The Other Side of Airshow Life

It's a great day for an airshow, with the sun warming into deep blue New Mexico sky. The smell of hot dogs cooking and pizza baking queues people up at the concession stands. A father leads his 3-year-old son up the ladder beside a Republic A-10 "Warthog;" peering into the cockpit, the youngster has no idea what all those dials and buttons are, but it makes an impression that will last a lifetime.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you'll cast your eyes up high in the sky, look for the BFGoodrich Extra 300 of three-time national aerobatic champion Patty Wagstaff...she's got smoke on now, building speed for her first maneuver."

All eyes rivet on the tiny red, white, and blue Extra as it accelerates wildly, the big Hartzell three-blade snarling. "How about that big 330-horse Lycoming, folks!"

Just another day in the life of airshow pilot Patty Wagstaff. In 10 minutes, she'll be back on the ground, waving to the crowd, a final burst of smoke trailing from her throaty Lycoming as she taxis by the bleachers. When she shuts down, a wave of autograph seekers, friends, and fans encircles her; in the center of it all, a slim, white jumpsuit; that unmanageable curly mane; reflective Revo sunglasses; and Patty's constant smile.

A cool northwest breeze somersaults a hot-dog wrapper across the now-deserted ramp as the stark early morning sun rises over Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico. It's the morning after the big show, and there are no signs of life. Bleachers that yesterday held hundreds of aviation enthusiasts, fathers, mothers, and children from the areaæexcited by the spectacle of airplanes and people doing amazing thingsænow sit cold and empty. Yesterday's airshow spectators have returned to their lives as truck drivers, teachers, and farmers. The only sounds on the deserted ramp are the tapa-tapa-tapa-tapa of an F-16's "Remove Before Flight" streamers luffing in the wind and the raucous scolding of a blackbird from the tree outside base ops.

There are no admiring fans today, no autographs to sign, no press interview. Today is the other side of airshow life.

I walk the ramp slowly, having already preflighted Patty's famous airplane, which I'm ferrying back to Florida. The weather looks good for the first few hundred miles, although a very slow-moving cold front that dumped 18 inches of rain on San Antonio yesterday has me concerned about my chances of making much progress beyond Dallas-Ft. Worth.

I await the official go release from someone important with stripes, opening the military airfield for a tiny white airplane to escape to the east. With 1,127 nautical miles to fly and two time zones to steal daylight, I'm anxious to get airborne.

Alone now at 9,500 feet in crystal-clear sky over West Texas' Palo Duro Canyon, with the sounds of Franz Joseph Haydn in the Bose headphones, I savor a Sunday morning moment. Gently, I pull the stick aft and roll the Extra veeeery slowly a half-dozen times. If only Haydn could have imagined how his music would be enjoyed 200 years after he is gone. I ride a wave, the back side of a cold front, with a groundspeed of 195 knots. Life is good.

Fifteen minutes into the flight, I feel the draft that Patty warned me about, blowing down my neck from the turtle deck. I try to stuff my jacket behind me, but it's very difficult to move in the tight confines and aerobatic harness of the Extra's cockpit.

This Extra is built for unlimited aerobatics, not for hands-off flying. Sensitive, unstable, and divergent are all words to describe this airplane; Patty loves these characteristics in front of the crowd, but it makes a cross-country tedious. I cannot let go of the stick, even for a brief moment, lest the resulting maneuver look like one of Patty's routines. Gusts and turbulence create a divergent pitch or roll from level flight, making flying the airplane a chore. But if you get tired of wrestling straight and true, you can always bend the stick left or right to blur the horizon.

Charts must be folded before takeoff since there is no room to fold them once airborne; there are precious few storage nooks in the cockpit's longerons and stringers. The floor is not a good choice either; everything just vibrates into the tail.

Since the Extra is a taildragger, I monitor crosswinds and width of the runways at planned stops. It would be more than inconvenient to put Patty's airplane out of commission because of a groundloop. There are fans to please, sponsors to appease.

When I shut down in Duncan, Oklahoma, people slowly walk from secret corners of the airport, just like in the movie Night of the Living Dead. All want to see the famous airplane up close; everyone wants to know where Patty is. "She's in the back," I tell one gentleman, pointing to the tiny baggage compartment behind my head. He is preparing his Piper Cherokee to fly, yet walks over to look into the tiny turtledeck, just to be sureæthen smiles at the ruse. Another pilot walks up, asks the same question, "Where's Patty?"

"Oh, she's in the bathroom already; flying these little airplanes make her airsick...."

It's getting late in the East, but I drag my feet; the cold front is moving more slowly than forecast, and ceilings are low around Texarkana. I decide to get some lunch and check the weather in an hour.

"Uh, we normally have a courtesy car around here, but not today," Scott, the young line boy, tells me when I ask about lunch options. Ah, the life of a ferry pilot. It was Leighton Collins, wise father of Richard L. Collins, who once proclaimed, "The greatest single danger in aviation is starving to death."

Back in the air, crossing the Red River, I discover that the front has virtually stopped, and the ceiling sinks steadily; finally I must descend or get stuck on topænot an enticing proposition in an airplane that has one GPS, one com, a standby attitude gyro, and no DG. We're talking basic VFR, folks. This airplane is only marginally better equipped than some Piper Cubs I've flown — yet at 155 knots it flies more than two times as fast. The ceiling continues to lower but the visibility underneath is at least 5 miles. I scan the charts carefully for anything that pokes up more than a few hundred feet.

Light rain begins smearing the canopy's rounded leading edge, blurring the view ahead. Five miles now looks more like three. This is not comfortable flying. The Extra's limited weather capability dictates the route of flight on a cross-country, forcing choices and changes on the fly. The GPS is invaluable for "what if" scenarios as I wrestle with the airplane's short range and the weather's forced choices. With four fuel tanks carrying a total of only 47 gallons, the Extra requires careful management. For comfort, I want to be on the ground somewhere between an hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters after takeoff, leaving 30 to 45 minutes of reserve fuel.

I weave and bob to stay VFR below the clag, now flying low enough to almost identify the year of pickups parked in barnyards. Visibility remains good, but my butt begins to hurt from having taken Patty's extra seat cushion out of the airplane for more canopy clearance. I cuss the Extra's instability each time that I glance at the sectional on my lap, then look up to find the airplane a hundred feet off altitude, in a 40-degree descending turn.

An hour and 45 minutes from Duncan, now through the worst of the front, I'm on the ground at Ruston, Lousiana. I want nothing more than to refuel and put distance between me and the front that now breathes down my neck. More miles will allow me to spend the night somewhere ahead without the front's sinewy fingers overtaking me while I sleep.