Mark Charvat Flys Aboard the Aerostar Yak 52-PW at Rockford Airfest [Videos]

Wow! What a wild ride and incredible weekend! Rockford Airfest 2014 was a rousing success!

Early Sunday morning I had an opportunity to fly aboard the The Yak 52TW aircraft with the Aerostar precision aerobatic demo team. "The yak" is a aerobatic trainer designed in the late 1970’s. Three planes are part of the demo team

Here's a peek at my flight piloted by Paul "Rocket" Hornick. Paul is from Poplar Grove, IL.

Paul has 25 years of commercial flight experience with over 7,000 hours of flight time in aircraft ranging from a Piper Cub to the Airbus A300. He holds an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate, Flight Engineer Certificate and is a Gold Seal Flight Instructor with single and multi-engine instrument ratings.

What fascinated me the most is the close distances between the three aircraft in flight (See the video below)

Here's a view of the flight from my perspective

No, I did not throw up during the maneuvers. Pilot Paul Hornick summarizes the flight and my performance

You can read more about Team Aerostars here

We did a loop, barrel roll, a half-cuban and a roll back to rejoin the formation. At one point in time, we experienced four G's of pressure--I handled it well. I want to do it again!