Rare Air: Work in the Stratosphere

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Friendlier Skies

“Ethanol is on people’s minds right now,” says air-show pilot Greg Poe. “Everybody wants (ethanol) to be a good thing, because they are sick and tired of what’s happening at the pump,” he says, noting that one of the biggest problems with ethanol is availability.

Poe’s plane runs on a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent regular aviation-grade fuel. Wanless, Poe’s assistant, creates the mixture himself before shows, with the ethanol delivered by truck to the site. “Ethanol gives you about 4 percent more horse-power,” says Poe.

Many pilots get started with air shows as an offshoot from careers as commercial or military pilots.
“It seemed like if I wasn’t flying air shows, I was ferrying the airplane, and if I wasn’t ferrying the airplane I was flying an airline trip,” says Julie Clark, a Cameron Park pilot with 40 years’ experience flying in the Navy, commercially and at air shows. She retired from Northwest Airlines two years ago and is presently doing only air shows. “I love my life now,” she beams. “It’s so great.”

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