Wayne Handley

Wayne Handley was born March 26, 1939, in Carmel, Calif.After a career in Naval aviation, he built a successful crop dusting business in Salinas,Calif. In 1983, after years of performing for unappreciative grapes and lettuce, hedecided to enter the International Aerobatic Club competition. Finishing 20th out of 21was humbling enough to make him serious about competitive aerobatics. It worked. He wenton to perform for millions of spectators, and received the Bill Barber Award forshowmanship in 1996, and the Art Scholl Memorial Showmanship Award in 1997. He holdsthe world record for longest inverted flat spin at 67 turns (which he claims is more of areflection on IQ than skill) and this month plans to try and set the world record fortime-to-climb for all propeller-driven airplanes in the Turbo Raven.

For the past several years, Wayne and his wife Karen have travelled from show to showin the Raven. After a show it took Wayne about three seconds to velcro in an electric AIand a GPS and they were ready for cross-country. The Raven had a cargo pod which attachesto the underside of the fuselage to carry three duffles and a hanging bag. Wayne got theidea from watching a FedEx Cessna 208 (Caravan) taxi by one day. A few more bags and thefolding poles that hold the ribbons for the ribbon cut fit in the turtle deck. 1999'stravel plans are different. Wayne will fly the one-seat Turbo Raven while Karen rides in aT-210 piloted by Wayne's mechanic/announcer. Once they arrive, the 210 will serve as aphoto platform for media rides to promote the upcoming show.

You're not kidding. Your home airport is really your home airport.

I live in Greenfield, Calif., or actually four miles west of Greenfield, out in a nicelittle canyon. The airport is on the east side of the valley and my residence is on thewest side of the valley, nine miles in between, three stop signs. I can make it in aboutten minutes and wouldn't even consider living in an area with a working stoplight.

You hold the world record of 67 inverted flat spins. What other aviationachievements are you proud of?

I was very active in the politics of the crop dusting business. I was on the Board ofDirectors of the California Ag Air Association. I was President in '78, twenty years onthe Board of Directors, received the George Baldrick Memorial Award, which is the highestaward in the California Association, Member of the Year, Pilot of the Year, lifetimemember, and Plumber of the Year, and I'm the only one to win the Plumber of the Yeartwice. That's an award given to somebody that should have probably chosen a differentoccupation.

In aerobatics, I won the California point series in intermediate in '84, the unlimitedpoint series in '85, '86, and '88. I also recieved the Bill Barber Award for showmanshipin 1996, and the Art Scholl Memorial Showmanship Award in 1997.

How did you get interested in flying?

What probably got me interested in flying first was the fact that my mother used thespoon as an airplane and my mouth as a hangar to encourage my eating when I was a baby.Being born in '39, my real formative years were in the early '40s. A lot of the heroes ofthe war were pilots. I lived out in the country by myself, didn't have any playmates. Iremember making a little airplane out of scrap lumber and I used to sit out there andfight the war by the hour as I entertained myself.

Do you remember your first airplane ride or the airplane you soloed in?

My father would not allow me to fly or ride a motorcycle as long as I lived under hisroof, so when I went away to college my first airplane ride was my first lesson. It was anAeronca 7AC in Salinas; that would have been 1957, and the great thing about that is thecollege owned the airplanes and had an A&P course, and I was able to fly the 65horsepower 7AC champ for $2.50 an hour, which included fuel, insurance, that was the wholething. My instructor was a projectionist at the local movie theater and he charged $5 anhour, so I got about eight hours of dual, soloed, and had 70 hours when I went in theNavy. I didn't get any more dual after I soloed, so you can imagine the habits that I haddeveloped by that time.

Did your father fly?

My father was both a very accomplished musician and a mechanic by trade but,unfortunately, I didn't inherit either talent. I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket and themost dangerous part of my aviation career is when I have a tool in my hand.

Have you ever taught someone to fly?

I've never been a CFI. I've taught people how to fly and after I got the basics doneturned them over to a CFI to really do their cross-country work and all of that, and thenI've been a coach in aerobatics, since you don't need a CFI to teach aerobatics, it's notan add-on rating. I had a Pitts S2A for several years and just sold it this last year, butreally found that I learned more about flying as I was teaching than I ever had before. Ithink you see that in a lot of different fields.

Is there some trait all great pilots share?

I don't think there's any such thing as a natural pilot, and what makes a great pilotis somebody that has developed the experience to be able to know his or her limitations,and just make good practical decisions. If you can identify the ego, which is such a bigproblem in aviation, and control that, and do things predicated on wisdom rather thanspontaneous surges of ego, you can become a great pilot.

Is there an airplane you've always wanted to fly?

I think, like a lot of pilots, I'd like to get involved in the space program. I'd liketo fly the Shuttle. I volunteered for a program called Project Astronaut when I was astudent in the Navy flight program. I don't know of anybody who ever volunteered forProject Astronaut that actually ever became one.

Do you have a favorite airport?

I think my favorite airport is my own. I built is from scratch as a crop dusting strip.My neighbors are great. If they ever call up regarding flying out of the airport it's tosay that they're having a barbecue on Saturday and if we had anybody practicing could theyplease move over closer to the house and give them an air show. I'm the airport director,I'm the board of directors, and it doesn't get any better.

Your wife Karen travels the air show circuit with you. Is she a pilot?

Karen is the greatest support person in the world, but she has no desire to ever be inan airplane by herself, does not really care to fly, but has just gone through, from 1990until 1998, traveling with me all over the United States, Canada, and part of Mexico inthe front seat of the Raven where she can't transmit, she can't land, she can't even openthe canopy from the front seat. She sat in there and has just racked thousands of hoursbetween shows. Then she does a first-class job of support at the show with both publicrelations and setting up the ribbons for the ribbon cut. Even though she's a far betterdriver than I am, she has no desire to get in an airplane by herself.

Any place you’ve always wanted to fly to but never had the chance?

Alaska. In my next lifetime I want to go to Alaska and spend a big part of it up there.I love to hunt and fish and I love that type of scenery, and that's a type of flying thatis akin to crop dusting and aerobatics. I think there are a lot of similarities with bushflying and what I've done and would like to do that but I don't see that I'm going to getmuch of an opportunity this time around.

What's the most remarkable thing you've ever seen from an airplane?

I try and point it out to everybody that I can...the gloriole. That is the rainbow, the360-degree rainbow around an airplane shadow as it's cast on a cloud. It's there 100% ofthe time, the intensity changes with the lighting conditions, but I just love to takepeople up and if there's any clouds at all, get out in an area where I can get the shadowof the airplane on a cloud and show them that. That's probably one of the more beautifuland romantic parts of aviation.

Any emergencies or off-airport landings?

I landed several times during my crop dusting career, for one reason or another, out insome type of field or on a road — that was kind of just part of the business — and thenthere was the time that I made the wrong turn in the box canyon and I definitely landedoff-airport and that terrain was so hostile that I could never get the county planningdept. to declare that as an airport area, either.

What happened?

It was 100% pilot error. I was filming a movie. I had a big camera on the airplane —it was Grumman Ag Cat — and I was coming down a canyon that I'd flown a couple of timeswith the producer/director. There was one point in the canyon where I had to make a120-degree turn to the left as a ridge came down and kind of intersected and forced themain channel of the river to go around it, and with different lighting and differentaltitude that I was flying at this particular time, when I got to that point I didn'trecognize it and instead of making a 120-degree left turn, the way the sun was hittinginto the canyon to my right, it looked like the way to go, so instead of making 120-degreeleft turn, I made a 15-degree right turn, and as soon as I did that the door closed behindme. As I proceeded up this canyon the horizon kept getting higher and higher even though Iwas at full power, full rpm, and climbing at the best rate of climb that I could get outof the airplane, it was obvious that I couldn't out-climb it and it was also too narrow toturn. I sat there with the inevitability that I was going to crash...and I just had totake the bull by the horns and crash it my way rather than just waiting until I ran intosomething and, obviously, it did work out okay.

Tell us about your naval career.

I entered the Navy flight school in 1959 as a "NavCad" — a naval aviationcadet. Both the Navy and the Air Force needed pilots at the time and waived the four-yearcollege requirement and had these cadet programs where you could go in with two years orthe equivalent of two years of college. When I completed flight training I got my wingsand commission as an Ensign at the same time, so I went in in '59, went through the flightprogram, started out in props, then advanced. I switched over to F9s and F11s. I went intothe Navy with an open mind as to whether or make a career out of it or not and, as theluck of the draw, I was assigned to a utility squadron in North Island, San Diego, Calif.Utility squadrons are just basically what it sounds like. You do all the odd jobs in thefleet. We were targets for the radar school at Point Loma, which is the most boring job inthe world. On Monday they'd never seen a blip on a scope before, so we'd be out therebasically flying for 10 or 15 minutes and then do a 180. By Wednesday we'd be doing simpleintercepts.

I was also a drone controller. They took the armament panel out of my airplane and putin basically model airplane control gear, so I was flying the Ryan Q2C Firebee, which wasa neat machine to control, and I controlled it both from the air and land. At 22 years oldthere were times when I would have two headsets on, one controlling the drop aircraft — Iwas going to drop the Q2C Firebee — and on the other frequency I had the ship that wasgoing to be firing their surface air missiles at the drone, so without giving it anythought at all, there were several days when I was 22 years old that I was in totalcontrol of the Pacific missile range and it never even occurred to me the responsibility Ihad.

Being a utility squadron, we had obsolete aircraft and a lot of our senior officerswere passed over for higher rank. Since they weren't going anyplace morale wasn't the bestand, being stuck there, I made the decision to get out of the Navy rather than make acareer of it.

In 1963, when I had 18 months remaining active duty, they gave me the option of going toMiramar and transitioning into the F4 Phantom. I was new at the time and the catch was tosign up for an additional 18 months, which would give them three years worth and made itworth their while, and I really almost did that. I came home on leave to make my decision.Both the local crop dusting companies were interested in hiring me when I got out of theNavy. We were very familiar with the six- to nine-month cruises and had a child at thattime, so made a decision to not to stay in, and I've always questioned that, I always feltI came off the drawing boards to be a fighter pilot. Had I made the decision to go flyPhantoms, I would have probably been in the Gulf of Tonkin, bobbing up and down when thelid blew off and my career would have been drastically different than the way it turnedout.

Did you ever consider flying for the airlines?

I interviewed with the airlines at the end of my military career, and in 1964, whichwould have been the best time probably in history of the airlines to sign on, they told mewhen I had my interview with United that I would be a flight engineer for six to eightyears and I just couldn't see riding sidesaddle and looking over my left shoulder everytime they said I had a bogey at twelve o'clock, so I passed on that and came home to thecrop dusting business and really enjoyed that.

Give us a couple of hair-raising crop dusting stories.

I could talk all day on hair-raising crop dusting stories. Probably one of the biggesthazards that I faced working in the Salinas Valley, which is a coastal valley here inCalifornia, was working in fog. We always had a lot of work to do. We had a very smallwindow each day to get our work done in between daylight and when the wind came in off theocean, which was usually around 10:00 a.m. or so, so with the marine layer we always hadin here in the summertime, fog every morning, where was a lot of work to do. There wasalways that push to get out before the weather was really good enough and I probablyscared myself more overrunning my visibility in fog than most anything else.

One morning I got trapped in a very low layer of fog. It was so low that I could seethe glow of the sun, and I was flying a Stearman and I overran my visibility, justcouldn't make the turn back, couldn't keep going, but I could see the faint glow of thesun out the top and I went to full power, full rpm, just everything I could get, and witha real good feel of the airplane, no flight instruments, at all. I pulled the nose up,held the airplane right on the edge of the buffet and kept the glow of the sun bracketedin the left N-strut and just prayed that I would pop out on top rather than the otheroption. The possibility was losing the sun and that would have really been the end of it.So you can see working the weather was always a problem.

I hit five wires in 25 years, which is about average in this area for that amount oftime. An interesting point about wirestrikes: It's much better to hit a power line than atelephone line. When you hit a power line, when you get more than one wire involved, youarc weld them and break them that way, where the phone wire just stretches and stretchesand it's not uncommon at all to pop insulators off of one pole and then the second poleand the third pole before the wire breaks. It seemed like those little single-strand phonewires always did more damage to the airplane than going through larger power lines whichyou could weld and break through.

Tell us about the Turbo Raven.

It's an idea I came up with five or six years ago. I wanted to build an aerobaticairplane with a positive thrust-to-weight ratio and invent some new maneuvers. Theairplane has 80 hours on it and I have about 50 of those 80, and each time I fly theairplane I'm expanding my own envelope a little more. I did four shows with it at the endof the season. It seemed to be very well received and now I have the wintertime to reallydevelop a first-class act. We're coming out with some new music that's going to add to theentertainment value, so come next spring I'm looking forward to having an airplane and aroutine that will just be another step forward in the aerial entertainment world.

Can you really moonwalk the airplane?

The new maneuvers that I can do with the Turbo Raven are primarily in the vertical. Ican take off in about 200 feet, rotate right to the vertical, and the airplane stabilizesat 60 knots and approximately 4,000 feet per minute, depending on the density altitude,and I'll take it up to, like, 2,000 or 2,500 feet and pull it over on its back down to a45-degree down line and roll it and set up for my next maneuver. You can come in slow,pull it up to a stop, hang it there in a torque roll or go ahead and climb out of that.And, I have reverse capability in flight, which not very many airplanes have.

I'm not sure what else has that because multiengine airplanes and all have a squatswitch on the landing gear that prevents them from going into reverse in flight for safetyreasons. What reverse enables me to do is to make my approach to the runway flying levelat 2,000 feet above the runway and get almost what feels to me from the cockpit like I'mright over the point of intended landing and at about 80 knots lower the nose, raise thegate on the throttle that allows me to come into reverse, and as I bring the nose downkeep coming deeper into reverse and keep pushing the nose down and then when I am able toput the nose to the airplane, look over the nose of the airplane at the point of intendedlanding, just hang in there on reverse and hold about 99 or 95 knots and really come outof the sky, and then down at about 300 feet come out of reverse, transition back to idle,and take it in and land it. As soon as the tailwheel's solidly on the ground, I can comeback into reverse again, bring it to a stop and back the airplane up.

Who has dibs on the Raven?

The Raven will stay with us. I've got it booked, along with the Turbo Raven, at some ofthe shows for next year. We're going to do some refurbishing on it this year. It has afresh engine so it will be in tip-top shape for next year and it's going to stay on theline.

Since Oracle is your sponsor can we assume you're into the Web?

Larry Ellison (founder and CEO of Oracle) camealong at a time in my air show career that if I hadn't picked up a sponsorship I probablywould not have been able to keep going. Now Oracle ison the sponsorship side and Larry Ellison is on the private side backing me in the TurboRaven.

I'm kind of the Fred Flintstone of the computer age. I'm just having my Web site builtup now. I don't spend any more time than I have to on a computer. I just kind of bouncearound and take a look at other sites in my category and see how they're setting thingsup.

Any records you’re in pursuit of with the Turbo Raven?

The next record I'm going for will be the time-to-climb. Sam Burgess holds the recordwith a Bucher Jungmeister that had an Allison turboprop in it and that's not even aquestion. The time-to-climb for all turboprops is held by General Chuck Yeager in aCheyenne 400. That's a minute and 48 seconds to 3,000 meters, and then Rare Bear, LyleShelton's F8F, holds the record for all propeller-driven airplanes at a minute and 31seconds to 3,000 meters, and the way the turbine is set up right now I can do it in aminute and 30 seconds. I'm working on ways to ensure that I can do it in a minute and 25seconds, so it would eclipse all prop-driven records. That's on tap for probably sometimein January.

What started your interest in competitive aerobatics?

I had helicopters in my ag operation in the late '70s. I sold my last helicopter in'81. I had a tail rotor assembly on the shelf that had gone up in price to the tune of alittle over $19,000 and one day that tail rotor system left and a Pitts S1C took its placein the hangar. I told Karen that I probably would play with it for six months or so andthen sell it. I think I actually meant that when I said it...(laughs)...but in that sixmonths I was introduced to competition aerobatics with the International Aerobatic Club and in my first contest, in 1983, I flewSportsman. There were 21 contestants and I came in either 19th or 20th. I remember therewas a young man there about 18 years old, he had about 300 hours or less, and he came infifth or sixth, and I figured, well (chuckling), I guess I'm not going to win it with mylogbook. I'd better learn how to play the game. Really liked the people. They were veryaccommodating, helpful with the constructive criticism, right on down to the Gatorade. Ireally liked the people and got hooked on competition aerobatics.

What's the biggest crowd you've performed for?

Chicago's big. They talk about between two and three million people; I think there's600,000 people within walking distance. Miramar, El Toro, they've talked about crowds inexcess of two million people at El Toro. I've flown some of the bigger shows, obviously.San Francisco Fleet Week, no way of knowing how many people are watching there; there'sjust people all over the city watching. Oshkoshis the mecca of general aviation. Reno Air Races,that's the Mardi Gras, a lot of parties, a lot of friends, a lot of good flying.

And the smallest crowd I ever flew for was probably right here at my strip. As a goodexample of ego, if I'm practicing and one car pulls up and stops alongside the road, itaffects the intensity with which I fly.

(pauses)

I can tell you a story on Bill Reesman. He always denied having an ego and one day hecalls me and says "You're right; I do have an ego," and I said, "Really,how did you figure that out?" and he said, "Well, I was out in one of the Yaksflying aerobatics and all of a sudden I realized it wasn't any fun and I stopped andthought 'Why isn't it any fun?' and I realized it was because nobody was watching,"so (chuckling) the ego doesn't care how big the crowd is.

Did you ever ad-lib during a show — try something you just thought of withoutpracticing it first?

You have to have some real solid rules flying air shows and one of my rules is neveradd anything. You can always leave something out but never add anything. On numerousoccasions things didn't feel quite right and I left them out but I really can honestly saythat I've never really just thrown something in on a whim. Occasionally an inexperiencedair boss will ask you if you can stretch your routine once you're into it, and I don't dothat. It's not only not safe; it kills the continuity of your act. You have choreographedthis thing so one maneuver leads to the next maneuver so you have the right altitude,right airspeed, and everything is clicking and you have a harmony and rhythm to it. Youbreak away from that and start ad-libbing, the entertainment value suffers. That's a goodtime to let the announcer tapdance.

What scares you?

Ground rush (laughs). That gets my attention. Any time that something's not quiteright. I have to think about that a minute. When the airplane does something unexpectedly,that scares me. It's telling you something. Airplanes talk to you all the time and it's agood idea to listen and take the warning, check it out. Just the unexpected things thatpop up are usually what scares me. That would fall into something like a near midair,anything unexpected that just kind of pops up in your face.

Team aerobatics seems to be catching on. You’ve done a lot of team work with DanBuchanan’s glider and the Showcopter helicopter team. Are there others? What are theplanning sessions like for working as a team?

I've also worked with Sean Tucker. Sean and I had a two-plane routine called Pitts-Azz.We were both flying Pitts aircraft, and more recently Rocky Hill and I have workedtogether. One of the popular things at air shows is what I call a squirrel cage wherethree or four performers go out and get in a racetrack pattern and are live over the PAsystem on a discrete frequency where we banter back and forth and work with the announcerson it, but kind of a competition situation where each come in and do one of our whizbangspecial maneuvers and vie for the crowd's approval on those.

Down in San Diego at Miramar they call it the Barnstormers Flying Circus and it wentover very big. You've got to be careful with it. You have to trust the people you'reworking with, and basically that's the bottom line in all team-type work: group dynamics.It has to be people that you can trust and that trust usually comes from a littleexperience having worked with people. With the turbine I'm kind of getting myself out ofthat arena. I'm not going to be able to work with Dan unless we change our routine becausethe big thing there was cutting the streamers off his tail, supposedly to help him get hisweight and balance back. I obviously can't be doing that because of the FOD (foreignobject damage) potential with the turbine engine.

I'll probably be able to work with the Showcopters even better because I'll be able tofly slow and actually stop the turbine, and squirrel cage. They'll be some people that'llbe reluctant to play with me. I just did a squirrel cage at Victorville and it was funbecause they were challenging me to do things like the torque roll. Well, (chuckling) Idon't think anybody's going to challenge the Turbo Raven to a torque-roll contest anymore.

Is there some figure from history you'd like to fly with?

Jimmy Doolittle. I had the opportunity to meet General Doolittle and ride with him in alimousine one day where we were able to talk one-on-one. He was just a great human being,contributed more to aviation than any one other individual. His early aerobatics, thenbeing the pioneer on developing instruments necessary for instrument flight, then justprior to WWII when he was working with the oil companies to give us the higher octanefuels so people like Pratt and Whitney could develop the higher-horsepower engines. Thenhis wartime exploits themselves and later being such a great ambassador for aviation. Ihonestly feel that no other individual contributed more to aviation than General JimmyDoolittle.

Looking through your logbook, what flight are you particularly proud of?

Back when I received my wings, the last flight that completed my naval flight training.At that time, I thought I had just accomplished the greatest goal of all time and therewasn't much else left in life, now that I'd done that. Obviously, that was just anotherstep along the way, but I really think back that that was one of the proudest moments andknowing what I had to go through to win my wings. I have a lot of respect for anybody thatI see wearing wings 'cause nobody gets them easy; they're not a gift in any stretch of theimagination, especially in the Navy where you have to land on the carrier and do what youhave to do to qualify.

Flying has given me the opportunity to...

Be my own person. I've been flying for 41 years. It's all I've done in my adult life,given me the opportunity to meet great, great people. I just can't say enough about thepeople I've had the opportunity to meet in the aviation world, and the freedom associatedwith aviation. It's probably the two things that I enjoy the most, is the people and thefreedom.