Women at the Air Races subject this year is a lady mechanic, one that is looking after the motors in three jets racing at the National Championship Air Races.
People like her that work on the crews hold a vital position. Without their labor pilots would be lucky to even get off the ground.
Santina Estrada stands in front of the jet she helping at this year’s Air Races.
Santina Estrada a single mother of two has followed her passion of being around aviation. And now she’s in charge of making the sure the pole sitting jet is ready for racing.
Her love of aviation began at an early age.
“My parents would take us to air shows and I was one of those kids that was in awe,” she said. “I’ve always had a pull towards it but life happens and I had my children young. I had all these odd and end jobs but I always had the attraction for it.”
After growing up in Stockton she decided about five years ago it was time to put her self through school. Not being a fan of traffic she chose not to relocate in San Jose but moved south to Gilroy.
“I went to school at Gavilan College in the A&P program there,” she said.
The program is two years and prepares students to get their A&P (Airframe and Power Plant) certification.
“You have to pass your written Airframe, your written Power Plant then you have to take a practical for your Airframe and a practical for your Power Plant,” she said. “And then you get your A&P so you can work on these.”
She added in school you aren’t taught to do everything as they are teaching the students the basics and how to pass the tests. But the real learning is “hands on,” and she explained you have to find someone willing to teach you or look things up and be self taught.
“After school I worked for this company called Air Crafters and what we did assisted owners in building their home builts and a lot of RVs, kit planes and stuff like that,” she said. “That was really fun cause I got to see it built from the ground up, kind of like being in manufacturing a little bit.”
She explained a kit plane is shipped in different boxes and the owner or people like the company she worked at, will either assemble or help the owner assemble the aircraft.
She added an RV is a homebuilt, a really small two seat experimental plane.
“The company I was working for closed down to and one of my classmates called me up one day and said, ‘hey my boss is looking for somebody, want to come in for an interview.’ I came in and two weeks later I started working for Minh Jet (www.minhjet.org) in Hollister.”
The company rebuilds war birds and modifies war birds. In fact one L-39 project won the Golden Wrench award at Oshkosh.”Right now we’re working on an A26, a complete restoration,” she said.
Two years ago she was sent to Reno to help with the jets the company had at the Air Races.
As an example of what they do she described the modifications done to the L-39 “American Spirit” jet raced by Rick Vandam.
“There’s a lot of modifications, we take out a lot of heavy parts and to make up for the center of gravity we put a pretty kick butt air conditioning system for him. He has the best air conditioning system in any L39 and we removed the back canopy, which saved us over 100 pounds, and we replaced it with a complete carbon fiber cover,” she said.
Mechanic Santina Estrada checking the jet engine in the American Spirit jet racer.
Considering what’s at stake she emphasized that the work has to be done correctly the first time. She explained that a lot is riding on either modifications or building something like a kit plane.
One benefit to her hard work is she’s a role model for her two children. In fact they’ll be at the races on Friday and sometimes she even brings them to work with here.
And she did have some advice for any young person interested in aviation.
“Always start at Young Eagles, get yourself a logbook, find yourself a chapter, that’s how you going to get to see if you really want to do this,” she said. “It’s going to cost you nothing, my kids do it.”
She added it’s once a month and they go flying for an hour flight or so, get it written down in their logbook and sometimes get to take the controls.
Then she added, “I just want to say, for anybody young, no matter what you want to do, don’t every give up. If something is pulling you follow it.”
Looking ahead she still has come goals to work toward and achieve.
“I want to become a private pilot, probably private charter. That’s how I want to make my living. I love wrenching on jets but I want to fly,” she said. “When I’ve gone up in the air it’s just amazing and for me putting myself through school was my first step and now it’s time to go on to the next step. And one day maybe you’ll see me racing on the course.”
For this week however she’s focused on making sure the jets she’s working on are ready to go racing and hoping for a national championship.
The future of private aviation