Page 8 - Volume 17 Number 5

such as over a golf course adjacent to a NASCAR track, the only change is determining the crowd line and safety parameters. The Red Bull Air Races, last held in 2010 near the Statue of Liberty in New York, will soon start up again, according to Chambliss.There’s a radical difference in the Meridian’s ride versus the creature comforts in the Team Chambliss Zivko Edge 540 airshow airplanes. The show planes are designed to be unstable, completely responsive and able to fly without effort in any attitude, pulling up to 12 Gs during the show. There’s no heater, only basic instruments and very little space for cross-country gear. The Meridian, with its 500-hp PT6A turboprop, delivers a stable ride in posh comfort, and it often carries 400 pounds of parts in the cabin. Chambliss typically flies alone, or with a maximum of two passengers.The Next GenerationKirby Chambliss and his wife Kellie, who also flies professionally as the pilot of a Twin Otter skydive plane, have an eight-year-old daughter who has grown up riding around with her parents, as did Kirby. His earliest memories are of flying with his father in the family Ercoupe. “I’ve been blessed,” he says, “because I was lucky enough to always know what I wanted to do. They tell me I walked around with an airplane in my hand at age two; I was always knew I going to fly. I think it is more difficult for people who grow up not knowing what it is they want to do with their life.”By the time Chambliss was 21 years old, he was flying right-seat in a Cessna Citation business jet, and his boss thought he should know how to fly aerobatics, in case he ever wound up upside down in the jet. He took training with the legendary Duane Cole in a Decathlon, and the first time he rolled inverted he thought, Wow, this is the coolest thing ever. From that point on, there was no looking back. Aerobatics became his passion.6 • TWIN & TURBINEMAY 2013