Loops And Dives Thrill Flight Festival Crowd

Bold, brash Michael Wigen spends a lot of time throwing himself around in the sky with the earth spinning below - except when he's upside down, it seems to him as if the earth is above him.

The aerobatic pilot is wowing crowds at the Emerald City Flight Festival at Boeing Field this weekend in his custom-built Cyclone monoplane, which resembles a 1930s racing plane.

Trailing blue smoke, he roars low over the runway, then climbs straight up while snapping off rolls until his speed drops off and he seems to hang in the air. He also does loops and, for a little more adventure, flies inverted at about 5 feet off the ground.

During his aerial antics, he gives a running commentary from the cockpit, spiced with whoops and a devilish laugh. "Over the top we go," he says as he finishes a climb and the Cyclone starts to drop like a stone. "Boy, that felt good."

It's all in a day's work, in his case about 15 minutes of flying time, for the 36-year-old pilot from Porthill, Idaho.

Wigen and Danny Sorensen of Bountiful, Utah, flying a blue Pitts Special biplane, are the only aerobatic pilots in the air show. Both will perform today as the two-day event concludes outside the Museum of Flight on the west side of Boeing Field. One of the precision stunts that Sorensen does is to fly inverted 20 feet off the ground and cut a ribbon with his plane.

It was Sorensen who flew near downtown Seattle Friday night with flames shooting from two propane pressure jets mounted between the wings, to promote the air show. From the ground, it appeared to some observers that the plane was on fire, prompting a flurry of calls to authorities. Sorensen was told yesterday by the Federal Aviation Administration not to do that again.

Sorensen knows a lot about flames. When he's not piloting his stunt plane, he's a Salt Lake City firefighter.

More than 60 aircraft of many kinds and sizes, new and old, are assembled for the air show. Thousands of spectators are getting close views of the planes and helicopters, then turning their eyes skyward to see the aerobatics and low flybys by screaming jets and throaty old planes that have been carefully restored.

Three old warbirds - a Corsair, a P-51 and a Spitfire - made low passes over the field yesterday. They are owned by Jack Erickson of Medford, Ore.

A big Navy helicopter hovered while crew members descended from it on lines to the field and then were picked up again, in an air-sea rescue demonstration. Then the chopper politely bowed to the crowd and flew away.

Four F-16 Fighting Falcons, two of which flew missions in the Gulf War, are on display. So are two awkward-looking but deadly A-10 Warthog ground-attack planes, drab in camouflage, with 30 mm Gatling guns sticking out of their noses. "It's a beautiful plane to me. Most pilots love it," said First Lt. Dan Dennis as he stood beside one and people lined up to peer inside the cockpit.

A white Soviet Antonov AN-2 biplane, said to be the world's largest biplane, was flown to the air show from Reno, Nev., by owner Al Redick, president of Aviation Classics Ltd. He owns several of the 7,000-pound single-engine planes and said they are undergoing certification in this country for purposes of selling these and others.

The fourth annual air show commemorates the diamond anniversary of The Boeing Co. and salutes the U.S. military. Gates open at 10 a.m.

Stunt pilot Wigen describes himself as energetic and outgoing, a man who is his own boss. He will fly in 18 air shows this year, he said.

The most difficult maneuver he performs is what he calls a "tucker-upper," in which his plane pivots around its axis while climbing vertically. "It's like flying up a barber pole with your head on the outside of the circle," he explained.

The most hazardous? "It's a tossup between landing and driving to the airport," he joked.

Landing the Cyclone takes a lot of concentration because the cockpit is set well back from the big engine and cowling and it's hard to see the runway when the nose goes up as the plane settles back on its tailwheel.

He's been doing aerobatics since 1979 and said he makes a fairly good living at air shows, although his expenses run to $315 an hour. When the air-show season ends, he goes back to running a sawmill business near his Idaho home.

"I was always a pilot. I was in a flying family and it was always understood that you would fly. Then one day I went to an air show and thought, boy, I'd like to try that."