Astronaut Donald Kent "Deke" Slayton, one of the original
Mercury astronauts, crew member of the 1975 US-USSR Apollo-Soyuz mission, and an avid
Formula 1 racing pilot, died at his home in Texas at 3:22 AM on June 13, 1993.
Later that same day, at 7:58 AM local time, at the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, a Formula One racing plane with registration number N21X took off and repeatedly buzzed the field and performed a series of aerobatics. The extremely noisy high-speed racer was seen and heard by many people who clearly identified the aircraft type and wrote down the N21X registration. The FAA investigated and determined that the noise level mandated by law had been exceeded.
On July 20, Deke's widow Bobbie received a letter from the FAA to Donald K. Slayton, notifying him of the violation.
Bobbie contacted the FAA, pointing out that Deke had been dead for 6 hours before the incident. She further added that N21X had been donated to a racing museum in Sparks, Nevada several months earlier, and that before being displayed, the racer's engine was removed.
Bobbie remarked that it probably took Deke 6 hours to find Gus Grissom to prop the plane for him.
Adapted from the Nemesis Formula 1 Airplane Racing home page, with thanks.
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