Downloaded from YTS.MX
(engine rumbling)
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
- [Radio] Trans com four seven contact departure, good day.
(gentle music)
- [Woman] Aerobatics is unique, it's very special.
- [Debby] It's amazing it's,
that you can make an airplane do that.
- [Man] What impressed me the most was what the earth
looks like from upside down, straight down, straight up.
It's really spectacular.
You have such a feeling of freedom.
- [Woman] I'm fearless in general,
but I feel so great in the air that no, there's no fear.
- [Melissa] For me, being in my plane
is where I'm comfortable
and once I'm sitting in that cockpit, it's game on.
- I think we must stop discussing about women
in aerobatics and men in aerobatics.
It's just aerobatics.
And I think it make no difference if you're a woman or
man.
(upbeat music)
(drum music)
- [Woman] I think it's more or less a men's sport,
don't know why.
- [Man] Women are becoming more empowered
and they realize they can do anything as well,
if not better than the men.
So we're seeing far more women now exposing themselves
to skydiving, aerobatics, you know, extreme skiing.
And it's a great thing, you know.
Like, why wouldn't they?
- Hi, I'm Connie Baker.
I'm here with Andrew Wright.
We'll be flying in the Giles 202,
the hottest plane in the circuit today.
- When anybody experiences an aerobatics flight
for the first time, it's something you never forget.
- [Andrew] How you feel, you feel okay?
- I feel fine.
- [Andrew] Feel great?
Awesome.
Alright, we're gonna roll up on the up line
and then we're gonna roll on the down line.
This is kinda weird because you're not used
to seeing the world come around from these directions.
You're gonna pick up a little speed.
And then we're gonna come out at a pretty fast speed.
Here we go, vertical, probably seven.
Look left, look left, look left.
(laughing)
Look left, that's two.
Hammerhead coming up.
Three, two, one, pivot.
Looking straight down.
That's a quarter roll, that's a quarter roll.
Coming up.
(laughing)
- I did it!
(mumbles)
- [Andrew] You did, you're doing awesome.
How'd you feel?
- I feel great!
- [Andrew] Do you, really?
- Yes!
- [Andrew] Awesome, awesome, good.
Many people are totally done, totally get me out of here
right now done.
- First time I got in a plane,
I was, I don't know, maybe one week old or two.
- First time I flew was a long time ago now.
I was 14.
- I, in fact, didn't start flying at all until my 30s.
- I got a ride by somebody in an airplane
and started flying.
The very next day, actually.
- I started flying when I was sitting beside my husband
and I was wondering when he became ill, what happened.
- My grandmother was a pilot.
Her fun thing to do with the grandkids was
take you up in the Cessna.
I just absolutely fell in love with aviation and aerobatics
at a very young age.
- Well, I'm third generation of pilot in my family.
I've flown aerobatics for 35 years
and I've been to, this'll be my 15th world championship.
I think it's just time.
It's time to retire.
I'm Debby Rihn-Harvey from the United States.
- I'm Kathel Boulanger and aerobatic pilot
in the French team.
- My name is Aude, I'm airline pilot on (mumbles) seven.
- My name's Ann Marie Ward and I am a member
of the Canadian aerobatic team.
- I'm Dagmar Kress.
I'm on the German aerobatic team.
- My name is Heike Sauels.
I'm part of the German team.
- My name's Melissa Pemberton
and I'm a professional air show pilot and display skydiver.
- [Announcer] Here we are,
the 2013 Aerobatic Championship in Texas.
Our first female pilot is Debby Rihn-Harvey.
She has flown at the unlimited level for 31 years
and this is her last world championship.
Will she finally be able to take home the title?
(upbeat music)
- You know, I've always competed against the guys.
Now there's a little controversy.
My husband used to say that I learned aerobatics
because a man could do something that I couldn't do,
so I said "No, that wasn't true."
I really didn't know that it was strange to have a woman
as a pilot or a woman racing cars or anything else.
So I did it all.
It's in my blood.
- Debby Rihn-Harvey is somebody that I admire very much.
Of course, I have to be neutral here
because I'm on the jury.
She is an extremely talented pilot.
She has more experience than any other pilot
on this airfield at the moment.
There's nobody that has competed in more world championships
than she has.
She's flown in all the wind conditions, all the weather,
all the different temperatures,
and of course all kinds of different airfields.
And that's also an advantage for her.
And she's flown at this nationals here for over 30
years.
- My grandfather flew in the teens and 20s,
was a barn stormer.
My father flew during World War II
and taught my brothers and I how to fly
when we were in our early teens.
- We're seeing more women airline pilots than ever before,
more women in the military flying aircraft there.
And why we've not seen a girl within aerobatics?
I don't have a definitive answer for you,
but we're going our best to encourage it.
- The number of women pilots in general
is a real mystery for me.
- The women that compete at world championships
fly better than the men, quite often so.
It's not a physical barrier.
I think it's more a case of women aren't exposed to it
as much.
If more women flew airplanes,
we would have more women aerobatic pilots.
So it's pretty much as simple as that.
(engine rumbling)
- Personally, I've seen firsthand
how challenging it has been for Melissa to excel
in what is a male-dominated sport.
There's still traditional feelings, I think,
within the sport where maybe males can do this better
than females.
And kind of that stigma to it, which is not true.
A woman can fly just as good as a male.
- Rex talks about the ups and the downs in this sport
and a lot of them for me have been because I'm a woman
and because I've been doing this for 11 years
and I'll still be looked at
and "Oh, here's the up and coming"
because I'm a young girl.
This is all I've done.
So sometimes there'll be a male that comes into the sport,
will be in it a couple years,
and they're instantly viewed as being more experienced
than me because they're a man.
And that, to me, is real tough.
- You know, I see myself just as a pilot.
And being a woman is completely secondary.
It's not meaningful.
- There were obstacles along the way,
but I just worked harder to try to overcome that obstacle
and prove that I could do the same job.
(airplane revving)
- There's still battles to be fought
and I think that the women who have come before us
have fought many of those battles
and have made it come a long, long way for women.
And I hope that by doing what we do,
we can keep on making that progression.
(dramatic music)
(door squeaking)
(engine rumbling)
- I really never thought I would be interested
in aerobatics, only because I thought those people
were crazy.
Why would anybody want to do that
in a perfectly good airplane?
- You get to fly upside down, in three dimensions.
It's another way of flying.
- You're doing loops, you're doing rolls.
It's like that thrill of a roller coaster ride.
- The first aerobatic maneuver that I ever saw
and felt was a loop.
- The first time I did spins, I was scared to death.
- I was almost afraid to go upside down for the first time.
And then there it was, it was just another maneuver
and another way to fly and it opened up a whole new world
of flying.
- [Andrew] How's your seatbelt, is that tight?
- Oh, the bottom one.
- [Andrew] Put a few more on that
until you're uncomfortable.
- Okay, I'm uncomfortable.
- [Andrew] Okay, that's good.
Here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna roll upside down and you're gonna decide
if it's too loose, okay?
- Okay.
- [Andrew] Here we go.
(laughing)
It can't be that loose.
- Oh my god!
- [Andrew] You wanna make it any tighter or is that okay?
- (laughs) Believe it or not, I think I got it!
- [Andrew] Alright, alright.
Well, here's a roll, here's a roll.
Looking straight ahead, here we go.
That's a roll.
That's the easy roll.
Alright?
- Okay.
- [Andrew] Now I'll talk to you about that basket roll.
Brace your head.
Brace your head, the elbows brace really good, right?
Here we come.
Here I go.
(laughing)
- That was awesome!
- [Andrew] Look like you're having a good time up there.
- Among the women that we have,
today we have a very, very strong playing field.
I think that everyone has spent a lot of time
preparing to be here.
Of course, Svetlana has won top-placing female
more times than I know.
(laughs) So I would probably put her right at the top
of someone who's gonna be quite tough to beat.
- Svetlana Kapanina is probably
the finest woman aerobatic pilot of all time.
She's won the world champion title I think now seven times.
We've never seen such a consistent performance.
- Before Svetlana, no woman had this quality of flight,
as high as a man had.
- For one, she's very, very talented.
She has a lot of natural ability.
And then on top of that, the Russian team has
a fantastic coaching program that they've developed
over many years to develop many world championships.
She's part of the system
and I think the combination of those two,
good airplanes, good coaching, pure talent,
and natural ability, is what put her at the very top.
- What makes the top performers in anything,
what brings them to the top?
And it's always the talent and an amount of practice,
very hard work at it.
If you only have the talent and you don't work at it,
you won't get there.
If you only work at it and you don't have the talent,
you won't get there either.
You need both.
And then you need circumstances in life
that put you in that position to take advantage of it.
And she probably has an ability to focus on it
and stay concentrated.
So I wish her the best for this year's competition again.
- Svetlana does exactly what you have to do to win
and she's consistent about it.
In other words, she comes here well-prepared,
well-practiced, she's very concentrated,
she does not make mistakes.
She flies the figures extremely precisely
and she never goes outside the box.
An aerobatic box is sort of like a tennis court,
only it's three dimensional.
The box is 1,000 meters square,
but also it's 1,000 meters high.
So it's a cube.
And the pilot must fly their competition routines,
or what we call sequences, inside that box.
And to remain inside the box in order to avoid
getting penalties.
What the judge does, they're judging figure quality only.
They're watching the pilot fly the figures
and they're marking him from zero to 10.
But we have judges also on the corners,
and they have devices out there that they sight on,
they look at, and they can tell when the pilot's out,
and then they call it in.
So what's good about this system is
it lets the judges totally concentrate
on the quality of the maneuvers and the figures themselves.
And then the other judges take care of determining
whether or not the pilot is in or outside the box.
(engine rumbling)
I can't emphasize how important it is
that they observe the limits of the box.
That's why you'll hear many discussions among pilots here
about the box.
And they don't like it too much.
- Is anybody not familiar with that?
- It's just reaction when you come to land
and you see your results.
You're thinking about the judges.
And do not well and the do not (mumbles).
- You can imagine, most of the aircraft like the one
behind me are typically flying at over 200 miles per hour
at the bottom of some of the figures
when they're at their fastest speeds.
And it doesn't take long to go
through a 1,000 meter distance at 200 miles per hour.
So it's extremely challenging for them to do those figures
in the box.
- You are taking two 90s, a positive,
and minus six, minus seven on the flight.
And you can have a huge difference
between the positive and negative in just a second.
When you are talking about positive Gs,
it means you are pulling this like vertically,
you have a feeling that you are going down.
And all your blood goes from the head to the feet.
And this is the opposite in negative Gs.
You have your blood flowing up to the head.
- [Andrew] Here we go, you're gonna look forward
and then you're gonna look left, okay?
Three, two, one, go.
(laughing)
Okay, should have warned you about that one.
Look left now, look left.
Pick your head up, look left.
Now hold your head up.
Don't let your head fall back like that again.
- Okay.
- [Andrew] Can't pick it up, can you?
- No I can't.
We're off the (mumbles) now.
That's the problem with the heavy G.
Once your head falls back, you can't pick it up.
Wherever your arms are, they're staying there
because they weigh three, four, five, six times
than they weigh normally.
- It's a large range of G, but you're only pulling it
for a couple of seconds.
So you can just resist against it by using your muscles
or the negative G by relaxing.
Which we of course, over the season,
build up our G tolerance.
If you think "I'm sitting here and I pull 10 Gs"
suddenly that's 10 times my own weight
going down on my body and on my internal organs
and everything.
So by tightening your muscles, you're able to resist
against that, you're able to help keep the blood out
to your extremities instead of being pushed in
toward your heart and your brain
and causing what we call that tunnel vision
or possible grayouts and blackouts.
- I have experienced a loss of consciousness
in an aerobatic flight.
And early on in my training, all I was doing was
inverted turns and then a pull down.
And I didn't realize you don't have to do high negative Gs,
it's just sustained negative Gs and a pull down
that can get you.
And the world went gone.
I was completely unconscious for a few seconds.
The recovery was frightening
because it took a minute before I knew where I was.
And then I almost had the shakes or something.
And I couldn't really control things for a moment or two.
I was just lucky I was in a climb
and by the time things settled down
and I was able to fly again safely.
(upbeat music)
- When I hear "a woman who dares",
what that brings to mind is women who are willing
to go out there and try something,
go out there and take a chance.
- I'm not even sure if we are women who dare,
because it is very calculated.
- I think that for women just to have the courage
to take opportunities when they have them,
I think that that's a daring woman right there.
- The only thing stopping you in life to do things
is really yourself.
Most things happen in life because you want them to happen.
- I haven't flown in 9 years, about 9 years.
From 1999 to 2008, I haven't flown.
And the reason why I stopped,
I became more aware of the risk.
Also my brother's wife passed away in an airplane accident
when his son and my daughter were
just a little under three years old.
And when she didn't come home, that was very hard.
And I just quit.
I couldn't, I got so afraid to not come home anymore.
- So I'm not afraid when I see her training,
because everything is well prepared.
We share the same vision, the same sport
so I know how it works.
- Mechanical failure, we train for them.
And maybe the only fear in the championship
is a mistake, a mistake I will do.
- I may say "Hey, Melissa",
"look at this thing on the airplane,"
"it seems to be cracked."
And Lissa will walk up and go "Oh, you're an idiot."
"This doesn't matter, it's nothing."
(Melissa laughs)
But for me, it's not nothing.
For me, it's something that if it breaks,
oh my gosh, what would happen?
Would Melissa go into a wild spin and crash?
Stuff like that is important to me,
but at the same time, she's got the experience.
So when she says it's fine, I need to back off
and go "Okay, it's fine, it's going to be fine."
- If you look at the statistics,
aerobatic competition has a very low accident rate.
And I want to say, I'm not sure if I'm right,
but I think there have been only two fatalities
in 40 years of competition.
One was 1976 and the other one was Vicki Cruse.
- [Announcer] The 27th World Aerobatic Championship
takes place over a 10 day period and includes 60 pilots
from 18 different countries.
Each pilot must perform four programs.
Known, unknown, free, and four-minute freestyle.
These strong-willed female pilots will be tested
on their physical abilities, knowledge, and skills.
Kathel Boulanger has done a wonderful job preparing
her newly designed pink Extreme Air XA41 plane
to win this championship.
She's been a member of the French team since 2004
and has one thing in mind.
Winning first place.
(rock music)
The next pilot preparing is Aude Lemordant,
also representing France with her Cap 232 plane.
She finished second in the last world championship.
Will this be the year she takes down Svetlana,
the highest ranking female pilot of all time?
- When I meet people like Kathel and Aude,
one thing I know is that they love what they do
and they love flying and they love aerobatics
more than anything.
- I started aerobatics because one of my friends took me
for a ride.
I loved that.
Some more hours of flight for my professional licenses
and I said "Oh, I like aerobatics",
"so I will pass my second degree in aerobatics."
And I actually never stopped.
(thunder crashing)
- Well, nothing's been happening here
because of low cloud, rain, and winds that are too high.
- We're going stir-crazy, to be honest.
This weather is terrible.
And it's because there's a tropical storm or a cyclone
or something coming out of Mexico right now.
And it's just dumping rain here in Texas.
- There's supposed to be four programs
and I guess I might get two.
Which are not the most selective programs,
because the most selective ones are the unknowns.
So I don't think we'll get a chance to do it.
- I haven't flown yet, so I still have to be thinking
about my program and ready to fly.
But that's a tough thing to maintain
when it's just day after day of sitting around
with dreary weather inside of a hotel.
(upbeat music)
- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen,
here's our youngest pilot in the competition,
Melissa Pemberton of the United States.
She's a very talented young lady
and this is her second world competition
and she's got big shoes to fill.
Will she be the next Debby Rihn-Harvey or Patti Wagstaff?
(engine rumbling)
- My dad was a deep sea diver
and we dredged for gold as kids growing up.
And he would take us for rock climbing as a family.
I think that my father's adventurous side
was really passed onto me,
and my mom comes from an aviation family.
So when I told them "You know, Mom and Dad,"
"I think I want to become an airshow pilot"
"and a professional aerobatic pilot,"
I don't think they were all that surprised.
(laughs)
I have a couple of little traditions that I keep up.
I always do my nails so they're in their red, white,
and blue.
And that's my own little good luck charm.
I do that for world level and national level competitions.
- Melissa is a great pilot and a great aerobatic pilot
and I think if she chooses to continue at this level
in competition, she'll do very well.
- What most pilots do that are serious about competition
is they start at sportsman and then they work their way up
and gradually gain the experience and skill
that they need.
That's exactly what Melissa did.
Plus she has a good aircraft, good support.
- I think that you do have a sort of relationship
with your airplane.
Me, I always say "Oh, it's our baby."
I spend way more time with that airplane
than I do my husband.
- Well, we met actually in Australia.
Melissa decided to tour Australia for a year
and bring her aircraft down from the United States
to Australia to train.
And I met her through a mutual passion of BASE jumping,
which is jumping off cliffs with parachutes.
Something that really attracted me to Melissa
in the first place when we first met
was just that pure drive that she has,
to set a goal and then go after it
and not let anybody get in the way.
- We're seeing far more women now exposing themselves
to skydiving, aerobatics, you know, extreme skiing.
And it's a great thing.
Like, why wouldn't they?
The difference between, say,
the French and the Russian teams and the other countries,
is they are teams.
They have structure.
They have coaching.
They have spots in their national aero club.
They have sponsors.
They run training camps.
That is how you win a championship.
- For many women that are now still early in their careers,
that have recently entered aviation as a career field,
they're not at the point in their lives yet
where they may be able to afford it.
Certainly that's true in America.
Now, the subsidized or the state-supported teams,
that's a little different.
- Many countries, it is a hobby
and so therefore, you have to weigh your time
and commitment to that hobby
versus making a living to pay for the hobby
and what your participation level will be.
- It's very expensive to become involved in aerobatics
because first of all, you have to be an experienced pilot
to begin with.
And then there's the purchase of the aircraft
and the aircraft now are all in six figures in US dollars.
Two to $400,000.
But then the training of course is also very intensive
and very expensive.
I will say this, it's not so expensive to start
in aerobatics, it's only when you get
into serious competition later.
Not only money, but also a lot of time.
- I'm on the road from January through November
with air shows.
And then adding a world level competition and training
to the mix, it leaves me with very little spare time.
- It requires a lot of dedication and a lot of
sacrifice
from other parts of your life and family.
- [Andrew] One of my favorite airshow moves.
We're gonna roll up, roll up, roll up, roll up.
We're going to transition
into an inverted upright flag spin.
Spinning down, spinning down, spinning down.
It's kinda wild.
But it's actually gentle, it really is.
- Okay.
- [Andrew] Always get (mumbles) about that.
(laughs)
But you might want to brace you head, okay?
You might want to brace your head.
There we go, we're going down right here.
Going down center, coming up into that.
Pulling up, rolling to the right, to the left.
Rolling, rolling, rolling to the right.
You still with me?
- I'm here!
- [Andrew] Here we go.
- Oh my God!
To the left, spin to the left.
Oh yeah.
That's one of my favorite ones.
You can relax, you can relax.
We'll take a break here.
We can edit out all the breaks, it's no problem at all.
How you doing?
- Doing okay.
That one hit me.
- [Andrew] I thought it might have.
- We have such skilled men and women
and as far as figuring out who the biggest competition is,
oh, that's a tough one.
My competitors are all my friends, so it makes it extra
fun.
- My biggest competition, I would say, you know,
the Russians and the French.
- Biggest competitor will be the Russians for sure.
And I think this year, American team will be very strong
as well.
- My biggest competitor's myself.
This is my first world championship
and my expectation, if I do really well,
I'll be in maybe the middle or the lower middle.
- The last world championship, I was second,
so the girl in front of me is Svetlana.
Dream is one day to go past her.
- My expectation for the world championship
is of course the first place, you know?
- I now go to the competitions, especially to this one,
I'm so happy to be here.
It's the best thing, I meet people from all over the world.
I see old friends, I meet new friends.
And just to be part of it is really special
and it's a privilege, I think.
Because it is a select group of pilots
at the world championship.
- [Announcer] This is the last day of the competition.
The big showdown for female pilots
to become the 2013 world aerobatic champion.
Who will take home the title?
(upbeat music)
- [Debby] Any of the women at any time can win.
- You need teamwork, you need structure,
you need discipline, drive, determination.
All of those things to get the top result.
I don't really see the difference between men and
women,
especially in aerobatics.
The top women pilots are fantastic pilots.
(applause)
What does it take to be a champion in aerobatics?
A lot people talk about, you know, natural skill.
That is only a very small part of becoming champion.
- I just feel that I've gained so much from aviation
and hopefully I've helped to pave a path
so it's easier for other young women to get where I am
and beyond where I am.
(applause)
- [Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, the winner
of the 2013 World Aerobatics Women's Championship is
Aude Lemordant.
- Someday a woman will be the overall world champion,
I believe.
If they hang in there long enough.
- [Andrew] Tada.
Okay.
(laughing)
(mumbles)
- Oh my gosh.
- Awesome job, awesome job.
- I can't believe I did it.
(calm music)
- [Woman] Oh.
I have slipped the soily bonds of earth.
And down to the skies on laughter silver wings.
Sunwards I climb
and join the tumbling worth of sunsplit clouds.
I've done a hundred things you have not dreamed of.
Wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering, I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through faultless holes of air.
Up, up the long delirious burning blue.
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never love or even eagle flew.
And while with silent lifting mind,
I've trod the high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
- Testing, testing, one, two, three.
- My name's Melissa Pemberton.
- No, your name is Rex Pemberton.
My name is...
- But this is...
(laughs)
- That was so surreal!
Oh my god, that was incredible.
I feel like I'm watching a movie, it's not real.