Space Twofer
Contributor: Barry Fetzer
Sources: Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica
If you haven’t enjoyed a visit to Roswell, NM, the kitschy UFO Museum there, and The Roswell Air Center and its aircraft boneyard, it’s a must see. Speaking of the Air Center, according to Wikipedia, “The airport was Roswell Army Airfield during World War II (of the Roswell UFO incident fame in 1947), and Walker Air Force Base during the Cold War. When it closed it was the largest base of the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Roswell Industrial Air Center was developed after the closure of Walker Air Force Base on June 30, 1967. Commercial airline flights were moved from the old Municipal airport to the Air Center shortly afterwards.”
Barry with his bug-eyed friends and their otherworldly transport in Roswell at the UFO Museum. Fetzer family photo.
OK. I love kitsch, but I’ve got an itch (rhyming intended) to return to the Roswell Air Center National Air Races 😊. Below article about the Air Races downloaded this morning from AvBrief.com.
Roswell Is Rolling
September 18, 2026
By Tom Wilson
Steve Hinton is in a different time zone from his Unlimited class competition. Here he’s cruising to a heat win on Friday; he qualified at 497 mph. (Photos: Tom Wilson)
By Friday, the National Championship Air Races in Roswell, New Mexico, are up and running. The racers have been on course for qualifying and the first heat races, or soon will be; the vendors are ready for the crowds; and the crowds—well, they should be coming on Saturday and Sunday.
It’s been triple-digit hot in Roswell, New Mexico, but that was earlier this week, and with temps now in the low 90s under a hammering sun, the locals are feeling normal and everyone else is seeking shade. Lounging in the chalets and team tents is comfy enough while working toward the afternoon, said afternoons are brutal (then it rains), and the evenings are perfect.
It’s all aliens all the time in Roswell, and the racers run with it. Here the ex-Elliot Seguin Wasabi takes on new life—and passengers—as Snot Naught (or Pistachio, as it says in the program). Everyone in the hangar says new owner Chet Harris and team get the award for last-minute thrash of the year by resurrecting the racer at the last minute.
While this may be the sophomore day of the races, the general order is established, and, as always, the “what’s new” technical details are fascinating to insiders. Plus, there have been improvements, such as a spanking-new 5,000×60-foot emergency runway paved on the backside of the Unlimited class course. It’s known as the Ranch Runway because it’s located on the Brown Brothers’ Ranch, run by the very generous Holly family who contributed the permission to allow the paving.
The emergency runway has also facilitated the participation of the Sport class and helped get the Unlimiteds to Roswell, too. Both are excellent additions to the NCAR roster.
Other pluses: The purses were raised (making many racers happier than they’ve been in a long while), and an offending power line across the outlying Y-O Road was put underground. Even better, the remote Y-O Road has already been used by a distressed race plane, and it went right through where the power line was undergrounded.
As if to celebrate, Steve Hinton got things rolling Wednesday by putting down a blistering 497-mph lap in the Bardahl P-51 Unlimited. That’s an amazing, record-fast speed for a Mustang still sporting a stock canopy, but as one wag put it, “Yeah, it may be a stock canopy, but from here down,” indicating his neck, “it’s Strega and Voodoo!”
Later we asked Steve, and he said they had borrowed a couple of parts from Voodoo, but the rest is simply the Bardahl racer.
We’d forecast a 500-mph lap from Stevo sometime this weekend, if for nothing less than promotional purposes. Plus, it’s sort of tempting when you’re that close to setting a lap record that begins with a five. For sure it wasn’t today, as Steve ambled to the win in the 425-mph range.
His joke on the situation was that the job he wanted was flying the pace jet because it had air conditioning. As you can imagine, the cockpit of a P-51 making roughly double its rated horsepower is a mite warm on a summer desert day.
School field trips filled the Roswell midway Friday morning with young and not-so-young schoolchildren. These gals found their STEM discovery flyers good makeshift fans against the heat.
In the Sport class, Tom McNerney has a new partner in his uber-clean Lancair Super Legacy, and the ex-Lynn Farnsworth #44 Super Legacy has also been completely upgraded by McNerney for new owner Peter Balmer. Look for these two at the front of the Sport Gold race on Sunday. For the moment, they’re qualified on top of each other at 349 mph each.
In the Jet class, the interesting word is that the class is racing on the standard Unlimited/Jet class course instead of the much-touted “Mach” course. Vetted for 600 mph, the longer Mach course did not result in any higher speeds given the jets onsite this year, so the whistlers opted to stay a little closer to the crowd. Two afterburning MiG-17s were entered, but ended up no-shows due to mechanical issues.
The T-6 crowd is a little thin this year but is putting up its usual very close qualifying.
Miss Giana is spending this Roswell spinner-less in the Biplane class hangar.
Of course, the Formula 1 and Biplane class racers are living their happy, somewhat separate lives as they congregate in two large hangars a league distant from everyone else, who are huddled behind the grandstands. Justin Phillipson had a big moment earlier in the week when the spinner decided to depart Jeff Lo’s Miss Giana, one of the hottest biplane racers ever. Justin was somewhat lucky and definitely skilled to survive the incident with a snappy zoom climb and wingover (before the thin and narrow wings on Miss Giana could stall). Unfortunately, the departing spinner played mayhem with the very rare (and fast) Ellipse propeller, so Miss Giana is out for this year. Justin thus reverts to his other race plane, an F1 Shoestring.
Speaking of which, the Eric Dienst (Deja Vu), Josh Watson (Fraed Naught), and Justin Phillipson (No Strings Attached) triangle is already playing out in F1. Phillipson has jackrabbit starts but a relatively low top speed, while the other two play catch-up. It makes for good racing.
STOL Drag has been putting on its usual action-packed show, but a closer look shows there has been interesting technical innovation in the last year. Certainly, the propensity for lightweight, high-rpm engines has not left the class, and there are more sophisticated electronic engine management systems along with some unusual knobby tire configurations in evidence as well.
One glitch has been timing and scoring. Times were missed early in the week, and it took backup timing systems from individual teams to set some of the fields. In fact, the combination of satellite-based timing systems (accurate to one inch) means interesting timing, scoring, and virtual reality opportunities are in the making, but those will be for later years. For now, anticipating a record lap in the Unlimited class—along with some close pairings throughout the Sport field, ditto Formula 1 and Biplanes, plus the usual close T-6 action—is carrying the day.
Tom got into aviation at the end of a gas hose in 1973 but wandered off to racing cars and motorcycles. A career in motor journalism meant engines, racing and dyno cells—plus cameras and word processors. Today he still scribbles stories out of habit and flies for fun.
Onward and upward!
Sources: AvBrief.com, Wikipedia
