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Air Show Brings Out Flying Dads, Aerial Dreamers

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For Ashley Conkey it was the perfect Father’s Day outing--sitting next to Dad in the tiny, 1,000-pound Lancair single-engine airplane hundreds of feet above the crowds.

“It’s a whole different world up there,” 14-year-old Ashley said just after landing at the Camarillo Air Show on Sunday.

Her dad, Denis Conkey of Newbury Park, who flew F-14s as a Navy reservist, took more than six years to build the $35,000 plane. He has since taken it all the way to Florida and back.

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The weekend air show attracted thousands of airplane enthusiasts--some with flying experience and others with a flying wish.

For 70-year-old Bert Palomares of Oxnard, it was all about memories. During World War II, he was part of a Navy aircraft maintenance crew.

“We kept them flying,” Palomares said, pointing to a P-51 Mustang. “They are excellent aircraft. They had to be. Otherwise we wouldn’t have won the war.”

Besides the fly-bys of ultralights, experimental aircraft and vintage military planes, the show had everything from model planes to para-gliders and military transport aircraft.

Sitting below a huge Hercules C-130--which transported police during the Los Angeles riots and troops during Desert Storm--Ellen Hunt of the California Air National Guard ushered people into the cargo bay of the aircraft.

Walking by, 53-year-old Epi Mendez of Oxnard said with pride, “I used to jump out of these.” That was near Ft. Richardson, Ala., during training flights when he was in the Army.

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Several of the smaller airplanes at the show were for sale. They tempted many aspiring pilots, like George Whittinghill of Camarillo. Accompanied by his 11-year-old son, Ian, a stack of glossy brochures in hand, he admired plane after plane.

“He [Ian] is just getting to the age where we could do a father-son project,” said Whittinghill, who has been taking flying lessons. The two have been coming to the air show for five years.

“We’re still having fun, looking around and deciding,” he said.

And yes, Ian did make breakfast for Dad on Sunday.

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