David Williams, executive director of the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent, discusses his new book, “A Race To Freedom: The Mira Slovak Story,” at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Museum of Flight, 9404 E. Marginal Way S., Seattle.
In 1953 Slovak was a young Czechoslovakian airline pilot with a burning ambition to leave the recent Communist rule of his homeland for a new life in the West. After careful, secret planning he made a daring escape by rerouting the airliner he was flying and took the plane to a military base in West Germany. Once granted political asylum he settled in the Northwest U.S., became Bill Boeing Jr.’s personal pilot, a hydroplane and airplane racing champion, famous stunt flyer and Continental Airlines captain. Slovak died in 2014.
The presentation is free with admission to the museum. As special additions to the program, an operational duplicate of the Miss Wahoo unlimited hydroplane Slovak raced to victory in the late 1950s will be on view in the museum parking lot, plus – weather permitting – one of Slovak’s personal Bucker Jungmann stunt biplanes will be next to it. The image above is of Mira Slovak driving the original boat in 1957.
For more information, please call 206-764-5720 or visit museumofflight.org.
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