Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- Identical twins from Utah County broke identical world records this week on a cross-country flight in homemade identical planes.
"It's a twin thing," said Mark Patey. "You know the weird twin thing that you don't talk about as twins because people think you're kooky? It's one of those things."
Mark and his twin brother Mike both love to fly -- and it shows.
You know the weird twin thing that you don't talk about as twins because people think you're kooky? It's one of those things.
–Mark Patey
In identical single-engine planes, they just set a record in the category of "Multi-Engine Piston" airplanes. It went like this -- Mark flew his plane from San Diego to Jacksonville, Fla., taking a southern transcontinental route.
Mike went further north, from San Diego to Charleston, W. Va. They traveled at speeds upwards of 430 miles per hour.
"I took a northern route in an identical plane to my brother Mark's plane," Mike said. "He took the southern route and we went together and went halfway to Texas and then diverted courses a little, landed there for fuel and then finished the rest of the course on our own."
"I did about 19 minutes faster than the world record," said Mike.
Mark and Mike have been building planes for years, but they also fly helicopters. In fact, for the past three years they've donated their chopper and time to help the Utah County Search and Rescue Unit.
Their passion, though, is single-engine planes, which they use for business and pleasure. To them, the faster the better.
"A lot of people think that multi-engine airplanes are a lot faster," said Mark. "We did some checking and we killed the multi-engine speed records as well with our single-engine planes. So that was very gratifying."
They were able to accomplish that by making sure there was a lot of power behind the prop.
"Mine has a 580-cubic-inch engine with two turbos so we can make full horse power up to 25,000 feet where the air is thinner," said Mark. "Also you can go a lot faster with less drag. Mike put a 550-cubic-inch in his plane so we could make full horsepower up in the thin air."
Then there's this -- Mark and Mike work together in the medical field. Their wives aren't twins, but look like they could be. Both wives are pilots and both have four children.
Some of the kids are taking after their parents and learning how to fly.
E-mail: kmccord@ksl.com
