Popular Santa Maria, CA, Event's 17th Year
What's SMXgig? Well, it's the snarky name for a fly-in that's
been taking place for 16 years -- this is the 17th annual -- at
Santa Maria, CA (SMX, get it?). When insiders say it, it sounds
kind of like "smixgig," with hard G'S... rolls right off the
tongue? Maybe not, but it's definitely a memorable name.
The airport is a wonderful Southern California GA airport, and
you couldn't ask for a better location for an aviation event. The
sessions and presentations take place at the nearby Santa Maria
Radisson Hotel, which is where most of the transients will
stay.
Did I say "nearby" -- actually, the Radisson is right on the
ramp. Is that cool or what? Another unique thing about SMXgig is
that there is NOT a complete, full schedule of sessions. They
deliberately leave open time for networking, friendship polishing,
and what they call "hangar lying" (what, pray tell, would that
be?).
Many of the sessions are FAA Wings Safety Sessions, for those
participating in the excellent FAA Wings program.
SMXgig started as a local meeting of aviators who knew one
another from AvSig on CompuServe, back in the days when many people
belonged to large private computer networks that didn't connect to
the internet. Many of those -- would you call them "founders"? or
"charter members?" -- still participate today.
It wouldn't be a major fly-in without a guest speaker, and
SMXgig has a winner: Captain Brian Udell, who'll speak at the
Friday dinner. Udell involuntarily wrote his name in history with
the traumatic experience of ejecting from an F-15 Strike Eagle at
supersonic speeds (almost 800 MPH). He then spent four wave-tossed
hours waiting and praying for rescue. Even rescue was not the end
of the story, as Udell endured a long and arduous recovery, but he
did recover well enough to return to flight status in the USAF.
He's now well into a second flying career as a pilot with
Southwest.
Udell comes from flying stock. His father, Maurice Udell, was
briefly in the news in 2004, as he was one of then-Lieutenant
George W. Bush's flight instructors in the Air Force.
There always has to be an organizer, and for SMXgig, the guilty
party is Cory Emberson, who's an aviation writer and
videographer. We can testify that she's not real big but she's all
energy, and she and the SMXgig regulars have really outdone
themselves this year.
We spoke to Emberson at Sun-n-Fun and she wanted to get the word
out that there are still slots available for the whole April 22-24
show, or for partial packages. They also have souvenir T-shirts and
hoodies for sale, with a nifty white-on black design "like you're
on final for Runway 30 at SMX."
Sounds like a fun time.
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