Perspective

I have been wrestling with the urge to comment on the recent fatalities of air show performers and I feel obligated to make my statement. I don't want to come across as a one who has all the answers and who has been there done that. I have been messing around with flying for something like 82 years and have seen many air shows before the war during the war and a long time after. I was a participant in many of them and was fortunate enough to meet and fly with many wonderful and talented performers. There is a thread common to all, the need to perform not within the pack but to exxcel and to rise above the norm, to stretch the envelope, and to see just how far they can go. Many of them found out that they went beyond where they could go and met their fate. I have to compare their fascination to the " Moth and the Flame" syndrome whereas it is a magnetic attraction to flirt with disaster and to sense the drug of adrenalin . It has been forever thus and will continue to be in spite of all the rules and heartbreak. There are and forever will be men and women who must meet a challenge of some kind and they wager life and limb to satisfy that challenge. Go back to the early 1900's when Lincoln Beachy did the death defying " Loop de Loops" in his flimsy craft of bamboo and cotton and he died. Lately those who have lost the wager have been in the news but in looking back over the years it was no different. When I was flying in shows, my wife and I counted over 33 friends and associates who in ten years lost their lives...some in air shows and some just flying. Over twenty eight were in air shows and air races. Before I met and married my good lady, I was well on my way to stretch my personal envelope along with my flying companions and I realized the old axiom, " Familiarity breeds contempt" and I quit the air show stuff. Art Scholl demonstrated that in the Abbotsford show when he cruised by the crowd while standing on the wing of his Chipmunk outside the cockpit when his airplane was on auto pilot. And with our routine we were removing flight control items to see just how many we could get away with and eventually flew the airplane minus one aileron, the door, and half an elevator. Only proving how brash we were in order to amaze the crowd and our peers. It's never going to stop for there will always be those who will tempt the Gods and many will lose. Laws and rules will never stop the aerial daredevils or any others like the chute-less sky divers and tight wire walkers of whom many will perish. Before, during, and after the war I witnessed many incidents and I suppose that I have built up an understanding for the demise of those who have willingly pushed to the limits or those who have offered themselves during conflicts. I hope that I'm not presenting a callous attitude here but one of perhaps understanding the drive.

 

I was thinking about old pilot Bob Hoover who at first fit the axiom but on second thought, he isn't bold. He's beyond good and knows his limits and knows the limits of his airplanes. He carefully calculates everything he does, practices it, and then uses it but stays religiously within the boundaries that he sets for himself and his equipment. When he did his deadstick Shrike show, he went to a little known location in the Mojave Desert and practiced it for three months and then put it in his airshow routine after he had eliminated any chance of having a problem.If one examines the the fatal airshow accidents in recent years I'm certain that in everyone there was an over-looked or some sort of surprise element that was not accounted for in the preparation of the routine.
One of Hoover's funniest stories came from an engine failure while flying his P-51 across the Canadian wheat belt. He landed on a narrow country road and let the airplane roll back into a side road but the nose was still out over the " main road". An elderly lady came driving by and instead of offering some some help, like a ride into town, she chewed him out for obstructing the road. Later on the local constable wrote him a ticket for improper parking. Neither of them knew who he was or what he had manage to do. This old guy is a magnificent pilot, probably the best there is, but he paid my partner and me a compliment on our clown act and when ever I have met him at gatherings, he always has a warm greeting for me. Not many like him.

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I saw Hoover roll an F-86 on take off here at Paine Field years ago and it stopped my breathing for a bit but he did it well past the half way point of a long runway, pulled up to a 45 Deg. climb and as soon as he had wing tip clearance he did a beautiful slow roll. Impressive as hell.

 

A year before Hoover added the deadstick Shrike act at Abbotsford, Chuck Lyford sprung it on everybody with the P-38 and told Hoover that he should do it with the Shrike and he did. Really interesting to listen to the air flow going over the shape of the P-38 as it went by at 200MPH with both props feathered.

 

IS...the greatest