“You’ve seen one you’ve seen ‘em all” says Planes of Fame pilot Ron Hackworth. Ron should know, as one of the few pilots qualified to fly the one of a kind Northrup N9MB Flying Wing he is extremely aware of the rarity of this aircraft.

The N9MB is an aircraft so unique that it rarely leaves the airspace of its home base in Chino, California. Yet there it was, 450 miles to the north, as a featured attraction in the 2005 Pacific Coast Air Museum’s Annual Airshow.

The organizers of the Wings Over the Wine Country Airshow have done a superb job over the years of bringing top notch aerobatic talent, military flight demonstrations, and a wide assortment of warbirds to the skies over Santa Rosa. In 2005 they went a step further in bringing the Planes of Fame Flying Wing to the Northern California.

In addition to the Flying Wing the Chino based Planes of Fame were also represented by Steve Hinton flying the museum’s P-40N Warhawk both in an extremely smooth solo aerobatic routine and as the piston powered representative in the Air Force Heritage Flight.

The rest of the aerobatic performers were led by Jacquie Warda from nearby Danville who opened the airshow by putting her Pitts S-1T into an inverted flat spin. Instructor Pilot Jon Nash, in his Sunrise Aviation sponsored Edge 540, showed that he could teach you a thing or two about aerobatics. Rich Perkins from nearby Livermore flew his brightly colored L-39 “Firecat” through a number of high speed aerobatic maneuvers, and the OK 3 Airshow Team of Nadim AbuHaidar and Greg Peterson put their Extra 300L and Edge 540 through a tandem aerobatic performance.

The military representation at the 2005 airshow consisted of the West Coast A-10 Flight Demonstration Team, Navy F/A-18 Flight Demonstration Team, and the T-6A Texan II Flight Demonstration Team.

Each of the military demonstration pilots took the opportunity to fly with a piston powered warbird. The F/A-18 flew along with Ellsworth Getchell and his Bristol Centaurus powered Hawker Sea Fury, for the Navy Legacy Flight. The T-6A Texan II would take flight with an original North American T-6 for a trainer version of the Heritage Flight. Later, after it's flight demonstration, the A-10 Thunderbolt II was joined with the Planes of Fame P-40N for the Air Force Heritage Flight.

The warbird lineup for the 2005 included six P-51D Mustangs, two B-25 Mitchell bombers, a Hawker Sea Fury, Grumman Bearcat & Wildcat, and a Fouga Magister. All of the warbirds took flight during the show making a number of high speed passes before culminating in a four ship missing man formation led by Mustang pilot Art Vance in “Speedball Alice” and accompanied by Tony Banta in “Kimberly Kaye,” Darryl Bond’s “Lady Jo,” and California Warbirds “Straw Boss 2.”

On the ground there was no shortage of static displays to keep the airshow attendees interested. Not that there is any slack time between performances, as the air boss keeps the skies busy, but if a person did want to take a break from watching the skies there are always the open cockpits of the musuem's aircraft to sit in including an F-4C Phantom, F-16N Viper, F-14A Tomcat, F-86 Sabre, and A-6 Intruder among others.