Yesterday I posted some cool C-5 Galaxy videos including one from Stevo71 and that led me to find out another fabulous video on that account... the one above of Kent Pietsch landing his Jelly Belly Interstate Cadet on that really small landing platform on top of a pickup truck at the 2011 Beale AFB airshow. The video is only a little over a minute long but wow it sure is fun to watch. The GoPro is pointed just right to be able to get a great view of Kent having loads of fun putting the airplane right where he wants it.
You might remember that I had the incredible opportunity to be hanging out the side window of a pickup that was speeding down the runway at the Indy Air Show back in 2010, right in front of the other landing platform that Kent uses (the motorhome) as he made several several landings for a promo video that was being shot. I got loads of pix from that adventure and the best one is both an AirPigz CoolPix and a picture used in a recent article about Kent and his Cadets in Air & Space magazine.
My pic of Kent Pietsch landing the Jelly Belly Interstate Cadet on the motorhome!
I once heard someone say when talking about Kent's airshow flying abilities that he was a really good 'stick and rudder' pilot (as tho he at least had that going for him) - I actually thought is was kind of a weird thing to say because in my mind, that's all there is to flying... your stick and rudder skills. And yes, Kent has mad skills with the stick and the rudder - truly one of the best!
As an added bonus here I'm including another video below that has some extra views of Kent doing his routine in that beautiful 90hp Jelly Belly Cadet from the 2010 Shaw AFB airshow. I mention the 90hp because it is much more difficult to fly these kinds of routines on limited horsepower, which again points to having stellar skills at managing aircraft airspeed, attitude and altitude. You'll also notice that in this video he's landing on the motorhome, just like the pix I took at Indy in 2010.
I hope you enjoy watching Kent entertain the crowds in these videos as much as I did : )