The Hayward Air Rally is the longest continually held proficiency flying event in North America. Having grown out of a personal challenge between Hayward city officials in 1965, the rally has now been flying for 58 years!

We are pleased to announce

The 59th Annual Hayward Air Rally

Will be held May 19-20, 2023

Save the date!

For 2023, we are significantly changing the event format to allow for greater participation. Instead of a long-weekend destination, we are planning a 1 leg "round-robin" style event returning to the Bay Area. Other than a mandatory course and safety briefing Friday afternoon, all rally events will occur on Saturday.

A tentative schedule of events will be as follows:

More details to come in the spring!

Countdown to the first starting flag:

Sign up for email updates!

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What is the Hayward Air Rally?

The rally means different things to different pilots, but for all it's a combination of competition, challenge, and camaraderie. The event is open to all pilots (student and recreational pilots must be accompanied by a suitable pilot in command) and most piston-powered GA aircraft (including LSAs and experimentals).

Competition

The specifics of the rally course are released at the rally briefing. Participants flight plan for the course and produce flight time and fuel consumption estimates for each leg of the rally. Scoring is based upon the performance of the accomplished flight against the pre-flight estimates, course checkpoint identification, and navigation equipment used. Details on the competition structure may be found via the About links above.

Challenge

While competition rules allow for the use of GPS navigation (and even digital fuel totalizers), many participants elect to use the scoring system that allows only "traditional" radio-based navigation aids - even if their aircraft are GPS equipped. As a proficiency rally, the course is designed to exercise cross-country navigation and pilotage skills. Enroute checkpoints have included identification of such items as bridges, distinctive buildings, and unimproved (think emergency) landing strips.

Camaraderie

Not everyone who flies in the rally is in it for the competition. For some, the rally is simply a weekend getaway with a group of great fellow aviation enthusiasts. The rally provisions a "hospitality suite" at the destination hotel where participants can gather to socialize, hangar fly, and boast or commiserate over competition performance. There is ample free time to explore local points of interest prior to the awards banquet.

Whichever reasons appeal to you, we hope you'll join us at the starting line for this year's Hayward Air Rally! Entry information may be found here.

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The 58th Annual Hayward Air Rally

Was held June 3-6, 2022 from Hayward, CA (KHWD) via Redding, CA (KRDD) to Bend, OR (KBDN)

Congratulations to Rob Kirkpatrick and Chris Lea, Race 8

Winners of the 2022 Hayward Air Rally

For 2022, we returned to our long weekend format and headed north to Bend, Oregon, a racer-favorite destination.

Full 2022 Course information here.

Full historical rally results here.

In an effort to allow people to have Thursday and most of Friday for work or other activities we shifted the schedule out by a day:

Sign up for email updates!

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Read the

September 2017 AOPA Pilot Feature Article

"Racing Against The Plan" by Mike Collins

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Scholarships to EAA Air Academy

For the past decade, the Hayward Air Rally has provided full tuition scholarships to the EAA Air Academy for deserving students in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, due to declining rally participation and increasing costs, we have decided to suspend the scholarship program for the time being. We hope to be able to bring back the scholarship in future years!

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The Rally awards much more than just 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. You can see some of the other fun awards for 2015 here.

Please use the links on the menu bar above to learn more about this annual event.

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