 |
|
|
|
|
| Sean D. Tucker: Learning the Z, Baby Part 2 | Aug '08 |
|
|
| By Di Freeze |
| |
Cont. from July
Sean D. Tucker was on the way to Sun 'n Fun 2006 in his famous Oracle Challenger II biplane when he stopped to see a friend in Kasada, Red River Parish, La. While practicing a routine 10 to 15 feet off the ground over a swamp area at midmorning on April 4, mechanical trouble caused him to lose control of the aircraft at 225 miles, pulling 7.4 G's.
As Dream Maker porpoised up and down, Tucker feared the worse. Without elevator control and no stick, he attempted to fly the Pitts with the trim, breathing a sigh of relief when he got through 1,000 feet.
But he wasn't out of danger. After calling his team, he concentrated on how he and his beloved airplane could survive. He'd already jumped out of two previous planes, and he was hoping not to have to do it again.
Trying to slow the aircraft down, and with more than 10,000 practices to recall, he manipulated the controls until he was able to get it in a three-point attitude, hoping to land it with the rudders, the trim tab and a little bit of power. But as soon as he slowed down enough, the plane would dive again and he'd lose control. After 12 to 15 minutes of that, he knew he'd have to jump.
As his team prepared for the emergency on the ground, Tucker headed in the direction of a chosen field. He took the plane to 9,000 feet, but when he couldn't visualize where the plane would crash, took it back down to 5,000 feet. With three gallons of gas left, he asked his crew to let his family know he loved them.
"That's the first time I'd ever really had to say goodbye to my family," he recently recalled. "The other emergencies were really quick. It was really a poignant moment for me. Once you get done with that, then you'd better start praying to your god—get set with your soul. I prayed to all the gods; I didn't leave one of them out."
After that, Tucker was at peace with himself.
"I wasn't freaked out or panicking," he said. "I wanted to survive, but I was prepared to die. That really helped me handle the next part of the whole equation."
After getting to where he wanted to jump, Tucker got busy with his emergency canopy release.
"With this one, when it comes off, it comes up and back, and it will hit you in the head, so you have to duck," he said. "The release was fitted so well that even at 120 mph, the canopy stayed on."
Tucker used his arm to push off the canopy.
"As soon as I did that, my head came up and it hit me in the head," he said. "Good thing I was wearing a helmet. Now I knew, 'OK, it's not going to be a perfect experience.'"
Well aware of what he was supposed to do in an emergency, Tucker turned the engine off and undid his seatbelts.
"On these airplanes, your primary belt's a five-point harness system, where you have shoulder and waist and a crotch stop," he said. "All five points connect in the middle. Over that, you have a secondary belt, for protection in case that one fails. I got rid of the secondary and the five-point. All good to go. I know that I'm just going to leap out to the rear of the aircraft, over the tail and be on my way."
But it wasn't that easy.
"Evidently, I got rid of all my belts except for the one on the left shoulder, so when I went to leap out, I tripped and tumbled out into the airplane," he said. "All my planes have tail-brace wires. As the airplane was going down, I got stuck and wedged in between them. After it gets above 180 to 200 mph, the flying wires really start singing, because of the airflow going over them. I heard those wires sing louder than ever before. Because the plane was in a left turn going down, and I was alongside the fuselage, it was like I was in a vacuum. I couldn't really feel the air."
After untangling himself, Tucker grabbed hold of the tail and pushed the plane away.
"It banked the other way, and away she went," he said. "As soon as I did that, I slowed back down immediately, to 120 mph. I watched her go away. She was just about ready to crash, and I turned my head away. But I heard her crash. First, it's that 'harrumph' sound, and then you hear all the wood breaking. It broke my heart."
Once on the ground near Coushatta, La., Tucker walked up to his plane and surveyed the damage. He couldn't help but note where his body could've been.
"It was really surreal," he said.
In the meantime, his crew hurried to his rescue.
"Once they knew I was jumping, they brought in emergency vehicles," he said. "It was like the Keystone Cops. Fire engines were trying to follow my parachute, while I tried to get a good place to land. A helicopter had been doing a survey and tried to follow me around after hearing about the emergency. He finally figured out that he'd better land, because he was in my way. I landed next to the helicopter and walked over to them. They thought we were making a movie."
When fans began hearing about what had happened, some were amazed at his luck—but Tucker has a saying about that.
"Luck comes to the one most prepared," he grins.
Tucker said he knew the airplane so well that he knew exactly what had happened: the biplane had suffered a mechanical failure in the elevator control linkage.
"I went back to the wreckage, and I pointed to my guys where it broke," he said. "The rod end attaches to the torque tube. That attaches to the stick and that to an idler arm. The idler arm attaches to the elevator. It was a brand new part, and it shattered."
Tucker said the only good news about the incident was that they had bought extra parts when the plane was rebuilt that year, so they were able to get those parts destructively tested.
"They failed at 58 percent of their rated value," he said. "We were able to go back to the manufacturer and let him know that, so he could get rid of those parts and it wouldn't happen to somebody else."
Although nervous, Tucker climbed back into a cockpit at Sun 'n Fun.
"We were debuting the Columbia demonstration," he recalled. "I really wanted to go home and lick my wounds, but I'd made that commitment. Flying the Columbia is one thing; that's a safety demonstration, so it's pretty benign loops and rolls, and talking about safety in the airplane."
That year, at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, Tucker gained entry into the Caterpillar Club, an informal association of people who have successfully used a parachute to bail out of a disabled aircraft.
Tucker said he has no idea how many "triple members" have accepted the Golden Caterpillar, but he has no desire to qualify four times.
"I guarantee you, I always look at my parachute," he said. "Every time I put it on, I open up the back and make sure the pins are straight and the ripcords are attached correctly."
"Is it worth it?"
Tucker had a backup plane, but it would take six weeks to get it to where it was air show-ready for a full season.
"We started out again in June, for my first show at Hill AFB," he said. "I didn't know if I had the nerve. You can think you want to do it, but until you get into the arena, you never know. And Hill is really a tough venue, because of the density altitude; it's higher up. It's like Denver; the planes don't perform that well. We were there a week early to train, to get my G-tolerance back and be ready."
During the show, Tucker asked himself one question repeatedly: "Is it worth it?"
"For the next two months, I was still trying to evaluate the process," he said. "I still loved the flying, but I didn't know if I was always going to be jumpy or think something was going to break every time I heard a noise. That can be dangerous as well. If you're worrying about the airplane breaking, you're not focusing on your mission, which is to fly correctly and dynamically, in the low-level environment. You start losing your confidence, and that's unacceptable."
By the end of the summer, Tucker was convinced he was on the right path.
"I had a pretty good handle that I still needed to do this," he said. "If it ever happened again, I don't know if I'd still feel the same way."
Payback
In 2006, Tucker received the Crystal Eagle Award from the National Aeronautics Association. In 2007, Airport Journals named him a Living Legend of Aviation and he was inducted into the International Council of Airshows Hall of Fame. In July 2008, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. That same week, he took time to perform at the Dayton Air Show. Earlier this year, the Oracle Challenger graced the cover of "The Dayton Air Show: A Photographic Celebration": Twenty Years of Air Show Photography," a joint effort by veteran air show journalist Timothy R. Gaffney and photographer Ty Greenlees. An honorary Thunderbird, Blue Angel and Snowbird, he's the only civilian performer ever to be allowed to fly close formation with the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds.
When Tucker reflects on his career, he can't help but think of those people who helped him get to where he is today. He says he had some great mentors.
"Charlie Hillard and Leo Loudenslager and Bob Harandine are just some of them," he said. "Without them, I wouldn't have a career, and I'd probably be dead. Bob Hoover's another one. Great friends who went out of their way to make sure that I did it correctly and I did it safely. It really empowered me to success."
As payback, Tucker mentors others, hoping to empower them with a passion for the industry.
"Those guys did such great things for me," he said.
When it comes to it being his turn to give, one person who immediately comes to Tucker's mind is Ed Hamill.
"When he wanted to train, I said, 'You have to give me a five-year commitment in order for me to even consider mentoring you.' You need to have 110 percent commitment to do this successfully. A lot of people just don't have it in them to do that. It's a lot of work and you make a lot of sacrifices, in terms of the time you have to take to practice, and what you have to give up. And hitting the road—120 days a year in some hotel room somewhere, 100,000 miles a year on some airline, where they throw you some peanuts."
Hamill agreed to the terms.
"I told him, 'I want to know everything you're doing and every time you change a routine, and I'll give you advice on finding a sponsorship,'" Tucker recalled. "He's now sponsored by the Air Force Reserves."
Tucker said the people he mentors know his demands aren't ego-related.
"It's all about doing it for the right reasons," he said. "That's the key, in order for this industry to grow. There's a huge future for any air show business. 'Jackass Part 2' is over—all this extreme stuff, where people get hurt and it's cool to be stupid. It isn't that way anymore. If you're a pro, it's real-deal drama every day."
Tucker's concern over safety in the industry led him to accept an appointment in 1990, through his local FISDO, as an FAA-appointed airshow certification evaluator. With 23,000 flight hours, it would be hard to find someone more qualified for the position than Tucker.
"In 1992, I helped light the embers, when our industry took over the program," he said. "We're doing this to make the industry better—to keep people alive. We also want to help people choreograph great routines, commensurate with their skill set. Not everybody has the same skill set. When they're first starting out, people need to stay within their own skill sets—push the envelope in practice, but during a show, really have some margins there.
"They need to be very comfortable with what they're doing; because of the low-level environment, you have to be 100 percent convicted of purpose, with a high level of confidence that you can pull that maneuver off, 100 percent of the time. If you're tentative, you put yourself at risk."
Tucker says that person in need of help has to open the door and accept advice.
"When they say it's OK, you can innovate and teach them new things," he said.
Tucker says he enjoys "being the guy that people listen to," because it holds him to a high level of accountability. He's spent countless hours counseling young air show performers on their routines. But he points out that he's mentored many people who aren't so young.
"Because of what I do, there really isn't an age barrier, so people really relate to me, whether they're 8 years old or 68 years old," he said. "There's equality there. I'm able to communicate to all those guys and gals, because I'm so passionate about what I do, and I'm doing it for the right reasons."
Passion, says Tucker, is a requirement in his chosen career.
"I'll never lose that passion, and I'll never get bored flying," he said. "If you lose that passion, you have to quit, because it's way too dangerous."
As an ACE, Tucker has had to disappoint people at times. He's found many to be less ready than they believe, and he's had to tell them that.
"You don't just fail them," he said. "You say, 'You need to come back, because you need more work, and this is specifically what you need to do to successfully pass the criteria, but also, to stay alive in the business.' When it's life and death, you need to be very honest."
Tucker's close encounters with death aren't the only reasons he takes safety so seriously. He's lost many friends in the business, including Jimmy Franklin and Bobby Younkin. He says it breaks his heart that most times, somebody made a mistake.
"I want to find out what mistake they made," he said. "Jimmy was one of the best of the best. What they did was attitude-driven; it was a flawed sequence. That's not saying that's not going to happen to me; if I don't learn from their mistakes, it will."
He has the same attitude when it comes to the shows in which he participates.
"I pay attention to everything that's going on," he said. "I've flown hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of shows, and I watch everybody fly, and I just try to learn from it. Because I'm an ACE, I see if I can see a trend. I have no qualms about going up to people; sometimes, it makes me unpopular, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror."
Tucker's willingness and desire to mentor led him to form the Stars of Tomorrow, a group of six performers, ages 20 to 30, representing the future generation of aerobatic performers. Tucker searched for emerging aerobatic talents in need of help establishing their careers. With Mike Goulian onboard to oversee the training syllabus for the pilots—focusing on fine-tuning their performances for the showmanship of air show flying, as opposed to strict competition-style aerobatics—Tucker asked EAA President Tom Poberezny for permission.
"Once Tom understood that this just wasn't a bunch of kids going nuts, that it was very controlled, he really took ownership of it," Tucker said. "It's been a blast."
When asked why he was involved in forming the Stars of Tomorrow, Tucker laughs and shakes his head.
"Why did I do that? Because that's a lot of work," he said. Then he gets serious. "First, I'm a huge EAA supporter. I believe in its corporate message in grass-roots aviation. I wanted to find a way to salute the new people and give them a shot in a controlled environment, where they can do it safely and still be proud of it. And I wanted to prove a point: you don't need to fly like Sean Tucker to be successful in this business. You need to communicate your passion of flying, and what more perfect venue than EAA."
Tucker says that performing at Oshkosh changes a pilot's life.
"It gives you an opportunity to showcase your passion for flight in front of your brothers and sisters in aviation," he said.
The Stars of Tomorrow debuted at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh in 2003. The team included Chandy Clanton, Goody Thomas, Wyche T. Coleman III, Zach Heffley, David Ellison and Nick Nilmeyer. Two years later, the team included Nilmeyer as the team captain, Jessy Panzer and Eric Tucker, Sean Tucker's son, flying a Pitts S-2C as left wingman.
The team suffered a dark moment the following year, when Nilmeyer, 23, perished while attempting to land his Extra 300S at a private airfield.
"He was our most talented kid," Tucker said. "It really took the wind out of my sails—out of everybody's. He was a prodigy."
Tucker said that in his business, there's no margin for error.
"He had all the skills to be a low-level air show guy, and all the requirements, but he didn't yet have the maturity," he said.
Tucker said that as a mentor, it's hard not to wonder if you could have done or said something to prevent a tragedy like that.
"There's a lot of guilt to go around," he said. "Any person who has a hand in mentoring somebody, when you lose that person, a little part of yourself goes away, too."
Tucker said you never get over a loss like that, but he wants to do the Stars of Tomorrow again.
"You take a break after you lose a kid like that, but I'll probably do something in 2009," he said.
The Tutima Academy of Aviation Safety
Tucker's concern for safety also led him to start the Sean D. Tucker School of Aerobatic Flight in 1997. In 2004, through a partnership with the Tutima Watch Company, the school became the Tutima Academy of Aviation and Safety. It's now the world's premier precision flight training school.
The academy, which provides training in a "unique environment," offers a variety of courses including stall/spin recognition and recovery training, aerobatic proficiency training, a low-level aerobatic mentorship program and formation aerobatic flight training.
"Last year was the first year we ever broke even," Tucker said. "I'm really satisfied with that. People say, 'Golly, that's a lot of effort and risk for that.' But it saves lives. It's the most awesome school—the coolest place going."
Tucker said the school has changed many lives.
"We have a mission statement that says we allow the student to risk failure in order to achieve success, where they feel comfortable in their own skin coming there," he said.
During the weeklong process, the instructors help the students face fears.
"We teach them how to get out of every conceivable spin, take them all the way up through competition aerobatics in those 10 hours," he said. "After that course, we feel pretty good about people. They might not be able to land a Pitts, but they can fly aerobatics in one, and they'll never spin an airplane in."
Tucker says he's had a blast growing the academy, which is in "a funky little place called King City."
"It's an agricultural town out in the middle of nowhere," he said.
Hundreds of people have come to California from the around the world to train at the academy.
"We're not big," he said. "Two to three students a week is all we want."
So far, the team instructing those students has been Sean and Eric Tucker, Ben Freelove, Bill Stein and Ken Erickson (chief pilot). Tucker is thrilled that Tutima has played such a big role in the school.
"Tutima had been with me for the last 15 years, as one of my product sponsors for my air show team," he said. "It really threw down some dough; we're able to buy an extra 300, paint the floor. It's becoming a brand all in itself."
Tucker says the academy is also a "mom and pop" fixed base operation.
"I sell fuel there, but the primary reason for it being there is to save lives," he said.
He laughs and admits that students request to fly with him, but he says the other instructors are "so much better" than he is.
"They do it full time," he said. "When I finally retire and hang up my helmet as a performer, I'll be there full time. For now, it's hard when I'm traveling, but in the wintertime, I go flying with them."
Eric Tucker
According to Tucker, his son didn't waste much time getting into a cockpit. He started taking formal flight lessons when he was 12.
"Eric soloed in gliders when he was 14, soloed a Pitts when he was 16, and won his first aerobatic sportsman contest when he was 17," he said.
From age 9 to 16, Eric spent his summers touring the air show circuit as the narrator for his father's air show routine and as the copilot in the team's crew plane. While attending Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo, moving toward his aerospace engineering degree, he spent summers and weekends working as a flight instructor at his father's academy, teaching aerobatics, stall/spins and unusual attitudes.
Tucker doesn't take all the credit for his son's interest in flying.
"I think my air show family truly inspired him to fly," he said. "He got away from it for a couple of years, because he had to decide whether or not he was doing it for me or because he loved it. When he came back, he had made a commitment to make a career in aviation."
Tucker explained that his son, now 26, mainly instructs in the winter. At one point, Eric was an engineering test pilot for Columbia Aircraft Manufacturing Corp.
"I stole him away," Tucker said. "This is a full-time commitment. His focus is to make the Team Oracle program successful. He works with me full time on that program. He travels on the road with me and does all the management. But he probably instructs 50 hours a year, dual, to people at the academy."
Moving in a different direction
In recent years, Sean and Eric Tucker, as well as Stein and Freelove, have been involved in a spectacular new aerobatic routine. The Collaborators features Tucker in the Oracle Challenger, his son in an Extra 300L as his left wingman; Freelove, 29, in an Extra 300L as right wingman; and Stein, 50, flying an Edge 540 in the slot.
"Bill was on the Red Baron Stearman Squadron four years," Tucker said. "Right now, I honestly believe we're the best—don't tell the AeroShell Team that. I feel we're the most entertaining, dynamic, formation aerobatic team in the country right now. What excites me is that we combine the grace of precision, formation aerobatic flying with the drama and the dynamics of solo flying, because we do it all during the routine. It's all mixed together, and it's really, really fun.
"It's basically very graceful, very elegant—kind of poetry in motion—but you can go from right echelon to left echelon, do loops and barrel rolls and clover rolls and all of that. Then we'll break off into quadrants, and we'll all be in the aerobatic arena at the same time, doing our solo maneuvers. There's so much stuff going on in the box. Instead of just one guy, there are four guys doing solo stuff. That is really cool. But again, it has to be well communicated and well choreographed. You've got to know where everybody is, in time, so you don't go banging into each other."
Tucker said they've been working on the project for almost four years.
"This is the third season that we've done shows," he said.
Tucker is getting a kick out of working closely with the young pilots on the team.
"This is all about seeing growth and change," he said. "Ben and Eric are going to be so far ahead of me. I obviously want them both to be better than me."
He said they're both very technical.
"Since Eric's an aerospace engineer, he understands the whole technical aspect of it," he said. "He's very disciplined with that."
Tucker has been pleased with the maturity displayed by both Freelove and his son in aerobatic flying.
"They're very serious with regards to maintenance of the aircraft, pre-flighting, the briefs and the debriefs," he said. "They don't understand yet that there are 'gotchas' everywhere, but they're getting there."
Tucker says that one thing he likes about flying on the team is that nobody pulls rank during the debrief.
"I might be the boss, because I'm funding it, and it was my vision, but everybody's equal in the debrief," he said. "If I do something wrong, they need to speak out; conversely, if they do something wrong, I need to speak out."
Tucker says that right now, he's the "franchise" of the team, but that will change.
"We have four individual personalities," he said. "When the team becomes a franchise, it will be a much bigger presence. There's a stronger future downstream."
Tucker says that being a solo performer has been "a great, great walk," and that the path he's been on has been a wonderful experience. However, he believes his future lies in the four-ship.
"I'm going to slowly retire from the solo flying and do the formation aerobatic flying," he said. "It's the best flying in the world. There's nothing else like it. Formation aerobatic flying is the purest expression of the third dimension."
Presently, Team Oracle sponsors the Collaborators. However, Tucker is looking for further sponsorship.
"Once that happens, I'll do a final year as a solo performer and then transition all the way over into the lead of the four-ship," he said. "It's really a blast; it's reinvigorated my passion. I'm learning so much as a lead, and it keeps me fired up, wanting to get into that airplane."
He's counting on his son staying fired up as well.
"As long as there's a future, and we can make the team successful financially, I think he'll stay aboard," Tucker said. "He's really enjoying this process. This is the perfect time to try to grow this, before he's married and makes commitments."
On the home front
Tucker knows the meaning of the word commitment. He and his wife, Colleen, have been married for more than three decades. He admits that their life hasn't been a bed of roses.
"We're truly, happily married, after 31 years," he said. "She knows how committed I am to my dream; she's been always so supportive of me striving to have my personal best. We've had some tough times, in terms of financial struggles, to make it happen. Whenever there was no money, when the airplane would break, when I'd remortgage the house to buy a new engine, she's always been great. She never said 'quit.' Now my house is almost paid for, I've got money in the bank, I'm making a good living, both my kids are out of college, debt-free—can't do better than that."
Colleen Tucker often takes to the road with her husband and her son.
"She's a nurse, but she works part-time," he said. "She comes to half to two-thirds of my shows. When the kids were growing up, they traveled all summer with me, every year. That's how we stayed a family."
Eric wasn't the couple's only child who thought of following their father into the sky. His 24-year-old daughter, Tara, who recently graduated from college and now works as the assistant to the creative director for Fox Broadcast, expressed an interest as well.
"On her college application, she wrote that she was going to learn to fly, but I think she did that so she'd be unique on the application," Tucker laughed. "She started, but when she got in, that all slowed down. She realized she was just doing it for me. If she says she wants to learn to fly, though, I have a Cub here she can learn on. But she's delving into her own life. I don't think flying is a part of it."
Continuing with Oracle
Tucker is entering his eighth year of sponsorship from Oracle Corporation, the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest independent software company. He said that Team Oracle has figured out how to make the company money in the air show business.
"Oracle has invested a lot of money in this program, and its seeing a significant return on its investment because of our efforts," he said. "Air shows are one of the greatest venues in the world, because people are going to see the z-axis flyers. A sales rep can invite an Oracle customer out on a weekend and do business where it's low-key, very relaxed. We'll have a VIP chalet, where they can bring their family and guests, and start building a relationship. They have to be able to trust you and what you say you're going to do; it has really been a great success for us. Oracle's very satisfied."
Tucker has kept his fans happy as well. Flying 700 hours per year, in more than 1,000 performances at more than 425 air shows, in front of more than 80 million fans, he's continued to dazzle spectators with routines that are different than anyone else's.
More than half of his maneuvers are original and have never been duplicated by another aerobatic pilot. The world's only pilot to perform a triple ribbon cut, he flies through the ribbons at 220 mph in right knife-edge for the first ribbon, then left knife-edge and finally inverted. The ribbons are only 25 feet off the ground.
A traditional part of Tucker's 15-minute power aerobatic routine has been choosing 12 volunteers and, after a team member briefs them, placing them on the runway over which Tucker is flying. Split into three groups of four people, the volunteers are spaced 750 feet apart. Once at their locations, each group will raise a set of 20-foot high aluminum poles that have a colored ribbon stretched between them, approximately 60 feet wide. Tucker first dives down at more than 215 mph and stops the Oracle Challenger's descent five feet above the runway, before taking aim at the first ribbon and then flying beneath it.
His next move is to immediately pull up into a triple avalanche—an inside loop with three snap rolls on top. As he completes the maneuver, he again accelerates to over 200 mph, and then flies beneath the remaining two ribbons. Using the Challenger's giant, three-bladed composite propeller, he returns to slice all three ribbons. Tucker does the routine in three different flight altitudes, diving toward the first ribbon, stopping the descent 15 feet above the runway at 215 mph, and then immediately rolling the aircraft into right knife-edge flight, until his lower wingtip is barely eight feet above the runway. Then, he slices through the first ribbon and instantly rolls the aircraft 180 degrees to left knife-edge flight and cuts ribbon number two. Finally, he rolls inverted and shreds the third and final ribbon.
During media photo flights, he'll fly upright and inverted within five feet of the support plane that's carrying photographers. Twice during the performance, he'll fly the aircraft backwards, straight-down, tail-first at more than 100 mph.
Looking back over the years, Tucker says he can't call what he feels about flying an addiction.
"There's spirituality to it," he said. "You've got to ask yourself why you're doing this. Are you being creative? Are you doing it responsibly? I really identify who I am as a person with the way I fly and how I fly."
He adds that he's definitely not done yet—learning or entertaining.
"I'm still working as hard as I ever have, and I still haven't figured it out yet," he said. "It's still very compelling to me."
Back to Page 1
|
|
|
|
|
