Thrill ride
Strap in with the Phillips 66 Aerostars
Phillips 66 Aerostars team leader Harvey “Boss” Meek was dead serious about empty pockets, but there is always room for fun in the cockpit of an Extra 300.
I was one of this year’s lucky recipients of a media ride with the airshow team now in its second year of flying German aerobats after 15 years of flying Russian models. After waking to a low overcast, I spent much of the morning of April 2 trying to clear those low-hanging clouds over the Sun ‘n Fun International Fly-In and Expo in Lakeland, Florida, with the power of wishful thinking. Doubtful as it is that my mental efforts had any sway, we nonetheless found a break in the passing showers just big enough to fire up those engines.
It’s not that I’ve never flown an Extra 300 before (I have a couple of those hours in the logbook, with U.S. aerobatic champ and airshow legend Patty Wagstaff as my teacher), but it’s been a while since my last dose of “Vitamin G,” and that can be a painful deficiency once you’ve been hooked on aerobatics.
Meek, who exudes a confident calmness even when briefing emergency procedures, led our flight of four off the ground in sets of two that soon formed the Aerostars’ diamond, with Paul “Rocket” Hornick and David “Cupid” Monroe tucking in just aft and a little below each of our wings, and Gerry “Fossil” Molidor slotting in behind us (out of sight from our cockpit). After a couple of minutes trying to find some clear air (rain, even light rain, strips paint off of the propellers), Meek called the pull into a loop. As the Gs came on and pressed me even more snugly into the seat, I craned my neck around for a view of those other Extras.
Meek had briefed our small group of media riders that they’d fly this one a little loose, leaving a bit more space between the airplanes than they would during the afternoon airshow. Still, the propellers of the trailing Extras seemed thrillingly close to the trailing edge of our wing.
Meek, who flew an F/A–18 for Canada in his early career before transitioning to airline cockpits, is one of the team’s original members, an American Airlines 737 pilot now in his seventeenth year of performing on the airshow circuit with a mission to entertain and inspire the next generation, which is very much in keeping with the overall mission of Sun ‘n Fun.
“We feel like it’s giving back,” he said, after the ride, when I could take a few notes with the pen and pad strictly forbidden in the cockpit. (Loose items have a way of lodging themselves in the most inconvenient places possible in an aerobatic airplane.) “You’re not going to get them all, (but) you never know who you’re going to touch.”
Meek himself was once a kid at an airshow in Canada, and a U.S. Air Force F–4 Phantom thundering overhead sold him on aviation faster than you can say “afterburner.”
“I thought, ‘man, I’ve got to have me that job,” the team leader recalled of that auspicious afternoon. He would go on to spend a decade in military service, and eventually help found a team with a mission to repeat that exercise for the generations of youth who followed. Almost 18 years later, they’re still going strong, a close-knit group of friends who just can’t get enough flying done to fully satisfy the itch.
The Aerostars don’t just perform and sign autographs, they spend time in the communities they visit and make a point of offering the front seats of their airplanes.
“We talk to kids, school students. We’ve even been known to give a ride now and then,” Meek said. There were 10 such lucky kids in 2018, and they might just top that this year.
“It’s very rewarding,” Meek said of spreading passion for aviation. “It all starts somewhere.”
For this somewhat older “kid,” a few minutes in a flight of four Extras was strong motivation to try my own hand at formation flying, and Meek had some sound advice.
“Don’t just go out and do it,” he said. “Find a good school. Like everything, you need proper instruction.”
Military pilots learn formation flying as a matter of course, though Meek is the only Aerostar with a military background. The rest of the team brought airline and aerobatic experience to the table, and all are general aviation enthusiasts with a shared interest in precision flying and a professional’s approach to aerial entertainment.
“We’re all GA guys, too,” Meek said, noting he makes his home in a sprawling aviation community. “I’ve got a Baron.”
The Extras do offer a little something extra, though, and the team members look forward to each new season. Practice starts weeks before the first spring flowers bloom, each pilot flying first on his own to get the rust off, then working up to individual aerobatics, and finally coming together as a team to finish sharpening up for the season. After so many years of flying together, “it comes together really quickly.”
As I said, there’s plenty of room for fun in the tight confines of an Extra cockpit, and Meek said performing for the crowd is something special.
“My favorite maneuver is probably the starburst,” Meek said, describing the opening of their act: The four ships dive toward the crowd with smoke on and split off in different directions before executing a rejoin, which is always “really, really dynamic” no matter how many times they’ve done it. “No two rejoins are the same.”
No two airshows are the same, either.
“What’s special about Sun ‘n Fun … you know you’re flying in front of other aviators,” Meek said. Those knowledgeable eyes below might pick up on foibles that an enthusiastic nonpilot spectator might miss. “The pressure’s on to be on your game.”
There’s no pressure to speak of in the front seat, when hands and feet are kept clear of the flight controls with care, knowing a small bump on an Extra’s stick leads to a rather large response. Turns out that’s fun, too, being along for the ride as four close friends head out for a quick morning flight together.
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