People's Choice

Welcome to a train wreck. Greg Poe is demonstrating to his passenger one of the key maneuvers of his airshow act in a two-place Extra 300L: Newton’s Folly. That means the maneuver defies the laws of physics. First there is a 6-G pull-up. Climbing vertically, Poe then induces what appears to be an out-of-control tumble. The brain sends a coded DefCon 1 warning to the stomach: "Prepare to launch." Fortunately, conditions do not escalate to DefCon 2. Poe has another still-secret maneuver in which the airplane cartwheels wingtip over wingtip. The other performers would love to know how he does it, because it might help them with the newest trend at airshows—competition.

Both maneuvers were used in the first-ever World Freestyle Sportflying Championship at the Alex G. Spanos Wings Over Stockton airshow in Stockton, California, in September 1999. Promoters hope that the idea will spread to airshows in every state. The airshow industry has Nascar envy. Somehow, souped-up hot rods full of moonshine running down North Carolina roads in the 1930s and `40s became America’s fastest-growing, not to mention well-sponsored, sport. Airshow promoters would like to duplicate that success.

The two-day competition seemed to work at Stockton, where the show was taped for ESPN2. For the first time, cameras and microphones showed the audience what it’s like to be a fierce competitor sitting in an airplane pulling 11 Gs. The audience could hear the pilots shouting, both to help them handle the G load and to spur themselves on. But the final verdict must come from the airshow crowds around the nation where this experiment might become routine in the future. One hundred members of the Stockton audience voted—more than any airshow where competition has been tried to date—along with a panel of expert judges. At stake was $75,000 in prize money. Within minutes, the results were displayed on a giant television screen in front of the crowd. The judges had been selected from the audience at random as they came through the ticket gates and had been seated in a special section where electronic voting boxes of the type used in past ice-skating competitions had been installed.

The competitors were, in the order of their finish in final competition, Wayne Handley, Poe, Jim LeRoy, Sean D. Tucker, and Rocky Hill. Poe placed ahead of three pilots who also specialize in violent tumbling, but he finished behind Handley—who wowed the crowd not with high-G maneuvers but with the unique capabilities of his Oracle Turbo Raven. It could climb straight up, stop for as long as you’d like, and then continue the climb. On the ground, the single-engine turboprop could back up.

In the past two years, other shows have experimented with judging to make the airshow more like a sporting event. The Championship Air Show Pilots Association (CASPA) has run a series of competitions for two years. Points were totaled over several airshows, instead of the one-show, winner-take-all Stockton event. Tucker, who competed at Stockton, won the CASPA competition in 1999. He was followed closely by the Bedford, Massachusetts-based former national aerobatic champion, Mike Goulian.

Will it catch on? That’s the hope. It appeared to get the crowd involved at Stockton. An entertainment program was made from the coverage, and was scheduled to be shown on ESPN2 on December 19, 1999, and January 19, 2000. The audience responded to the excitement coming from the cockpit, cheering and clapping throughout each performance. They may not have been exactly sure why Poe was yelling, "Come on! Come on!" as he flogged his Edge higher and higher, but they rooted for him anyway, cheering as the resulting maneuver developed. No more, "Ho-hum, I’ve seen that before."

Like magicians, airshow pilots (they hate being called stunt pilots) are constantly inventing new tricks. Poe invented a maneuver called the Pinwheel. After a series of violent maneuvers, the aircraft rotates wingtip over wingtip. Tucker flips inverted and drops through the airshow box (the airspace where the act is performed), and spins inverted. LeRoy flies his Pitts S-2S on its side, rolling all the while, at an altitude so low that it worries the other performers. Rocky Hill’s aircraft has a glowing paint job that catches the sun and sparkles as he twists through a variety of 11-G maneuvers. But—bottom line—Handley beat them all.

The other four performers, not surprisingly, could refer to Handley as Yoda. He has trained them all; they were literally beaten by the master. "I have worked with everybody here," Handley said. "Sean and I go back a long way. He used to work for me as an ag pilot. We had a two-plane aerobatic team probably around 1987 to 1988. I went to Boise and worked with Greg Poe in an S–2B a few years ago. Rocky Hill is one of my best friends. I have been with Rocky prior to his airshow career when he was flying competition aerobatics. Rocky and I worked for a couple of years as a two-plane [act]. We would do our solo routine, and then we would do our dual routine at no extra cost. So they were getting three [acts] for the price of two.

"Sean and I developed a lot of the maneuvers you see the biplanes doing," Handley continued. "I would fly and he would watch, and then he would fly and I would watch. We developed a lot of new stuff. Later on when I transitioned to the monoplane, I developed the tumble and taught that to Rocky and Greg Poe. I probably have less influence on Jim LeRoy. I have recommended him, and helped him book some airshows. It is kind of what you might call a close-knit group here that is competing [in Stockton]," Handley said.

Like the CASPA competitions, which depended on points accumulated over several shows in different cities, the Stockton show also used a panel of expert judges. The dean of the judges, Bob Hoover, saw both the CASPA competition and the Stockton competition, and is therefore in a good position to answer the all-important question: Will it work? Will it breathe new life into airshows? At the CASPA competition in Dayton, Hoover wasn’t so sure, but he has since changed his mind.

"I had explained to them in Dayton that I didn’t feel it was very exciting," Hoover said. "They didn’t have stands [for the audience]. I think that makes a difference. The audience didn’t know what they were seeing, and the planes looked the same, except for Sean Tucker. So it was more like an [International Aerobatic Club] aerobatic competition, which is boring because everybody looks the same. Same kind of an airplane. I really didn’t think it would go over—until yesterday, when I could see the crowd’s enthusiasm when they knew what was going to happen.

"[The Stockton crowd] had been hearing all day about what was going to happen, starting at 8 o’clock in the morning when they saw the guys warm up. I was surprised at how many people were here at 7 a.m.," Hoover said. "I had a complete 180-degree turnaround after listening to the audience and being out there where I could get their reaction, and hear the cheering and the applause. I never saw anybody applaud or anything in Dayton. I can see where this will really catch on. And I sure hope it does, because it is actually very exciting when you see the audience getting so enthused."

The pilots who participated at Stockton want it to succeed. Hill provided an extra push of publicity by flying his airplane inverted in formation with his support pilot, Bryan Hoyos, who was carrying a television station reporter. Though tired from pulling high Gs in the first of the two rounds of competition, Hill later suggested that all five competitors fly in formation for AOPA Pilot photographer Mike Fizer. Tucker quickly organized it, and you see the result.

Obviously the competition’s organizers want it to work. Steve Appleton, one of the owners of Diamond Sports Entertainment, explained how the event evolved. "Diamond Sports Entertainment was originally formed to develop the technologies and the handsets to allow the audience to participate [in ice-skating events]. From there it has moved to other avenues," he said. "I think the fact that myself and Greg Poe are in Boise, Idaho, and that is where Diamond Sports is, explains why the company started taking a look at the aerobatic aspect of the sport of flying. That coagulated into an effort to see how this might work. This is the first one we are doing, and airing later on ESPN. In 1996, we had the America’s Choice: The Great Skate Debate for CBS Sports. [The Stockton event] truly created some competition between the professional airshow pilots. They are geared up, and they practiced harder than I have ever seen them practice."

It was an airplane—the Oracle Turbo Raven—that won the Stockton competition, more so than the maneuvers. Handley did much of the design work himself.

"I did the general design, " Handley said. "It is like building a house. You have to bring in subcontractors who do the specialty stuff. I designed what it looks like—another aeronautical engineer determined where the firewall would be for weight and balance. A different aeronautical engineer designed the whole tail group. I put the project out to bid to Walter Extra in Germany, Bill Zivko in Oklahoma, and Richard Giles in Oregon. Giles ended up winning the contract.

"The fuselage from the cockpit aft is a Giles G202. The wing is from the 202 with full-span ailerons and my Hollywood wing tips. The reason for the swoops on the wing tips and rudder is strictly Hollywood. There is no aerodynamic benefit. The cowling is modeled on a Piper Cheyenne.

"I use a Pratt & Whitney PT-6 engine. The prop is the same used on a Cessna Caravan. Using that prop, I lost 12 knots of speed when going cross-country, but I picked up several hundred pounds of static thrust [which allows the airplane to accelerate in a vertical climb]. The three-blade composite propeller is 100 inches in diameter, with an 11.5-inch-chord blade. [The airplane] cruises at 250 kt."

Handley said the airplane has been difficult to handle at times. (His comments were made a week before the aircraft crashed at the airshow in Salinas, California, which left Handley with several broken vertebrae in his back. He has since made a full recovery.) "It has really bit me a few times. I was trying to do a double hammerhead and it tucked under and tumbled, and then went backwards. The engine was making terrible noises; the prop was making terrible noises. It is a place you don’t hurry back to," Handley said.

"I have stopped doing things that go backwards. The first tailslide I ever tried was with the prop feathered. It is like a paddlewheel on the back of a Mississippi riverboat going about 300 rpm—we got that opposite-and-equal reaction we learned about in physics. The airplane took off in a real torque roll. I got the stick back in my lap and stood on the left rudder pedal and just held on. It was a hell of a ride."

Handley doesn’t even have to work as hard as the other pilots do, in terms of G loads. "I am pulling fewer Gs than anybody else in this contest. I’m around seven where these other pilots pull 10, and I probably don’t have more than 1.5 negative Gs. This is my retirement ride. This is the old-man routine. I try to make smooth transitions from one maneuver to the next." (He has now retired from airshows.)

The pilots who competed at Stockton came from a variety of backgrounds. Most were exposed to aviation at a young age. And, student pilots take heart: Hill even flunked his private pilot test the first time. He didn’t make a short-field landing that pleased the examiner. Now, he lands from out of the bottom of a loop.

The real question remains: Did Stockton work? It appears so, but it’s up to you. Your reaction to competition airshows will determine their future. It’s the people’s choice.

The Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) in Paris is set to begin worldwide airshow-style competition among the world’s top aerobatic pilots this year. The FAI World Grand Prix of Aviation will conduct 12 events worldwide—four of them in the United States. Nine solo pilots and four aerobatic teams will enter each event—similar to a Nascar racing circuit where wins in individual events count toward a total point standing for the year. For more information, visit the Web site ( www.fai-wgpa.org/grand-prix/e/home.html ).

Links to additional information on airshow competition may be found on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links/links0001.shtml ). E-mail the author at [email protected] .