Actor Pilot: James Brolin

He began his aviation “career” building models and suspending them from his bedroom ceiling. The 12-year-old had not considered learning to fly until early on the fateful morning of July 21, 1952, when a magnitude 7.3 earthquake jolted him awake. He saw his models in motion, swaying gracefully from the ceiling as if in flight. “This surreal experience was so beautiful, so aesthetic,” he says, “that it inspired me to fly.”

He took his first lessons in a Stinson Voyager when he was a teenager, which is when he began developing an affinity for taildraggers. A lack of funds, however, delayed his first solo until some years later. He obtained his certificate in a Citabria.

Brolin eventually purchased a Cessna 185 Skywagon but had a traumatic experience after flying it for 15 years. While taking off in 1990 from Agua Dulce, a small airport north of Los Angeles, the jackscrew that trimmed his Skywagon’s adjustable stabilizer failed. Brolin hauled back on the control wheel but was unable to overcome the strong nose-down pitching moment. The airplane nosed over and flipped onto its back. He escaped from the inverted airplane without injury, but the aircraft was quickly consumed by fire.

“This accident spooked me,” he says. “It was a life-changing experience that caused me to quit flying.” But the flying bug returned eight years later, and Brolin found himself buying another Cessna 185 that he flew for 20 years. The actor—who also is a producer/director—says that he most enjoys practicing takeoffs and landings. “I actually prefer that to going places,” he says.

During a trip to Valdez, Alaska, in 2015, he became enamored with ultra-STOL aircraft, those fascinating little machines that take off and land in what seems like no space at all. He purchased a Just SuperSTOL XL kit, which he is building with Billy Payne of Plane Fun Aircraft in North Carolina.

One of his disappointments has been his inability to convince his wife, Barbra Streisand, to fly with him. The closest he ever came was when she agreed to join him for dinner in the cockpit of his Skywagon. There they sat enjoying a Japanese meal in bento boxes, but she would agree to no more than taxiing around Brolin’s home airport in Camarillo, California.

The 1,600-hour pilot turned 80 in 2020, a number that caught the attention of his insurance company. It would no longer provide coverage for the Cessna 185, compelling him to sell his beloved taildragger. He was advised, however, that he could obtain insurance for a tricycle-gear airplane, so he is looking for a Cessna Skylane, but not just any 182. He wants one that has been highly modified as a STOL aircraft—including a controllable canard—by Peterson’s Performance Plus. He plans to use it to explore the backcountry.

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