Vertical spins, tailslides & flying upside-down

Have I ever told you about the time I flew a plane? A stunt plane at that. Really, I did. That picture is the plane I was in control of. I was the pilot-in-command in fact. If you know me in real life, you've probably heard me talk about this because it was honestly one of the most amazing things I've ever gotten the chance to do!

No, I wasn't some corny Bachelor thing, it was a few years ago. One of my guy friends knew someone who knew a pilot that performs in air shows all over the Midwest, Billy. We met up with Billy one Sunday and originally only the 3 boys were going to fly, but as soon as I saw that plane I knew I had to do it! So each one of us got to fly the plane with him for about an hour each. It. Was. Awesome.

Here's Billy strapping me in, there's roughly an 18-point harness, and I also got to wear a sweet mesh helmet that had a headset so I could talk to Billy (he sits behind you).

See all those squiggly lines? We weren't playing connect the dots while taxiing down the runway... those are the stunts we did.

All strapped in and ready to go! Obviously, I don't have any photos of us actually flying because, well, we just looked like a blurry speck on the pictures!


Here's a promo video I snagged off of Billy's page, Grayout Aerosports, I'm not the one flying in this... but 90% of what you see done, we did. I did! Let me explain, (and yes, you see how they're taking off and the plane is flying soo close to the ground at an angle and it looks like the wing is going to clip the ground at any moment.... we did that!)


grayout promo 1

Grayout Aerosports | MySpace Video


anyways, we got in the air, did a few barrel rolls, then Billy goes "ok, it's your turn... yah ready!? Take the throttle right in front of you, and whenever you're ready, throw it to the right as hard as you can, that will start us spinning..."And just like that, he talked me through tricks. At one point, we flew straight up into the air and once we reached a certain altitude Billy killed the engine, we free-fell (is that a word?) nose down towards the ground. We pulled 4.5-5G's throughout most of the stunts. Oh lord I hope my mom doesn't read this, I didn't tell her until AFTER I was safely back on the ground!

Oh, and no this isn't our plane bursting into flames... we did a fancy airplane burnout shortly after landing.

I am hoping to get in touch with Billy and go out again sometime once the weather warms up! For the kind of experience I had, he charges up to $225, you can take a less extreme ride for $185, and he also does tours around the city and/or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in his plane. If you are ever in the Indy area and feeling up for the ride of your life, get ahold of him!