Aerial performers gearing up for return of Grande Prairie Regional Airshow

(Photo Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)

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Biplane Pilot Trevor Rafferty is eager to perform after flying his open-air cockpit Pitts Model 12 15,000 miles to Grande Prairie from Hamilton, Ontario.

“Seven stops to get here, fuel stops, it doesn’t have very long legs it’s got 30 gallons of gas and it’s big engine,” Rafferty says. “I’ve seen the whole county from the seat of the airplane I built. Iit’s super cool.”

(Photo Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)

Mario Hamel will be in his Salto Glider as he performs an aerial ballet propelled by wind and gravity.

“We put on a nice quiet music and it’s a very peaceful performance,” Hamel says. “But it is an aerobatic glider, so I do aerobatics, I do have smoke trails on the wing tips on the fuselage, and it’s about a six-minute performance. Like I said, aerobatics, but quiet.”

(Photo Credit: Everything GP Staff/Nathaniel Leigh)

But not all the stunts will involve the people in the cockpit.

Carol Pilon will not be piloting the 1940 Boeing Biplane in her performance, instead she and Joe Bender will perform daring stunts as wing walkers on the sides of the plane.

“When I go and I do the aerobatics solo, the airplane is definitely doing a bunch of aerobatics, and it’s kind of a dance when you’re doing an aerobatic routine with the pilot,” says Pilon, “So when the airplane is stable, I get to go outside and do funky poses. But when the airplane is in full motion and it’s doing tricks? I have to be the one that’s stable and in a lock down position.”