Captain Plumbean. A solid record of shaky achievements.

Captain Plumbean's fascination with flight began at an early age the first time he launched a toy from his family's 4th floor apartment balcony. The thrill, while great, was short lived as he realized that he was unable to effect a positive change in altitude on these flying objects. The quest for a solution to this problem would provide a focus for all of his future research. As would become his preferred creative approach through his life, he set the matter aside for future investigation and went off to play with matches.

Several years later the sight of flying model rockets and the sulfur smell of burning propellant rekindled the passion for what would become his life's vocation: Flying and flames.

This experience launched a period of experimenting with all manner of machine which were intended to fly, but were an ongoing source of disappointment.

With a solution to the upward flight problem still eluding him, he hit upon the pivotal solution. It was while reviewing his research notes, and the business plans of the high tech startups where he had been forced to work to support his research, that Captain Plumbean realized any advanced technology can be simulated through the carefully rigged fake demo.

He immediately set about publicizing the existence of the Playa's only short hop airline and recruiting others to join him in the creation of Playa Air. The Playa has turned out to be the ideal location for Captain Plumbean's work as it provides him with the opportunity to be a respected member of society for a week instead of being the neighborhood wack.

Senior Flight Stewardess Jane Eric. Defenestrating unruly passengers since 2002.

Jane Eric was born to go places. Her parents decided to visit Cuba before it was closed to travelers from the United States and Jane was born on the plane. She's been traveling ever since. What's life without a little turbulence? Throughout her teenage years she would save her baby sitting money for plane tickets to cure her itchy feet. Back then, Connecticut was a destination spot. Her horizons have expanded since that time.

Due to unsigned termination agreements, consent decrees and on the advice of counsel, Jane cannot talk about her previous career, but she can say this, "Corporate America sucks".

Fortunately, Jane has taken her professional skills to her new vocation, one that should have been apparent to her from the beginning, as Senior Flight Stewardess for Playa Air. She met Captain Plumbean on one of his many layovers in the airport bar, drinking tequila. He spoke of dreams of his own airline one day and Playa Air was born on a cocktail napkin. Jane sat entranced with his spinning tales and signed up on the spot. The possibilities unfolded in front of her. For all the times she'd sat on a plane during a business trip, thinking to herself, "If they would please just sit down and shut up so we could take off", she would finally achieve closure. Due to Jane's deep admiration for the Burning Man Community at Black Rock City she is driven to provide comfortable travel services for participants even though individual passengers continue to piss her off. One unruly passenger even thanked her for keeping the Pan Am tradition alive before being chucked off the plane.

Jane's relationship with the Playa began with her membership in the The Mind Shaft Society. Their anthropological expeditions led to the major discoveries of the Playa's historic origins. She will be forever in those anthropologists debt for leading her to the Playa. The Mind Shaft Society continues as a theme camp and charters Playa Air for all their expeditions

Captain Roberto. It's how you handle the plane.

It has been mused that Captain Roberto’s lust of flight over arid landscapes is owed to his desert loving ancestors exiled to the jungles of Central America. However, a more widely embraced theory points to a fortunate accident at a young age. When charging a buggy up the slope of an enormous dune in the Arabian dessert, he found himself, and buggy, in midair observing the dune’s face as it fell away like a waterfall. He landed the buggy (as one would a snowmobile on a ski jump) on the steep face of sand and rode its wave down to the desert floor. This accidental flight was clearly an indelible impression on the young man. He immediately returned to his camp and began modifying the buggy with cutting torches and welders in search of more hang time over the desert.

Years later, fate would once again call him back to the desert. One Sunday morning, while watering an assortment of greenery at his home, an acrid scent turned his head toward a plume of smoke rising from the subterranean garage of a neighbor across the street. He instantly dropped his hose and ran down the drive way and discovered, with his heart in his throat, Captain Plumbean welding a scissor lift. This of course would be the mechanical wonder that would loft Playa Air into the desert sky. Captain Roberto never returned to his hose. His geraniums died. He signed on with Captain Plumbean and Playa Air soon offered the miracle of flight to other creative souls wandering the desert.

Captain Joyism. Finally a use for that mechanical engineering degree!

Captain Joyism was recruited into the Playa Air fold when Captain Plumbean contacted him with an interesting technical challenge. It seemed that Plumbean's vision exceeded his calculus. He had little faith in his ability to design a mechanism sufficiently strong to support an aircraft full of precious human cargo. Captain Joyism was not entirely surprised by this request as it was not the first time that his technical skills had been called on to save Plumbean and his band from disaster. In fact, when he first met the bunch, they were struggling with a construction problem on the Playa that Captain Joyism solved with some string and well executed knots. It was from that encounter that Plumbean knew that Captain Joyism could be counted upon to work for a good meal.

Far from being another "will work for food" guy, it turned out that Captain Joyism also possessed an impressive number of advanced degrees including the crucial one in mechanical engineering. He was also no stranger to art cars, having previously turned a sedan into a convertible through the use of cutting and welding equipment. Captain Joyism was also well versed in the faked demo from his association with numerous startup companies. Within days, Captain Joyism's 10 pages of calculations confirmed the painful lessons that were being learned in the Playa Air hangar: You can't push something sideways and expect it to go up.

As the deadline approached Captain Joyism's contributions shifted from the theoretical to the practical and after several all day sessions and hundreds of pounds of steel, the lifting mechanism was successfully tested and the skeletal framework of an aircraft was emerging. Captain Joyism continued to astound all present with his talents for arriving at mealtime and turning steel and plaster into an elegant shape.

Captain Joyism's interests cannot be satisfied merely by the maintenance of a largely completed project so you can now view his current work at www.joyism.com or by looking for the Joyism art car on the Playa in 2003.

Playa Air thanks Heidi. The envy wife of the neighborhood.

Playa Air would like to thank Captain Plumbean's wife, Heidi, for without her we would never have gotten the plane to the desert on time. Her assistance in many matters, from expert plastering to sustenance to providing a comfortable bed for overstaying friends and back again is what made it all possible. Soon, she'll run out of excellent excuses and join us on the Playa.