Aerobatic pilot living his dream of soaring high

For as long as pilot Greg Koontz can remember, he’s dreamed of soaring high.

“My dad was a corporate pilot, but I never got to go because his boss didn’t want little kids on a corporate airplane,” he said. “I did get to go on some test runs, though, so it kind of rubbed it under my nose all my life.”

Koontz — leader of the Super/Xtreme Decathlons — said he can remember his passion for aerobatics being fueled during an Alabama airshow he visited with his father.

“The big turning point for me was this airshow,” he said. ” ‘Bevo’ Howard, whose airplane is hanging in the Smithsonian, was there. I walked up to ‘Bevo’ at 7 years old and asked him about his airplane and he explained how his biplane came over to the United States from Germany on the Hindenburg. He talked to me for a long time and he treated me like an adult. He didn’t talk down to me, he didn’t act like he’d really like to be doing something else. He made me feel important.”

Koontz said in that moment he decided he was going to be an airshow performer.

“That’s what I focused on,” he said. “I learned how to fly when I was 16, got my license when I was 17 and the first thing I did was get checked out in an aerobatic airplane.”

But it wasn’t long before reality sunk in and he realized he needed a “real job,” as he puts it, to fund his passion.

“So I got a corporate flying job like my dad did and performed in airshows in my spare time,” he said.

Koontz said he first dipped his toe in the airshow performance world after buying a Piper Cub from Ernie Moser, owner of the traveling Col. Moser’s Flying Circus out of St. Augustine, Fla.

“They called me up in Alabama and told me they needed to use my Cub and I agreed to lend it to them if they would let me do a comedy act in the show,” he said. “The short of it is they ended up hiring me to work for them down in Florida. They taught me the ropes, they watched over me, taught me some aerobatics and I worked my way down to lower altitudes and cooler airplanes. I did about 80 airshows with them.”

Koontz said he was able to quit his corporate job and focus on airshows full-time through his company, Greg Koontz Aviation, in 2002.

“I was able to finish off that dream,” he said.

Koontz said one of the comedy acts he perfected while with the Flying Circus was the “World’s Smallest Airport” stunt in which he lands his plane on a moving pickup truck.

He said he added to the skit when he formed the Alabama Boys comedy team, which will be performing at Chennault this weekend.

Their skit begins with farmer “Clem Cleaver” (Koontz) climbing up on the announcer’s stand, demanding a flight lesson. Later in the show, he steals a vintage 1946 Piper J-3 Cub and takes off alone, with his whole crew chasing him. “Grandpa” (Fred Masterson) shoots off a tire to get the plane down, and Clem lands on Grandpa’s pickup truck as it races down the runway.

“It’s our own version of a traditional comedy act and it’s based off the Darling family on ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ ” he said. “They were a bunch of misfits getting into trouble all the time.”

But it doesn’t end there.

“If the wind’s not bad, we keep the plane on the truck and drive into the crowd,” he said. “We’ll set up a table and give away posters to kids and kind of do the same thing ‘Bevo’ Howard did for me.”

Koontz said being at the show with the children is one of his favorite parts of the day and he can’t wait to share his passion with a new generation.

“We talk to them, give them some attention and tell them they can do this, too,” he said.

This is the fifth in a series of profile pieces on pilots who will be featured at this weekend’s Chennault International Airshow.

Aerobatic pilot Greg Koontz, leader of the Super/Xtreme Decathlons, will perform during this weekend’s Chennault International Airshow.

Special to the American Press