This lecture will be webcast live on Air and Space Live. 

Get to know the (married) makers of the most successful plane in air racing history.

Imagine zooming through the air at 415 miles per hour in a personal aircraft you designed and built from scratch. That’s all in a day’s work for Jon Sharp, the “winningest pilot in air racing.” Jon and his wife Patricia Sharp, the team behind Nemesis Air Racing, will offer an insiders’ look at the thrilling sport of air racing, as well as the process of designing and building the planes that break world speed records.

Jon is a former composite engineer at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works who became interested in designing his own aircraft, and Patricia became the composite fabricator for that aircraft. The Sharps’ original aircraft, Nemesis, is the most successful plane in air racing history. Nemesis set 16 world speed records and won 45 of the 48 contests it entered before its retirement in 1999. In 2000, the Sharps began creating Nemesis NXT, or “the pink beast.” With a top speed of 415.75 mph, Nemesis NXT dominated the competition at the 2009 National Championship Air Races with a “record a day, and two on Sunday”—and it set four world speed records in 2015. Nemesis is currently on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and will be joined by Nemesis NXT this spring. 

Come hear about Jon and Patricia’s work—and marriage—in the fast lane.

Tickets for this lecture are free and must be reserved in advance using the form below. Please note: all new ticket requests for this lecture will be for overflow seating in the Museum's Space Race gallery. 

The GE Aviation Lecture Series is made possible by the generous support of GE Aviation.