The Marana Regional Airport was home to the annual Tequila Cup this November, an aerobatic competition that features high performance and grassroots planes alike. Pilots from a wide range of skill levels and airplane capabilities come to this general regional contest that features categories covering beginner to advanced pilots. All kinds of planes can be found at a competition like this: biplanes, mono wings, Aerial Extras, Pitts Specials, the Great Lakes biplane, Yaks, Decathlons, and Stearmans. The planes can be certified factory-built airplanes, but the majority of aerobatic planes are “experimental”, meaning they are hand built at home—with FAA regulations, of course.
The contest world of aerobatics is part of the National Aerobatics Club, an organization that holds contests around the United States. After general regional contests like the Tequila Cup, a come one, come all type of event, pilots compete in regional championships, then the US Nationals, where the US Team is selected to compete at the world level.
Marana is a great home for an event like this for many reasons, which is why it returns every year. When looking at locations, pilots need a place like Marana Regional Airport with lots of hangar space, but also, and sometimes more importantly, the hotels and restaurants that come with the development of Marana. Weather is also a crucial factor. Aerobatic planes are minimalistic in design, so they can’t fly in all types of weather like commercial planes often can, and as the locals know, there’s no better place to be in November than Marana.
All pilots spend their own money to participate in the Tequila Cup, unlike most tournaments that have television publicity. There is no cash prize in this contest; pilots fly for personal satisfaction and some bragging rights, but mostly to connect with the aerobatic community and learn a thing or two from each other.
Will Allen’s “Rock n Roll Airshow”, a Pitts biplane. Allen is the only airshow performer that sings from the plane during his shows.
Will Allen is a longtime aerobatics competitor turned coach, safety pilot, and co-administrator of the Tequila Cup. Beyond the competition world, Allen is an airshow performer, and the first and only of his kind as the pilot and singer of the “Rock n Roll Airshow”.
This November marks his second year taking on a teaching role in the contest. “I get a thrill out of bringing new people to the competition,” Allen said, “coaching them and watching them get better, and essentially give back. Older pilots did that for me when I was becoming a competition pilot, and it’s fun to give that experience back”.
It’s easy to confuse the two worlds that Allen lives in: aerobatic competitions and aerobatic airshows. The main difference, he emphasizes, is show business. Airshows are smoke and noise and bringing something unique to the table, just like performing on stage.
Competition is much more about technique and precision. Judges watch to see if pilots complete a sequence of figures with precise angles and straight lines. Pilots also have to stay above a certain altitude, called the floor, depending on the skill level of contestants, whereas airshow pilots fly at extremely low altitudes near the ground. “It’s still very much a learning experience,” says Allen, “there is no end to it, you will spend your life trying to perfect a maneuver”.
While those who want to end up doing airshows often start in competition to build discipline and skill to keep them safe while performing, it’s uncommon for the two to be interchangeable.
Another guest at the Tequila Cup is the Aerobatic Team of the Colorado Springs Air Force Academy. The team is made up of juniors and seniors in the academy, and while they usually compete with Air Force gliders in the Sportsman Intermediate category, this year they also competed in the Advanced category. This competition is their third of the season, and they aren’t shy about why they love it so much: the warm weather. In fact, they return to Arizona every spring for training as well for that reason.
It’s easy to see why southern Arizona is a top pick for the Tequila Cup to return every year. Maybe one day, Marana will see the US Nationals at our very own regional airport.
Competitors in the Sportsman category of the 2019 Tequila Cup, pictured with their biplane.
