Volume 12
March 18, 2024

A Weekly Aviation Career
Newsletter from Avjobs, Inc.

A Weekly Aviation Career Newsletter from Avjobs, Inc.
 
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Young Adults in Aviation
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Working On The Goodyear Blim
WHS Aircraft Training Center
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Virtual Flying
Virgin America Takes Flight
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The History Of Flight Attend
The Gratitude Campaign
Recruiting Minorities to Avi
Pilot Promotes Aviation Care
Pilot Completes Trip
Pay Hikes and Bonuses
Northwest Airlines Hiring
No Ordinary Flight Instructo
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Joe Jones Aviations True Spi
Is an FAA Career for You
IATA Reports On Airline Traf
Hubble Multimedia Package
Honda Aircraft Company
History Of Flight Attendants
Having Fun for a Living
Gordon Page Warbird Recovery
Funding Prevents Furloughs
Flying The Canyon
Flight Simulation
Flight Attendants Contract
FAA To Hire 15000
FAA Bumps Retirement Age
Encourage a New Generation
Delta Promises Stability
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Congress Recognizes Irving
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Climb Aviations Career Ladde
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Aviation Photography
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Armed Pilots Refresher Train
An Aerobatic Superstar
American Warns Unions
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Airline Overhead Bins
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A Weekly Aviation Career Newsletter from Avjobs, Inc.
Aviation Career Profile

Patty Wagstaff: An Aerobatic Superstar

Patty Wagstaff: An Aerobatic Superstar
Have you ever attended an airshow, seen all of the exciting wonderful aerobatic displays and thought, 'Gee, I'd like to do that someday.' While it is not an easy task, becoming a full or part-time aerobatic pilot is reachable in one way or another. Just ask Patty Wagstaff, one of the World's premier pilots, and a leader in promoting women's growth in aviation careers.

To Patty Wagstaff the sky represents adventure, freedom and challenge. A six-time member of the US Aerobatic Team, Patty has won the gold, silver and bronze medals in Olympic-level international aerobatic competition and is the first woman to win the title of US National Aerobatic champion and one of the few people to win it three times. Patty flies one of the most thrilling, low-level aerobatic routines in the world. Flying before millions of airshow spectators each year, her breathtaking performances give spectators a front-row seat view of the precision and complexity of modern, unlimited hard-core aerobatics. Her smooth aggressive style sets the standard for performers the world over.

Born in the USA, Patty grew up in and around airplanes. Moving to Japan when she was nine years old where her father was a Captain for Japan Air Lines, her earliest memories include sitting with her father at the controls of his airplanes. At ten years old, her father let her take the controls of his DC-6, and that's when her lifelong love affair with airplanes began. Though Patty was not raised to think of a career, her parent's supported her interests and encouraged her above all not to be fearful. From Japan her travels took her across Southeast Asia, Europe and to Australia where she lived and traveled up the west coast in a small boat. In 1979 she moved to Alaska and moved to a small town in the southwest, Dillingham, to work for the Bristol Bay Native Association where her job involved traveling to each of the remote villages in the region, areas only accessible by air.

Patty's first experience with bush flying was not a positive one: the same airplane she chartered crashed on its first flight. So Patty learned to fly herself, hiring friend and later husband, Bob, to travel with her in his Cessna 185 floatplane. Since then earned her Commercial, Instrument, Seaplane and Commercial Helicopter Ratings. She is a Flight and Instrument Instructor and is rated and qualified to fly many airplanes, from World War II warbirds to jets. Patty's sister, Toni, is also a pilot and a Captain for United Airlines.

A Call to Aerobatics
Though she had never seen aerobatics, a lifelong curiosity led her to attend her first airshow in Abbotsford, British Columbia in 1983, where she saw aerobatic pilots perform and promised herself, "I can do that!" By 1985, five years after gaining her pilot's license, she earned a spot on the US Aerobatic Team. Patty's skill is based on years of training and experience. She is a six-time recipient of the "First Lady of Aerobatics" Betty Skelton Award. In 1991, Patty became the first woman in the history of the United States to capture the elusive goal of National Aerobatic

Champion. In July 2004, Patty was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame and was the recipient of the National Air and Space Museum's Award for Current Achievement in 1994. Having received many awards for her flying, she is particularly proud of receiving the airshow industry's most prestigious award, the "Sword of Excellence", and the "Bill Barber Award for Showmanship" Recently she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Air Force Association, was inducted into the EAA/IAC Hall of Fame and in 2005 received the NAA/99's Katherine Wright Award.

In March, 1994, her airplane, the Goodrich Extra 260, went on display in the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC. You can see Patty's airplane and exhibit in the Pioneers of Flight Gallery right next to Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega.

Patty has trained with the Russian Aerobatic Team and has flown airshows and competitions in such exotic places as South America, Russia, Europe, Mexico and Iceland. Following the World Aerobatic Contest in 1996 where she was the top scoring U.S. pilot, Patty retired from competition flying.

She is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, Motion Picture Pilots Association, United Stuntwomen's Association, working as a stunt pilot and aerial coordinator for the film and television industry. She is currently a "demo" pilot for Raytheon Aircraft, flying their military trainer, the T-6A/B Texan II in international airshows such as Paris and Farnborough, and for the past five years has given bush and recurrency training to the pilots of the Kenya Wildlife Service in Kenya.

Talking With Patty
Aside from her flying prowess, Patty Wagstaff is an all around nice person and she enjoys promoting aviation to youngsters. Avjobs video partner, caught-up with Patty to discuss her career as an aerobatic pilot and early influences in her life that brought her to this exciting segment of general aviation. Enjoy this week's video feature with this aerobatic superstar.

 


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