Coraggio’s first introduction to airpark living came in college during a time when he was starting his aviation industry career. As soon as he graduated from the University of Minnesota, he began working on and flying experimental airplanes. Last summer was transformative for him as an engineer and aviator. 

“I went to an aviation internship the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, which was intended to bridge the gap between the theory that they teach in engineering school and the practical side, actually being able to build, machine, weld, do composite layups, and things like that,” said Corragio. “Dick Keyt [with whom Coraggio completed the internship] has been a major mentor in my aviation career, both professional and recreational. I lived at an airpark, Pecan Plantation (0TX1) in Granbury, Texas, during that summer. Being there absolutely cemented the idea in my head that the coolest thing in the world that you can ever do is live with your airplane and be able to roll out of bed, fall down the stairs, make a cup of coffee, and be in the workshop in three minutes.” 

Coraggio and his spouse, Kevin James, purchased their home at Stellar Airpark last February. The residence checked the box for the duo, as the neighborhood is centered around a 4,417-foot-long asphalt runway and smack dab in the middle of the Greater  Phoenix area. 

“The biggest thing for the two of us was that I’m only home 15 days a month with my airline schedule usually, so I don’t mind if I’m far away from the city [as far as] things to do,” Coraggio said. “But the thing with Stellar is you are literally 1 mile away from a mall and restaurants. You are 15 minutes to downtown Phoenix, 15 minutes to Old Town Scottsdale, and 15 minutes to Sky Harbor Airport (KPHX). It’s a rarity to have an airpark with a major metropolitan area nearby with entertainment, shopping, and all of the conveniences nearby.”  

It may be tempting to justify living at an airpark with different means of rationalization. At the end of the day, though, the decision to move to a fly-in community is often based on personal feeling rather than reason. 

“When I was trying to make an argument to move to an airpark, I would say, ‘Well, I can get rid of 25 minutes of driving each way to the airport. I can be at least 50 minutes more productive every day I go out to the airport,’” Coraggio said. “It felt as if I was trying to justify a move to an airpark to myself and Kevin. Turns out that my justifications and rationalizations were actually underselling it. There is a compounding effect on motivation and productivity by saving time driving, being immersed in a community that values and shares my hobby, and continually having my projects in sight.”

Coraggio’s commute has been traded for time with a wrench or behind the yoke. Another noticeable difference is his neighbors. 

“The cool part about aviation, in general, and airparks even more so, is that everybody has some kind of common interest,” he said. “Even though we’re right in the middle of a big town, it gives [off] that small town feel. I can’t tell you how many people stop by when the hangar doors are open to check in on what you’re doing and how many friends I’ve been able to make through those conversations. And they’re not the kind of friends that are just acquaintances by name only.”

These friends also have been supportive of Coraggio’s passion for air racing, as he competes at various events under his team name of Ramp Rat Racing. 

“From the very first day that we moved in, I started working on my airplanes in the hangars before the workshops were set up,” he said. “The amount of work that we accomplished on the [Lancair] Legacy this year is what allowed us to reach all four of our [racing] goals. From February to June, which is when PRS (Pylon Racing Seminar) happens, we installed a revised electrical system architecture, new induction, new fuel injection, ignition system, some cooling enhancements, a water spray bar system, and some drag reduction.” 

Coraggio’s new neighbors helped him out with a variety of tasks in preparation for the 2023 National Championship Air Races in Reno, Nevada. A notable result of all that hard work in the hangar was a personal-best speed of 317.862 mph, 36 mph faster than his attempt the previous year. 

“We were going to get delayed in our project because we were missing a specific nut,” he said. “A neighbor was like, ‘Well, let me go and see if I can go find one of those.’ And he goes off to his hangar, scurries around and finds six of them so we can replace them all, instead of [just] the one that was damaged. Can I replace them for you?’ I asked. ‘Oh, no, I’ve got plenty of those.’ That kind of experience is what makes this such a great place.”

Before living at Stellar, Coraggio had kept his aircraft in three hangars at Deer Valley Airport (KDVT) in Phoenix. Now, they sit in two hangars on his Stellar Airpark property, totaling 5,000 square feet. 

He pointed out that flexibility is another positive of living at an airpark.

“[You can] choose what you have space for versus having to [find] space when you are trying to buy something,” Coraggio said. “If you’re trying to buy an airplane and can’t find a hangar, you might choose not to buy the airplane. If you live at home, you can find a way of making it work instead of having to wait 20 years for a hangar in some of the airports in the Valley.”

Even though Coraggio had previous experience living at an airpark, albeit temporarily several decades ago, there was something that amazed him about moving to Stellar Airpark.

“I think the biggest surprise to me is how little I want to leave,” he said. “And I’ve never been a morning person in my life, ever. But ever since we moved in here, I wake up at 6:30 or 7 o’clock in the morning, which some people laugh at as being morning or early morning. I’m motivated to get my day started early now because I’ve got something exciting to do that really gets my juices flowing that’s right here. If your hangar is at home, you can find a way.”

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“You’ve been watching, and you still want to go?” the briefer asked.

“Baby needs a wash,” joked the pilot, 66, a recently retired judge who was known for his “well-honed” sense of humor.

“Oh, he’s going to get a wash job,” the briefer said. “We do have a lot of rain and convective activity. It’s becoming pretty solid. I can’t see you doing much dodging trying to get around.”

“It looks like it subsides as it goes east,” the pilot suggested, and then added, “Question mark.”

“Well, yeah, question mark,” said the briefer. “If you take a line drawn directly north, it’s heavy precipitation until you get over to about Bowling Green (Kentucky), and that’s when the thunderstorms start again. But all this is moving northeast about 34 knots, so you head east as it is heading east, and then you get blocked off, and it’s building behind so…you have to go today?”

“Well, maybe not.”

“We will have some rain tomorrow, but at least it will break up enough and begin to move to where, you know, that Arkansas and Missouri area won’t be getting so smashed.”

“I might just go up and take a look at it and see what it looks like out of the windshield,” the pilot mused. “I don’t have anything better to do today.”

“Well,” said the briefer, “think of a good reason to go.”

He issued the required “VFR not recommended” warning—under the circumstances it was hardly necessary—and the pilot filed an IFR flight plan, estimating 2 hours and 15 minutes for the 520 nm trip.

His airplane was a Lancair Legacy, a small, very fast two-seat retractable homebuilt with a 310 hp engine. After climbing VFR to 6,000 feet, the pilot contacted Memphis Approach at 9:50 a.m. The controller asked whether he wanted to continue on his present heading of 356 degrees or deviate eastbound to try to go around the weather. The pilot said he would like to avoid the weather, and the controller gave him a vector of 060. The pilot, however, asked to continue on his present heading for a couple of minutes, and the controller agreed.

A minute later, the pilot came back. “The route ahead, as far as I can see, looks VMC. I can’t be sure on that, but I’d appreciate your input.”

“All right,” the controller replied, “stay on course and let me know if that weather starts to become a problem for you.”

Four minutes later, the controller said, “You are just going to run into about a 10-mile-wide band of showers that’s crossing in front of you. The quickest way through the weather, if you want a direct 90-degree cut, is about a 330 heading. There’s a lot of rain for about 10 miles, and then it should clear up on the other side.”

“All right, thanks,” replied the pilot. “We’ll go to 330, and we’ll slow down a little bit.” Two minutes passed.

“Looks like you are getting an updraft there,” the controller said. “I don’t have any targets around your altitude. Do what you can to hold it, but just take care of yourself through that weather. You’ve got another 10 miles before you’re going to clear it up a little bit.”

“Thank you, sir,” the pilot said.

Twenty seconds later, the controller asked the pilot whether he was OK. There was no reply. The controller’s transmissions became increasingly urgent.

“You’re going through a heavy area of weather, sir. If you can hear me, you, climb, altitude whatever, deviate, reverse course is also approved, sir…Radar contact is lost 30 miles northeast of Memphis, sir…You’ve got another 15 or 20 miles in that weather. If you can hear, sir, suggest a heading northwest bound to get through the weather. You’re in a level 4 and level 5 cell in that area, sir.”

The controller was not long in guessing what had happened. “I think he might have crashed,” he told a colleague.

Three hours later, searchers in a helicopter spotted fragments in a rain-soaked field. The recovery team found the engine and propeller buried almost 9 feet below the surface.

About an hour before the flight took off—but after the pilot’s conversation with the weather briefer—the National Weather Service had issued a SIGMET for the area through which the flight would pass. It warned of severe thunderstorms with tops to 38,000 feet, possible 50-knot gusts and 1-inch hail. The pilot most likely never saw the SIGMET. A retrospective analysis of Doppler weather radar recordings confirmed that at the time of the crash the pilot was just crossing the leading edge of a level 5 storm.

The National Transportation Safety Board limited its finding of “probable cause” to the trivial insight that the pilot had lost control of the airplane. A factor in the accident, it added, was “insufficient information” provided by the controller, who did not convey the storm’s intensity level to the pilot until he was already in it. Exactly how and why the loss of control occurred was not discussed. The wreckage was too badly fragmented for forensic analysis, and significant portions of it were not recovered at all. It did not appear that the airplane had broken up in flight, however. The wreckage was confined to a small area among plowed fields where more widely scattered debris would have been easy to find.

• READ MORE: The Road Not Taken

This accident occurred in 2004. In the intervening years, the NTSB has moved away from mechanistic analyses such as “loss of control” and toward more judgment-oriented ones signaled by the phrase, “the pilot’s decision to…” Today, I think, the finding of probable cause would put more emphasis on decision-making on the parts of both the pilot and controller, although the board’s investigations seldom satisfactorily dissect the nuances of decisions made by two people unconsciously influencing one another. The pilot’s assertion that it looked like VMC ahead probably affected the controller’s interpretation of his own weather display. The controller’s mention of 10 miles of “showers”—two and a half minutes in the Legacy—probably alleviated the pilot’s concern about the storm.

At the risk of venturing into groundless speculation, I am inclined to note that, as a judge, the pilot was accustomed to being the final arbiter of complex questions. As the builder-pilot of a beautiful—the word he used when filling in the “color” field in his flight plan—high performance airplane, he also probably experienced a little of the feeling of untouchable power that comes with fast airplanes and fast cars. The weather briefer hinted, warned, cajoled—but his objections were overruled.

This review first appeared in the July 2023/Issue 939 print edition of FLYING.

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