New, Vintage Planes Strut Their Stuff at Air Show

Not even the Air Force’s $25-million F-16 jet fighter could compete with Frank Roiz and his shaded soda pop stand Saturday afternoon.

As temperatures at the Whiteman Airport Air Fair and Carnival in Pacoima rose to 110 degrees, hot and thirsty fair-goers bypassed rows of aircraft on display and flocked to Roiz’s stand for relief from the heat.

“I’ve got the best job here,” Roiz said as he reached into a trash can filled with ice to dig out a soda. “And the coolest.”

The theme at the fair was summed up in one word by 17-year-old Jason Joseph of Pacoima, who, asked what he thought of the dials, buttons and gadgets of the F-16’s cockpit, replied: “Hot.”

“I hope the weatherman will be a little bit kinder to us tomorrow,” said Maj. Henry Saffold of the Civil Air Patrol. “The heat most certainly kept people away today. We’re depending a lot on the nighttime crowds to make up for the daytime.”

Nevertheless, more than 2,000 people turned up Saturday afternoon for the air show, which is sponsored by Whiteman Airport and the Civil Air Patrol’s Squadron 35, Saffold said. Organizers said they were pleased with the turnout and intend to make the fair, which runs from noon to midnight through Monday, an annual event.

Joined by a carnival, midway rides and concessionaires, about 30 planes--some new, most old--lined the tarmac. Each plane seemed to have a story behind it and an owner who was more than happy to tell it.

Dressed in green except for orange suspenders, John Innes, 75, leaned against the green, 1936 Porterfield he affectionately calls “Spinach.” The name evolved after its previous owner, actor Bob Cummings, referred to its color as that of a “pot of old, cooked spinach.”

Innes talked about his 40-year “love affair” with the plane--a relationship that is ending now, Innes said sadly. Because his eyes are failing, he can no longer taxi Spinach around the runway, much less fly it. So, on Saturday, he put a “For Sale” sign on the propeller of the plane he first flew in 1943. The price: $50,000. “It’s like selling your daughter into prostitution,” he said.

According to hangar legend, Spinach once carried Howard Hughes and Rita Hayworth, who went for a spin in the two-seater. “I was told that as she got out, he patted her on the bottom,” said Innes. “But who knows?”

His inability to fly has not stopped Innes from restoring another plane--a 1928 Alexander Eagle Rock--in his hangar at the airport. It is the same type of plane that gave Innes the bug to fly. As a Boy Scout in Colorado Springs, Colo., he won a model airplane contest. The prize was a flight in an Eagle Rock.

“I guess that was where the romance started,” he said. “I fell in love. I built the model as a kid, and now here’s the real thing.”