Wings Over Camarillo Offers High Flying Vistas

.

By Tim Pompey

If you’re into aircraft and flying, there’s no better place to be than the annual Wings Over Camarillo Airshow, which was featured at the Camarillo Airport Saturday and Sunday, August 18 and 19.

Now 38 years old, it’s sponsored by the Camarillo Wings Association, a nonprofit organization located on Daily Drive in Camarillo.

The CWA is active in promoting aviation and aviation history. One of its primary goals is to inspire youth to become more actively involved with aviation, perhaps even to seek it as a career.

This year’s event was expanded considerably to include something for everyone: concerts, the new STEM pavilion sponsored by California Lutheran University, a car show, a pancake breakfast, a plug in America electric vehicle ride and drive, helicopter rides, and much more.

Of course, the main features were the aircraft performances, everything from vintage to speed, trainers to WWII Airborne Demonstration Teams, the European Demonstration Theater, and The Vampire and L-29 with Jerry Conley and Jason Somes.

A-10 Thunder Bolt II

Mustang

F4U-4 Corsair

This year’s highlighted featured performer was barnstormer Vicky Benzing. Benzing offers airshows in her single-seat extra 300 and her 1940 Boeing Stearman. She currently competes in both the sport class and the jet class, and in 2015, she set a record as the fastest woman racer ever in the history of the Reno air races when she qualified a one-of-a-kind l-139 jet on the race course at 469.831 mph.

Featured air show pilot Vicky Benzing next to her single-seat extra 300

The WOC air show has partnered with California Aeronautical University, whose main campus is in Bakersfield. They also have a campus near the Oxnard Airport in Oxnard.

It just so happens that Matt Johnston, vice president of the Camarillo Wings Association, is also president of CAU. He serves the air show both as a volunteer and in a professional capacity. He enjoys the entertainment, but he wants students to sign up and be aviation pilots and mechanics.

Students and staff include (l to r): Vinny Herath from Thousand Oaks, Michael Santiago from Puerto Rico, California Aeronautical President Matt Johnston, Susana Rodriguez, CAU Admission Outreach Associate, and Jonathan Romo from Porterville

“Our university serves the aviation community,” said Johnston. “We have a local campus here in Ventura County at the Oxnard Airport. We have training there for students seeking professional careers. They can study online and then they can pursue a professional career by flying locally.”

Johnston explained that CAU offers Bachelors Degrees in aeronautics.

“Students in a short amount of time (three years) can complete all their requirements for their Bachelors Degree and all their flight requirements to satisfy the FAA and the airlines with private pilot, instrument rating, and commercial rating,” he said. “They then become CFIs, CFIIs, and can also get a multi-engine rating as well.”

He noted that there’s a big demand for both pilots and mechanics, and CAU is trying to serve that need. They currently are partnered with eight different airlines. His hope is that CAU students will walk out of the door with their degree and a job offer.

One of their new students is Jonathan Romo from Porterville, California. Romo has always had a lifelong fascination with aviation.

“I always wanted to be a pilot,” he stated. “When I started college, I was going to be an aerospace engineer at College of the Sequoias. They cancelled the program. My buddy turned me on and said, ‘Hey check this out.’ So, I looked at it, got some information, and decided this is what I wanted to do. They walked me through their application process, what their goal was, what planes they had available, what the simulator time and the learning curve was going to be, and after all of that, I sat down and thought about it and said yeah, this is something I definitely want to do.”

What’s attractive to him about flying?

“All the movies,” he confessed. “I definitely over romanticize it. Not so much having girls or looking like Chuck Yeager. It was mostly the experience of being able to keep me in the clouds and fly.”

For a job, he would like to do acrobatics, but he knows that in real life, his opportunities for a career are probably with commercial or cargo. Still, its apparent that he sees himself flying high, doing loop de loops. All those movies, he definitely wants a piece of that action.

It’s a big show, two days’ worth of walking, watching, eating, and just enjoying the miracle of flight. A hundred years ago, flight was in its infancy. Today, people sit and watch the past and the present whiz by. Big, old, new fast. They’ve all come to entertain, and maybe somewhere in the crowd is a young viewer thinking to themselves: Someday, I’m going to do that.

DC3 Douglas

Photo Credits: Tim Pompey

Tim Pompey, a freelance writer who has done lots of local affairs and entertainment/cultural writing, lives in Oxnard. Tim is also a fiction writer (Facebook Page). You can learn about his books on Amazon.com: amazon.com/author/booksbytimpompey.

Mr. Pompey’s Newest Book:  Mrs. Parsley and the Tale of Mossel’s Farm

Mrs. Parsley loves to tell stories to children. In her little house in Okafor, Florida, she writes them herself. Then, in a twist from her own past, Mrs. Parsley and her young friend Terence go on an adventure to rescue children held captive at the Mossel’s farm deep in the Big Cypress Swamp. Down the Blue Pole Road, across the Midnight Ferry, past the Milky White Magnolia Trail, and through the Crossing of the Gnome, magic, danger, and a wee bit of fun await them as they carry out their mission. Who will travel with Mrs. Parsley as she reclaims her past and discovers a new future—for Terence, for the captured children, for herself?

Mrs. Parsley and the Tale of Mossel’s Farm On Amazon

Get Citizensjournal.us Headlines free  SUBSCRIPTION. Keep us publishing –  DONATE