable local pilots that comprised their own two plane airshow team, “Tiger Flight”. With their exotic painted Thorp T-18 and an RV-7 both equipped with airshow smoke, flares, sparkers and lots of other stuff. These guys put on a great show by themselves. For the other end of the homebuilt spectrum we added an RV-12 flown by David Wilson. The plan was simple: Launch all the airplanes into a stack separated by type and speed then fly airshow passes before the crowd while narrators Richard Sessions and Caitlin Lynch educated the spectators about each airplane. They emphasized these airplanes where built by individuals like the spectators themselves. The finale was Ryszard Zadow in his Bekut and the Tiger Team on his wing making multiple high speed passes in formation.

The results were overwhelmingly positive. From the Wings Over Houston board on down people loved watching our airplanes in action and hearing our story. Not only could the public see the airplanes fly, they could come right up to them after the show and talk to RAFE Volunteers and the pilots who just flew them. This year’s airshow proved to be an opportunity well seized for RAFE -  we have already been asked to do this again next year. With more than 6 days to plan for the 2026 airshow, RAFE’s second showing at Wings Over Houston will be even bigger and better.

One of the most popular stories on the RAFE website is “Why formation flying is important”. Wings Over Houston airshow drove many of the points in that article home. To keep the enthusiams for formation flying RAFE holds our annual formation clinic in Houston each fall. Just a few weeks after WOH the skies over Spaceport Ellington once more filled with canards in tight formation. Pilots from Shawnee OK, Dallas and as far away as Las Vegas, NV and Dayton, OH made the trek down to Canard Base Houston. Dedicated RAFE volunteers pulled together to make this year’s clinic our most successful yet.

With the help of FFI check pilot Sidney Mayeux, 2 pilots earned their FFI wingman cards, no small feat. The standards of FFI are daunting and have to be to keep formation flying safe and professional. These qualificaiotns are definitely earned. Keep in touch with RAFE as we continue this momentum into another clinc in the spring, along with other canard groups hosting clinics around the country t throughout the year. 

This Thanksgiving begins the holiday season of 2025. As we reflect on everything our group did this past year we give thanks to our voliunteers, supporters and sponsors. Rutan Aircraft Flying Experience is the only IRS approved 501c3 dedicated to Burt Rutan's designs, Please consider RAFE in your holiday giving and support our growing organization. With no corporate sponsors, we exist on volunteerism and donations. It's amazing what we’ve accomplished in the last ten years. If we can keep up this momentum RAFE will be flying and inspiring in airshows all over the country. We try to make it " EZ "to help, just use the donate button on our website.

Happy Thanksgiving from RAFE!

Caitlin "Sledgehammer" Lynch

Safety Officer /Pilot RAFE