AEROBATIC pilot Glenn Graham is returning to his home skies on Sunday with the Paul Bennet Airshows team for the Lake Boga Splash Down and Rev Up.
Mr Graham learned to fly with his father at Mid Murray Flying Club in Swan Hill and has gone on to become a two-time Australian Advanced Aerobatic Champion and won the Australian Unlimited Aerobatic Championship.
“My dad took me for a flight at four and the view that I saw while upside down in the plane is what stuck to me to this day,” Mr Graham said.
“From then that’s all I wanted to do – I didn’t want to be a commercial airline pilot or join the Airforce; I wanted to do aerobatics.
“I’m quite excited to be back performing in my hometown, because it’s amazing travelling around the world with this job but there’s nothing like coming home.
“It’ll be nice to come back and put a show on for the people I grew up with, and my 91-year-old father will come watch, so it’ll be extra special.
“Our goal is to promote aviation to the next generation of enthusiasts like I was inspired when I was a child.”
The Paul Bennet Airshow team has planned a high adrenaline show for spectators on Sunday.
“Paul Bennet and I have put together solo performances, and we’ll do a formation display all together which is quite dramatic,” Mr Graham said.
“We’re always pushing the limits of the aircraft and ourselves.
“I fly for myself and the style that I like, and it’s the drive to achieve perfection that keeps me going.
“It’s like dancing in the sky, a lot of pilots compare it to ice skating, with the gracefulness and perfection in pulling off certain manoeuvres.”
Aerobatic pilots are put under 10 times the force of gravity, or g-force while performing, which puts their bodies and aircraft under extreme pressure.
“My body weight exceeds 800kg when I have 10G pushing me into the seat and it comes on and off quite suddenly over three to four seconds while performing, which puts a lot of stress on the airplane,” Mr Graham said.
“The average person will start to have side effects at about the 5G mark and start losing colour in their vision, and at 6G vision starts to become tunnelled, and the longer you hold the pressure there the more your vision will close.
“In videos of aerobatic pilots, you’ll see them shouting because that tightens the muscles in the neck to keep blood in their brain and let them keep their vision a bit longer.
“You can never perfect aerobatic flying, every performance of the same routine will be different while you’re manipulating the animal that is the airplane and that is very rewarding for me and keeps me going.”
