Flying with the Phillips 66 Aerostars
When my editor texted me in Israel about a ride with the Phillips 66 Aerostars on Thursday at SUN ‘n FUN, she didn’t ask if I wanted the ride, she asked if I’d be back in time for it. Even if being at the Media Center at 7:30 a.m. required mainlining caffeine, I was all in.
Photographer Matt Genuardi loaned his GoPro. So, jet-lag gave way to Extra 300L thrills.
Alicia Herron, who writes for the AOPA Air Safety Institute, and Josh Flowers, who runs YouTube Channel Aviation 101, were revved about flying with the Aerostars. Josh had a case full of cameras to document his ride. The fourth rider was Jamie Allison, Brand Director for Phillips 66 Lubricants.
Jamie was the only non-pilot in the mix. None of us flinched at signing the liability waiver. No one backed out after Pilot Jerry ‘Fossil’ Molidor’s safety briefing that included a warning about the red ejection levers on the $25,000 canopy. But there’s something about getting strapped into a parachute that solidifies the risks of high-speed formation flying.
Jamie followed Pilot Harvey ‘Boss’ Meek to the number 1 plane. Josh and Pilot Paul ‘Rocket’ Hornick headed to plane 2. Alicia climbed into plane number 3 with Pilot David ‘Cupid’ Monroe. Pilot Gerry ‘Fossil’ Molidor secured me into plane 4 tighter than Dolly Parton’s bra.
The pilots fired up their engines and I fired up the GoPro. We taxied from the NOAA hangar to runway 090 and rocketed off the runway in pairs, heading east and south before moving into a snug diamond formation. I wouldn’t taxi that close to another plane, but there we were diving, then pulling up into a loop close enough to three other aircraft to elicit prayer and gasps of awe. Was that three or four Gs in the loop? I looked to my right and saw Alicia in plane 3 smiling like a kid at Disney.
My grip on the GoPro turned my fingers white. It was the only thing in the plane not secured in a 7-point harness or bolted down. Once a passenger lost a cell phone in one of the Aerostar’s planes and the seat had to be removed.
We banked left and perhaps we did a barrel roll. I was watching the silly GoPro screen instead of looking through the canopy. Watching is not the same as experiencing. Returning attention to the experience, I felt more steep turns. Then plane 1 cut sharply left. The other planes snapped left, following one by one.
The aerial dance continued as the planes aligned at the same altitude as if posing for a photo. We then landed one by one, taxied to the NOAA building, and parked in number order.
I can’t wait to share the video with my husband, who envied me for getting to ride along. Of course, watching the ride is akin to seeing photos of the Grand Canyon. The images don’t really compare to the in-person experience. Thank you, Phillips 66 Aerostars!
John had problems convincing his wife, Martha, that she could enjoy flying. Before her first flying lesson, Martha tried to climb back out of the plane. John and the instructor acted immediately and decisively. As John tells it, “We had a wrestling match and shoved her back in.”
“She went along with grim determination until her first solo cross country,” John explained. While John and the instructor paced on the ramp, Martha dodged storms and wound up coming back after dark. She marveled at the sunset from this new perspective and fell in love with flying. Today, John and Martha King own and operate King Schools of San Diego, California, where they teach flight training. They have become a poster couple of general aviation.
Because only 6 percent of pilots are women, most couples in general aviation don’t share a pilot-to-pilot relationship in the cockpit. The majority of women fly as passengers. The complaint “I can’t get my wife to fly with me” demonstrates a trend in general aviation that can be changed. We will explore a few of the factors working for and against flying couples.
“Why can’t you take up golf?” I pleaded when my husband Maury announced he was going to learn to fly. First the red sports car, now this? My second reaction was to check our life insurance policies and our will. Was this part of a man’s ‘go-fast’ stage of life? He seemed undeterred by news clippings of commercial airliners pictured as twisted smoking remains. I feared what I didn’t know. I worried about the dangers that he would face in an environment with such fatal consequences for error. Would he perform as well at flying as someone who does it for a living?
According to Diane Green, management assistant at the aviation piloting statistics branch of the FAA, women hold only six percent of the airman certificates in the United States. I’m proud to be one of them. And maybe, one day, we can fix that title. How long would men tolerate being called airwomen? How about calling us all fliers or aviators or pilots instead? Flying skills are not gender specific.
I knew the place well enough to avoid the second pot of coffee of the day. I knew the people, like the Japanese pilots who gathered on the back porch to photograph alligators, and the instructor Rennie who wrote THE book on seaplane training. The owner, Jon Brown, lived on my block. I knew the myths and legends and history of the base that was, coincidentally, celebrating its 40th year of operation. Familiar and newsworthy, this place taught stick and rudder flying in cloth-covered, slow-moving aircraft. This place humbled Air Force fighter pilots and thrilled private pilots. Brown’s Seaplane Base sat on the lakeside edge of the Winter Haven airport. It was where I learned to fly. As one of the few, the cheap and the brave who learned to fly a land plane at a seaplane base, this story felt like mine to tell.
The editor didn’t care that I had never taken a lesson in a seaplane. He wanted me to capture the people and the place.
Astronauts, celebrities and foreign pilots learned to fly seaplanes at Brown’s. Commander Kenneth Bowersox emailed from the International Space Station to his favorite instructor—at Brown’s. The fraternity of instructors at Brown’s connected seaplane pilots from around the globe and many dropped in for coffee and storytelling. Brown’s appeared in the credits of movies. On a trip to Alaska, my husband and I signed up for a seaplane ride over a glacier. The pilot had taught at Brown’s.
Who could call such a fun assignment work?
The gang gave an odd mix of reactions when interviewed since they knew me as a pilot and friend instead of as a writer. Somewhere between “spell my name right” and “is this on the record?” they shared their passion for the base. The instructors described the “Armstrong” starter on the J3-Cub as I dutifully jotted notes. It was only later when I saw them hand-prop the cub that I knew I’d been had. The dears. These are the same guys who tried to explain to me the tradition of cutting out the back of a shirt when someone solos. For women, they said straight-faced, they cut out the front.
After the article appeared in WaterFlying magazine the gang at Brown’s gave me their sign of approval—they asked when the next article would be published. They, too, liked seeing their names in print (anywhere but the Post Office). I queried Pipers magazine because the seaplane base relied on Piper aircraft for 40 years of training. Pipers gladly bought the reprint. With guilty pleasure, I cashed the checks.
After these articles were published, hurricanes Charley, Frances and Jeanne all passed within fifteen miles of Brown’s Seaplane Base. Frances took off the roof. Frances is also the name of the owner’s wife. Do you think I’ll let this aviation news pass without reporting on it? I’ve done the background research, I have the clips to show about the base. Lemme see. Now which aviation magazine would pay the best for such a story? Call me shameless, call me published. Call me if you’re an editor.
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Joni M. Fisher, author of South of Justice, is a writer and an instrument-rated private pilot who lives in Central Florida and North Carolina. She is a reporter for General Aviation News when she isn’t working on her Compass Crimes Series. See her website: 
