Plus— View the video. where we ze AOPA nnection dent) ‘Why crawl when you can fly?’ Sean Tucker heaps Extra excitement on auction winner BY ALYSSA J. MILLER P uttering along over California’s Salinas Valley Tucker isn’t known for subtlety, and true to his in a 1946 Piper J–3 Cub with the doors removed nature, he pulled out all the stops for the auction wasn’t what Tanya Trejo had in mind last year item winner. The dinner and mariachi band were when she bid for a day of aerobatic a coincidence; their performance training with Sean D. Tucker in the is not an everyday occurrence at AOPA Foundation A Night for Flight the Tucker household. online auction. Then again, neither “It felt like being on a scooter,” was the Seattle resident expecting a Trejo said of the wind rushing by dinner with the Tucker family while in the Cub during her flight with being serenaded by a seven-piece Ian Nilsen, a Team Oracle memmariachi band, nor flights for her ber with Tucker who is in charge husband, Keane Watterson. These of the Cub and sponsor fulfillwere a few extras that surprised ment. She later compared it to a Trejo during her aerobatic training “safe grandpa car” that one could session with Tucker in an Extra 300L “jump in and go.” Tanya Trejo got more than she at the Tutima Academy of Aviation bargained for after a once-in-a“The Extra definitely is not,” she Safety at Mesa Del Rey in King City, lifetime flight with Sean D. Tucker said. With a never-exceed speed California. of 220 knots and 340-degree(above at right). PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRICK GIUSTI PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY LAWRESTON/DISTINCTIVE VIEWS AOPA PILOT • 45 • SEPTEMBER 2011