High flier: Flying is Life to Chesterfield's Johnny Mazza

April 29, 2013
Johnny Mazza was a happy pilot, making one of those good-deal flights that sometime come the way of aviators.

April 29--Johnny Mazza was a happy pilot, making one of those good-deal flights that sometime come the way of aviators.

He was in an FM-2 Wildcat at 8,500 feet, roaring along behind its 1,300-horsepower Wright Cyclone engine, approaching deep, wet and cold Lake Erie on his way to display the rare World War II Navy fighter at an air show in Canada.

Then -- at 12:34 p.m. on June 15 last year -- the R-1820 engine swallowed a valve, burned up a piston, and started to shake itself to pieces.

Flying is life to Chesterfield County businessman John V. Mazza Jr.

Starting when he was 5 -- sitting on a stack of cushions -- he began to learn to fly from his father in a quirky, but forgiving, two-seat plane called an Ercoupe.

While he was in college in North Carolina, he worked at the local airport in exchange for flight time, and by the time he finished college at Virginia State University, Mazza had gotten into flying aerobatics and racing airplanes.

Though he ran two of his racers' engines so hard they self-destructed during the air races, "when you're 20 years old, you think you're indestructible," the ebullient Mazza said.

He has a 3,200-foot private airstrip -- Mazza Airport -- on his property in southern Chesterfield.

He has owned more than 30 planes at one time or another, from the venerable Piper J-3 Cub to sporty Pitts Specials and Citabrias to the speedy twin-engine Beech Baron -- a plane suited for business travel -- that he flies today. Mazza's also a partner in a World War II military trainer, a North American SNJ.

Mazza's a true professional pilot: He holds the FAA's commercial pilot's certificate and he's logged 4,500 hours of flight time.

And, of course, his son, John V. Mazza III, flies.

"You know," the older Mazza said, "aviation is in your blood."

In his day job, Mazza is president of Medallion Pools in Colonial Heights. It's a family business he owns and runs with his sister, Vicki Parks, who is vice president, and his son, who is general manager of operations.

Mazza's father founded the company in 1960, when his children were pleading for a swimming pool and the elder Mazza couldn't find anyone in the area who sold or built pools.

Today, Medallion manufactures and sells vinyl-liner pool, spas and swim spas, working through its wholesale and retail arms.

The firm has nearly 50 employees. To this day, Mazza said, "we have never laid a person off."

Mazza has pushed automation in his manufacturing business, he said, and his son John III has done even more. Now Medallion can fabricate a pool in 40 minutes.

"We've been very, very fortunate," Mazza said of the firm. "You couldn't ask for a better staff. ... Everybody enjoys working."

And he gives back to the aviation community.

Mazza's a member of a slew of state and local aviation bodies, including the Capital Region Airport Commission -- which owns and operates Richmond International Airport -- and the Dinwiddie Airport and Industrial Authority.

Today, he also is chairman of the Virginia Aviation Board, which oversees the state's aviation programs and directly allocates about $20 million a year to airports for capital improvements.

Virginia's airfields have become economic engines, technology magnets and tourism gateways, with megafield Washington Dulles International Airport being the prime example.

"I've had experience with using airports all my life," Mazza said. "Why not help make them better, safer, more enjoyable places for people to use?"

When the Federal Aviation Administration cut its funding in recent years, which hit struggling small airports hardest, the Aviation Board was able to increase its share of local infrastructure projects, he noted.

"He does the research, he asks the hard questions, he does the follow-up and is not afraid to make the hard decisions," said Randall Burdette, director of the state's Department of Aviation.

Those airfields have impact well beyond their boundaries.

The state's 66 public-use airports generate more than $28.8 billion in economic activity, support more than 259,000 jobs, and provide access to the state for more than 8.5 million visitors annually, according to a 2012 state report. Richmond International Airport alone had $1.1 billion in economic impact and supported nearly 11,000 jobs, the study said.

Nine of the state's airports host commercial air service. Forty-four different airlines fly more than 25 million people a year in and out of the Virginia. And Virginia is home to 14,620 pilots, 3,068 aircraft and 209 privately owned, private-use fields dot the state's landscape.

"The engine was coming apart on me," recalled Mazza, as he tried to deal with the Wildcat's dire wounds last year.

"It was shaking so bad it pulled the hoses out of the firewall," the 60-year-old pilot said. "It will make your day very interesting."

Declaring an emergency with air traffic control, he asked the controller for a vector -- the direction -- to the nearest airport.

"Altitude's your friend," said Mazza, whose aviation radio callsign is "Pappy."

He was planning on bailing out of the plane when it reached 3,000 feet if he couldn't find someplace to put it down safely.

Despite its internal damage, the big radial engine kept running, but at just a fourth of its normal power. His barrel-chested warbird was coming out of the sky like a streamlined brick.

"You don't have time to be scared," Mazza said, applying the first rule for pilots faced with a crisis: "Fly the airplane, fly the airplane, fly the airplane."

Mazza's affection for his home village of Matoaca is palpable. "The cultural capital of the world," he said. "It looks like Mayberry" of television fame.

Scrolling through computer photos of Matoaca, he pointed out that his mother went to the elementary school there, and he went there, and then his son went there.

A retired Army officer, his late father, John Mazza Sr., was a music teacher and band director at Prince George High School.

Mazza's participation in that well-disciplined, 200-member band as a trumpet player and drum major helped shape his character and his life. "We learned leadership," he said.

His experience with his SNJ military trainer, a demanding plane to fly, put Mazza on the road to piloting powerful combat airplanes at businessman and collector Jerry Yagen's Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach.

With about 50 aircraft at the renowned museum, Yagen has one of the largest collections of military airplanes in the world -- and probably the largest assemblage of warbirds actually flying.

"He's a very safe, very talented pilot," Yagen said. "I respect him highly," so highly that, "I let him fly my airplanes, that are worth a million dollar or more."

Most World War II-era fighter aircraft were what's termed tail-wheel airplanes.

Because of their landing-gear geometry, "taildraggers" are prone to going spectacularly out of control during takeoffs, landings and even taxiing ever so slowly on the ground.

The more powerful the planes' engines are -- like those on combat airplanes, which are essentially large engines with little wings and lots of guns -- the more difficult they are to control.

Mazza had flown tailwheel aircraft, but he didn't have much time in larger ones that would prepare him to fly Yagen's planes.

"He went out and bought a heavy tailwheel trainer," the North American SNJ, Yagen noted. "'OK, now I've got tailwheel time, let me show you what I can do.'"

Said the museum's chief pilot, Mike Spalding, "anything we threw at him, he just handled it."

"That," Yagen said, "impressed us."

Then, "I got the call of my life," Mazza said. "?'Johnny, we want to put you in the P-40.'"

The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is the combat plane made famous by the American volunteer pilots of the Flying Tigers -- with their shark's-mouth markings -- in China during World War II.

"It was the first plane I've flown where I could feel the brute power," Mazza said. "I said the Pilot's Prayer. 'Lord, please don't let me mess this up.'"

Next up for the Matoaca resident is getting checked out in the Military Aviation Museum's British Spitfire, one of the most impressive -- and now one of the rarest -- fighters of World War II. "They're relics, they're history," he marvels.

"Do you think I like aviation? Just a tad," he said. "And then I love business too."

Mazza says that one of the best life decisions he's made was not going into flying for a living.

His enthusiasm unworn by the humdrum of "flying the line" as an airline pilot. "I love flying today as much as I did as a 9-year-old kid, and I couldn't get enough," he said. "I've never lost that passion."

The walls of Mazza's office lobby are covered with plaques and letters of appreciation for his contributions, and those of his company, to public safety and community service agencies in the Tri-Cities area.

He's donated to the anti-gun violence Project Exile federal program, to the Colonial Heights police, fire and emergency services, to the Crater Community Hospice, to the Chesterfield firefighters charitable foundation, to the Colonial Heights food pantry, and to the region's Crime Solvers. The list goes on.

"If you bring in a can of human -- or dog -- food, we'll do your (pool) water test free," he said, "and donate the food to the food bank or animal shelter."

Mazza gave a $10,000 swim spa to a paralyzed girl in Colonial Heights so she wouldn't have to leave home for her physical therapy. He did the same thing for the Make-a-Wish Foundation for a dying boy who always wanted a pool. Those kinds of efforts make sense to Mazza: "I'm part of the community here. All the employees are members of the community."

And, he said, "I'm responsible for every one of these people and their families."

"John Mazza is a tremendous asset to aviation in the commonwealth," Gov. Bob McDonnell said in a statement.

Describing the Chesterfield businessman as "a stalwart aviation expert," McDonnell said that Mazza's devotion to advancing aviation "made him a clear choice to further serve Virginia as the chairman of the Aviation Board."

Mazza was first appointed to the state Aviation Board in 1994 to fill an unexpired term, and ended up serving 9 1/2 years. McDonnell again appointed him to the board in 2010, then made him chairman in 2012.

Funny and smart, Mazza has the private-sector savvy that "is very, very helpful in running the airport business of the Capital Region Airport Commission," said Jon Mathiasen, president and CEO of Richmond International. Mazza has served as one of Chesterfield's representatives on airport's governing body since 2000, including serving as chairman and vice chairman.

"He's been an extraordinary leader and shown a true passion for enhancing the Virginia aviation system," the Aviation Department's Burdette said.

What more does he want out of life?

"I've got a great business, great employees," Mazza said. "I've got a great family, and I get to fly the most fantastic historic aircraft in the world."

"I couldn't ask for anything more."

As the Wildcat -- one of a relative handful still flying worldwide -- rushed downhill June 15, an air traffic controller directed him toward the Jamestown, N.Y., airport.

All very fine, except that a hard-rock ridge loomed between him and the safety of Jamestown's 5,000-foot runway.

Clearing the ridgeline, he spotted the field and quickly lined up with the airstrip.

"It was the best landing I've made in that airplane."

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