Eugene air fair offers flights of fancy.

Byline: Jim Feehan The Register-Guard

Makenzie Yoakum was a bit apprehensive about her first-ever flight as she snapped on her leather helmet and goggles.

But halfway through a 20-minute flight offered by Stuart MacPherson of Cardiff-by-the-Sea, Calif., in his 1929 Travel Air biplane, Yoakum let go of the handlebar inside the cockpit compartment and let out a scream of sheer pleasure.

"That was awesome," the 9-year-old from Veneta said. "I want to go again."

Her friend, 8-year-old Mackenzie Matthews, also of Veneta, tagged along for the ride. Matthews, a seasoned air traveler who has taken several commercial flights since she was a toddler, also was thrilled by the biplane ride.

"It was tickly and bumpy," she said.

The two girls' trip came on the final day of the weekend's 2005 Air Fair at the Eugene Airport's Oregon Air & Space Museum.

The world drifts slowly in an open cockpit plane - a moving kaleidoscope of farms, rivers and streams, houses and schools.

MacPherson, or Captain Mac, as he prefers to be called, flies his plane low enough to see individual clumps of trees surrounding each farmhouse, dairy cows straggling across pastureland, and farmers weaving tractor trails through fields of green and yellow.

"Open air flying is real flying," he said.

A dentist by trade, MacPherson has flown more than 14,000 passengers in the past 41 years, mostly at air shows along the West Coast.

The biplane rides were just one of several featured attractions at the air fair. Hundreds of people milled about the tarmac Sunday to get a closer look at a German Fokker triplane and a French Newport biplane, both from World War I, and a Russian Yak fighter from World War II.

They could also peer inside the cockpit of an Oregon Air National Guard F-15 from Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls. Parked next to the F-15 was an FA-18, whose pilot, Capt. Steve Brennan, graduated from Marist High School and Oregon State University.

With Sharpie pen in hand, Brennan signed his name to glossy photographs of the fighter aircraft.

`It's nice to come home, see the family and chat with folks. It's also nice exposure (for the Navy),' said Brennan, who is based at Naval Air Station Oceana at Virginia Beach, Va.

Front and center on the tarmac was a 1928 Ford Tri-Motor airplane designed by the Stout Metal Airplane Co., which later became a division of the Ford Motor Co. when Henry Ford bought out Stout in 1925.

Affectionately known as the "tin goose," the lumbering, three-engine corrugated metal airliner boasted an onboard restroom and a flight attendant, offering comfort and convenience not found in previous aircraft.

The plane features long, rectangular windows, edged in hand-painted paneling. Elegant reading lights sit above 13 wicker and leather seats that look as if they were snatched off the well-appointed porch of a Victorian summer home.

The plane, which came to the air fair from the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, was used in one leg of the first transcontinental passenger flight from San Diego to New York, with such famous passengers as Charles Lindberg and Amelia Earhart. In 1934, the airplane retired to make room for faster, more comfortable DC-2s and DC-3s.

The plane's 78-foot wingspan came in handy for Carrie Richardson of Eugene and Ramal Amaro of Springfield. The two camped out under the shade of the plane's right wing to eat lunch and avoid the hot midday sun.

Later, the pair boarded MacPherson's biplane for Amaro's first-ever plane ride - a belated 27th birthday present from Richardson.

"You certainly get the full effect from the cockpit,' Amaro said.

`It felt like a roller coaster. All in all, I'd say it was a good birthday present."

CAPTION(S):

Makenzie Yoakum (right) and her friend Mackenzie Matthews, both of Veneta, smile before takeoff in a 1929 Travel Air biplane at the air show. Wayne Eastburn / The Register-Guard A 1928 Ford Tri-Motor plane, nicknamed the `tin goose,' made a handy umbrella for Ramal Amaro and Carrie Richardson as they lunched under its wing Sunday at the Eugene air show. Reed Family