Calgary,September 2021
I have always considered myself to be a hotshot pilot. Flying a high-performance single seater and competing at the highest level of aerobatic competitions gave me the reason to believe it. At the same time, the chairman of a flying club I belonged to wanted to increase our visibility and decided that flying airshows would do it. Being a good PR man, he registered himself and me to fly as part of the airshow program. In those days, in 1990s, the areal exhibitions were popular, and two cities close to Calgary, Red Deer and Lethbridge, were scheduling annual airshows.
Aerobatic competitions and airshow flying are two very different things. In competitions the judges on the ground carefully observe each manoeuvre and subtract marks for every error. Therefore, after landing, pilot gets only the bad news. There is never any praise. Airshows, on the other hand, are the exact opposite; even badly flown figures will impress spectators. It’s great for the pilot’s ego but not so good for flying skills. With a few exceptions, airshow pilots haven’t been successful in competitions. Also, airshow flying is strictly regulated to assure the safety of spectators and performers. To be eligible to participate, pilot needs the so-called Ace card, issued by Transport Canada. To get it, he/she must design the sequence according to the specific rules, submit it to the examiner, who is usually an ex-airshow pilot, and then fly it to demonstrate that it is safe. Then, during the show, a representative of Transport Canada observes each performance to see if there were safety violations. If so, the pilot gets warnings or suspensions, depending on the severity of the offence.
Going back to my first airshow. It was in Red Deer, about an hour drive from Calgary. The day before the show my wife drove and I flew there, we spend a night in a hotel reserved by the organisers, had a nice dinner and a pleasant evening talking to other performers. It felt like a paid holiday. Then came the big day, 5th of August 1995. After takeoff I was directed to the holding pattern, then was cleared to fly my sequence, and after landing I had to taxi along the line of spectators. They were waving at me, I waved back, smiling, enjoying my five minutes of glory. Then I parked the plane, joined my wife in the area reserved for the performers and we spend the rest of the day watching the show. At the end of the show there was a party for performers and their wives or partners; we were mingling with the stars of the show, and I felt like one of them. As I said, it was good for ego.
The next airshow was in Lethbridge, and it wasn’t so good anymore. The main problem was that Lethbridge is too far to drive, so I went by myself. It was scheduled for the weekend, so there were two performances and I had to spend two nights in a hotel. On Saturday, after my flight, having nothing else to do, I was watching the show from the performer’s area. There were other pilots, and we had a lot of time to talk. One of them, Delmar Benjamin, build and flew a replica of the famous 1932 racer, Gee Bee R1. A well-known pilot of that time, Jimmy Doolittle, said that it was the most dangerous airplane he had ever flown, and it certainly looked that way. The aircraft consists of a big engine, attached to a fat fuselage, with tiny wings and tiny cockpit just in front of the vertical stabilizer. It took Delmar Benjamin two years of full-time work to build it, and, as he told me, during that time he didn’t fly at all.
“The first flight mut have been terrifying,” I commented.
“Every flight in this thing is terrifying,” was his response.
In the performer’s area was also his wife and their little son, and as Delmar taxied for his flight, the woman pointed at the aircraft and told the boy: “Look, this is daddy,” and I was thinking: “I wonder how long before you will be a widow and the kid half orphan.” This dark vision was reinforced when I saw him flying. His inverted pass was so low that he disappeared behind the line of spectators. Fortunately, I was wrong in my pessimistic prediction. Just before writing this memoir, I searched his name in Google and found out that he donated the plane to a museum and retired from airshows.
Another remarkable performer was a young man in a wheelchair. His act consisted of him sitting in the wheelchair at the edge of the runway and holding a hang glider above his head. To his body harness was clipped a long rope, which was attached at other end to a truck. As the truck accelerated, the hang glider lifted the man sufficiently high that at the other end of the runway he could do the 180 degrees gliding turn, the truck turned round and pulled him up in the opposite direction. As he flew back and forth, an airplane (Yak 55) flew in formation with him and did all kinds of aerobatics around him. It was quite impressive, it looked as if the airplane was playing with the hang glider. After his flight I talked to the young man, and he told me that tomorrow, right after the Sunday show, he and his team will drive overnight to California, where they had another show. I found it incredible. I couldn’t wait to fly home, to have a nice dinner and sleep in my own bed, with a warm, soft wife beside me, while he will spend the night in a van. “Why are you doing it?” I asked. “It is glamorous,” he responded. It might have been glamorous for him, but for me the price of the that glamour was way too high.
There were few more airshows, and my last one was on 3rd of August 1997 in Reed Deer. As before, after landing I taxied along the line of spectators, waving at them. After parking the plane, I had to walk through the crowd, and the spectators were holding my hand, praised my flight, and talked about their flying adventures. I was smiling, pretending to listen, thinking: “Please, leave me alone, I just want to have a drink.” I guess I am not a glory seeker.