Many people involved in aviation will recall 2023 as the last year for the National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada. History will also mark it as a sad year for the event because of a midair collision that claimed the lives of two renowned AT-6 pilots.
For the estimated 140,000 fans who attended the weeklong celebration of aircraft performance (September 13-17), I suspect the overall experience was still one to treasure, in part because the races are more than the sum of the event. When you walk through the gates and head for the grandstands, you are stepping into a complex timeline that stretches back to the competition’s conception in 1964 and beyond to aviation’s Golden Age, with the Cleveland air races, and the Thompson, Bendix, and Greve trophies.
