Crafting sleek, fast airplane designs that aim to incorporate new ideas and push the limits of performance is just a hobby for Elliot Seguin, who works by day as an engineer at Scaled Composites, and who won this year’s Spirit of Flight Award, presented at EAA AirVenture by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots. Seguin was honored for his body of work, which includes building two Reno race planes, one of which is his own design. He’s also been working for several years to promote an annual Mojave Experimental Fly-In, which was held for the fourth time last April. “It was a tremendously humbling experience to be awarded the Spirit of Flight award,” Seguin told AVweb, adding that the past winners of the award include many of his personal heroes.
According to Kitplanes contributor Tom Wilson, Seguin has “nearly single-handedly popularized experimental and sport aviation in the Mojave and greater area … Seguin’s enthusiasm is a national treasure to sport aviation.” A documentary film team has been working on a feature called “Design, Build, Test” that follows the community of test pilots working at Mojave to create their new airplanes; here’s their latest trailer for the film.
