Team Tuskegee's pilots - The heart of the performance.
Team Tuskegee's pilots are all volunteers who bring experiences from all aspects of aviation and from the other arts and sciences. Each pilot is a volunteer who, in addition to flying airshows, flies EAA Young Eagles, instructs Tuskegee Museum scholarship students, and performs other work to promote the museum and its missions to audiences across the midwestern United States. Team Tuskegee's pilots hold all five Formation and Safety Team (FAST) cards ever issued in the glider category, making the team the widest (three aircraft with 59.5 feet of wingspan each) regularly-performing airshow teams in North America, if not the world.
Chris "Restart" Felton
Chris is a commercial pilot in both airplanes and gliders and he holds an instrument rating in airplanes. He holds a FAST Lead card through the Red Star Pilots Association. He is also a lietenant colonel and a SAR/DR pilot, SAR/DR check pilot/examiner, director of safety and air operations branch director for the Michigan Wing of Civil Air Patrol (the USAF auxiliary). He flew disaster relief aerial reconnaissance sorties for FEMA and the USCG in response to Hurricane Sandy and has completed more than 40 homeland-security sorties, including fighter intercepts, and numerous other AFRCC-assigned missions. He is also a representative with the FAA Safety Team (FAAST). He is a principal at a Novi, Michigan -based real estate investment company.
Mark "Frenchie" French
Mark is a commercial pilot with commercial or private privileges in gliders and airplanes. He is a veteran of the US Army and, during his service, he was a member of the Golden Knights, the US Army Parachute Team. He holds a FAST Lead card through the RedStar Pilots Association. He is an airframe and powerplant (A&P) maintainer and regularly works on both piston and jet aircraft.
Mark "Granite" Grant
Mark is a commercial pilot and instructor in gliders and airplanes and is a qualified tow pilot. He also holds a Remote Pilot Certificate for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems. He is FAST Lead qualified through the Red Stae Pilots Association. When not flying with Team Tuskegee, he is a major and instructor pilot for Civil Air Patrol (USAF Auxiliary). He is also a lawyer who has served as an administrative law judge.
John "Outhouse" Harte
John is a commercial pilot and certified flight instructor in gliders with private privileges in airplanes, He's also a glider tow pilot and he has flown competition aerobatics. John is FAST Lead qualified through the Red Star Pilots Association. When not flying, he is a designer, builder, and manager of commercial and residential real estate.
Mike "Doc" Nutt
Mike is a commercial pilot with commercial or private privileges in gliders and airplanes. He holds a FAST Wing card through the Red Star Pilots Association. He's a physician assistant in the Dept. of Surgery at a local hospital and also serves with the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), assigned to a team based in Michigan.
Steve "Dogbag" Tupper
Steve is a commercial pilot and instructor pilot with commercial or private privileges in gliders and airplanes (single and multi-engine land, single-engine sea, instrument rating, and type-rated (SIC) in the Douglas DC-3/C-47). He holds a FAST Lead card through the Red Star Pilots Association. He has flown competition aerobatics at the IAC Primary level. He is a lieutenant colonel, judge advocate, and instructor pilot for the Michigan Wing of Civil Air Patrol. In addition to flying and being the team's airshow team contact, he serves as a lead and wing pilot and team narrator and airshow announcer at various events in the US. He helped to originate the Tuskegee Airmen Detroit River Days Airshow that takes place over the Detroit River each June and he has served as the air boss for that event since 2014. He has been producing Airspeed, an aviation and aerospace podcast since 2006 and has flown with the USAF Thunderbirds and written and produced extensively about airshows and military flight operations. When not flying, he's a commercial lawyer with a large Detroit-based firm and he specializes in aircraft and aviation transactions, IT licensing and outsourcing, supply-chain, and US and international privacy.
