Airplane Freaks

My twin brother Tom has been an airplane/helicopter freak since the 1950s when we started watching some weekly 30 minute drama on TV about helicopter pilots. The shows star was a Bell H-47 helicopter. It took some actors for lots of rides.

Ever since then he has been obsessed with flying. Even when people were shooting at him. He has over 10,000 hours time in choppers, turbine aircraft, jets, puddle jumpers and anything else that has thousands of moving parts that fly in unison.

Tom is now the State Aviation Director for Governor Richardson's Department of Transportation. He is in charge of making sure all the airports around the state are following rules and getting resources. He still flies around a lot in his own plane and some of the state planes.

When I served as Mayor I worked hard with Albuquerque business people to get Eclipse Aviation to Albuquerque to manufacture their new inexpensive business jet. Verne Rayburn, Eclipse CEO, attended a party we threw for him and talked fondly of his time as a New Mexico resident and his love of the Albuquerque Dukes baseball team. Right after he decided to locate Eclipse here the Albuquerque Dukes left town and we scrambled to get a new team. We succeeded and built a new stadium which Mayor Chavez put his name on after not helping a bit to get it built. I know, I should get over it.


A lot of people thought Rayburn and his engineers would never deliver the jet they promised. Well, they have done it and thousands of the planes will be built here providing lots of good paying jobs.

My brother Tom was like a kid in a candy store today when he was invited to pilot one of the operational jets. He said it handled extremely well. I cant wait to get a ride.