Stupid Plane Tricks
Breathes there the pilot with soul so dead who never to himself hath said, "I bet I can fly under that bridge"?
- By Phil Scott
- Air & Space magazine, November 2001
(Page 2 of 2)
Moriarty says the French were eminently reasonable about the whole thing. “If I had landed in Paris and said ‘Hey, look at me—aren’t I cool?’ I would have had some difficulty departing the country. As it was, we reached an agreement that as long as I stayed out of France for a few years no one would give me grief.
“Somebody did it again about three years ago,” he adds. “The French contacted me and said, ‘Was it you?’ I told them, ‘Why would I do it twice?’ ”
Why indeed? Ask airshow pilot Wayne Handley. Back in 1989 at an airshow at Salinas, California, Handley strapped on a Pitts Special, climbed to 12,000 feet, flipped it over, and kicked it into a flat spin. Sixty-seven turns later he got right side up and claimed the world record for consecutive inverted flat spins. “I did it for two very good reasons,” Handley says. “First, as an airshow performer, it was good publicity. And the second, which kind of also had an advertising side of it: It was my trademark.” Not long after, the NAA decided stunts like that were too dangerous and stopped handing out records for such feats. “I don’t disagree,” Handley says. “An inverted flat spin is kind of raising the bar on craziness.” But in April 1999, Guinness World Records asked him to do it again for its TV show. “They [Guinness] will accept anything for a record: How many elephants can you pull with your earlobe—you know.” This time, for the cameras, he climbed to 16,000 feet and flew 78 turns, pulling out after two minutes at 2,000 feet. Seven months later, after a crash landing broke his back, he retired from the airshow circuit and left aerobatics to the young Turks.
Others in the airshow world have made names for themselves not by the maneuvers they perform but by the stunts they pull. Take Jon Falkner and Bob Essel, who do a wingwalking routine on a Quicksilver ultralight—with no restraints. “I never said I was smart,” says Falkner. They got started 11 years ago after watching a wingwalker at the annual Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. “We became the only professional ultralight wingwalkers in the world,” he says. “It’s a lot of fun when things are going well.” And if they’re not? “We don’t go there,” he says. So far, he and “Always Steady Bob’’ have an accident-free record. “I can stand on the front with no belts, no harnesses, no goggles, and fly with my body,” Falkner says. “It’s a real hoot.” Why no restraints? “I used them for a while but I got tired of getting caught and tangled up in these things early on, getting them wrapped around my neck and legs, and when you unhook them and hook them again you have to take your hands off the airplane and they give you the chance to be not quite so cautious.” A few of the other dozen or so wingwalking acts have also shed their restraints.
The apocryphal story about low-flying jet jocks trying to set off a record number of car alarms in the parking lot “is a common one at any Air Force or Navy base where pilots fly high-performance aircraft, and it circulates around here as well,” says Edwards Air Force Base spokesman Alan Brown. But, he adds, “If any of our pilots intentionally tried to do that, and it could be substantiated, they would be looking for a new job immediately.
“What does happen is that every time we have a sonic boom occur out here—usually from an Air Force jet jock way up high—a bunch of car alarms will go off as the shock wave passes. Also—very rarely—if a loud aircraft makes a low pass near a parking area, some car alarms may sound off due to noise-related vibration.” Well, I’m glad we cleared that up.
But Dick Knapinski, public relations director for the EAA, thinks the glory days of stupid plane tricks are history. “I get a feeling the populace doesn’t look as kindly on stunt flying as they did 70 years ago, when it was new and wonderful,” he says. “Today with the general citizenry they call to say ‘There’s a noisy airplane over my house—make it stop!’ You get that kind of thing spraying for gypsy moths.”
Comments (8)
Dear Mr. Scott:
You wrote, "Breathes there the pilot with soul so dead who never to himself hath said, 'I bet I can fly under that bridge'?"
A pilot bet that he could fly under the electrical transmission lines that cross Lake Natoma (Sacramento County, California). He bet this own life and the life of a 17-year-old passenger named Jacquelyn Marie Burnett. He survived the crash, she did not. He was the first pilot in the history of civil aviation to be held criminally responsible for the death of a passenger. He served 5 consecutive weekends in the Sacramento County Jail.
Jackie, I still miss you.
Scott Beach
Posted by Scott Beach on August 3,2008 | 02:12 AM
Was there a fairly infamous pilot (Art or Arthur somebody) who professed to have flown under the gateway arch, or some other fixture upside down. I can't remember and my daugher wants to know?
Scott Slick
grandson of Fred Slick, founder of Slick Magneto (now slickstart)
Posted by Scott Slick on April 2,2009 | 08:59 PM
Hello,
On the 14th January 1946 at approx 8 30 am. We flew under the bridge in a Sunderland Flying Boat of 209 squadron,
We had come from Hong Kong to Darwin done a night take off
to Sidney. Looking back now it was a crazy idea but seemed agood thing at the time.
Wishing you a happy new year
Roy
Posted by Roy Boughton on January 16,2010 | 11:44 AM
"Was there a fairly infamous pilot (Art or Arthur somebody) who professed to have flown under the gateway arch, or some other fixture upside down."
That may have been Arthur Godfrey, a famous radio and TV personality of the 1950s.
Posted by DET on January 21,2010 | 02:45 PM
I remember reading about an (unidentified) pilot in a CAP 10 flying under the Arc de Triomphe several years ago. Anybody know if this was real or just a myth?
Hmmm.. just found a reference to somebody named Charles Godefroy doing in it 1919 in a Nieuport. Any more?
Posted by Manticore on July 10,2010 | 10:08 AM
I got to know Bob pretty well and he has shown me the video flying under the Eiffel Tower a few times. It's pretty incredible, but even more so are all of the stories before and after that. He was the youngest fighter pilot of the Vietnam War, plus spent many years ferrying aircraft back and forth across the Atlantic for quite a few manufacturers. As you can guess, new planes have new bugs and more than once he had to put one down before he was ready. He lives in Florida with his wife and writes quite a few blogs on gold.
Posted by Frank Jackson on October 4,2010 | 02:18 PM
I knew jackie, she was like a little sister to me as she was to Scott. Her sisters (Cheri and Carolyn) were everyting to one-another. No one has seen Carolyn since shortly after Jackie's death. Cheri is all alone with no living family except Carolyn. If you know her were-abouts... it would sure make Cheri the happiest person in the world... to see her sister again. Scott, if you see this Scott B. (was Carolyn's boyfriend at one time), please get in touch with I or Cheri (now Cheri Gies). Thank you so very much.
write me back at 316west@gmail.com
Dave Hawkins(Cheri's high school boy friend) and still best friend.
Posted by DAVE HAWKINS on July 15,2011 | 10:27 PM
I was told that at the start of WW2 a B-17 (I believe) flew under the S.F Bay Bridge as it was leaving for overseas duty. Is this a fact or just a made-up story??
Posted by Juanita Frederick on May 8,2012 | 06:38 PM