Soars To Give Back To GA

By Sagar Pathak

Originally started in 1997, the Sean D. Tucker School of Aerobatic Flight, has taught thousands of pilots the true meaning of flight. Formed as a way to give back to the general aviation community, back then the school consisted of Sean, instructor Ralph Riddell and one Pitts S-2B, the faithful N50AL. Operations were conducted out of Sean’s airshow hangar in Salinas, California.

In 2000 Ralph handed the reins to aerobatic instructor/mechanic Ken Erickson, who had been working with airshow legend Wayne Handley. Ken grew the school’s stellar reputation, training some of the most notable names in the business. And as with any large growth, the School needed more a more spacious location. They then took over the FBO in King City, California in 2002. In 2004 Sean’s son Eric came on board adding his talents to the instruction staff. In 2005 Eric Tucker and Gustavo Calzadilla of Tutima hatched the idea of a new partnership, to propel the school to the next level. And in early 2006 the Tutima Academy of Aviation Safety was born, the same great aerobatic flight school, but with a new vision of offering the highest level of precision training possible.
With two full time instructors, and two part time instructors, students get a lot of hands on training by some of the best and award winning acrobatic professionals in the industry. Full time instructor Ben Freelove, with over 3,000 hours in more than forty different types of aircraft and recent winner of the Advanced category at the “Northern California conference on Extreme G Force Addiction,” flies from 5-7 days a week with students. Assisting Ben is aviation legend Bill Stein, former member the world famous Red Baron Stearman Squadron and current airshow aerobatic performer, and Eric Tucker member of The Collaborators precision formation aerobatic team. But leading the Tutima All Stars staff is Ken Erickson, Chief Pilot at Tutima Academy of Aviation Safety who has been flying for 35 years and has flown more than 9,000 hours in a large variety of sailplanes and powered aircraft. “We get a chance to teach pilots things that they would normally try to avoid doing in an airplane. We allow them, by using airplanes that are very safe, a chance to look at ‘the dark side’ and see what it is to explore the other side of the flight envelope.”

Located in King City, Calif. (KKIC), described by some as the mecca of aerobatic flying, has the right combination of weather (over 360 days of flyable VFR weather) and three training areas near the airport. Tutima Academy’s primary training area is their own FAA aerobatic waiverd airspace, more than three miles wide that goes from 1,500- to 5,000-feet adjacent to the runway. This gives the students unprecedented access to be able to take off, and immediately fly their routines and land when they are finished, as opposed to flying an extra 10-15 minutes to/from the aerobatic airspace and wasting valuable training time.

What type of pilot comes here? “A lot of them are looking to be aerobatic pilots. They wanna learn how to fly upside down, they wanna learn to fly like Sean D. Tucker, and see what that entails. But most pilots, through their training and through their flying career, will never get an airplane upside down, and wouldn’t react correctly if they did. So we give them a chance to see what that’s like and recover from that very safely. We also teach an unusual attitude course and an extension of that would be getting more into the aerobatic end of things, aerobatic competition and maybe even airshow type flying and so this gives them a primary background, but more importantly skills that they can take with them throughout their flying career.”

A majority of the training that occurs at Tutima centers around getting the airplane to spin and to safely recover from that. One such course that teaches these fundamentals is the 3 Day Pilot Awareness Training (PAT) course. Pilots with experience ranging from those newly certified to the most seasoned aviators, would learn how to attain fully controlled flight at high angles of attack / stalled flight, basic through advanced spin development and recovery from all flight attitudes. In addition to those fundamentals, they deal with control system failures, and learn basic aerobatic training for precision flight in unusual attitudes.

While most flight training at other schools is centered on avoiding those things (getting the plane to spin, recovery, etc), that tends to build fears for those types of maneuvers. Tutima takes the student up to a safe altitude and give them a chance to face those fears and recover from them. As Ken put it, “spins should be respected, but not feared. And unless you actually physically go there, and see what it’s like and experience it, it’s pretty difficult to describe to someone, much less recover from that while it’s happening.”
And after taking a course such as the PAT, the biggest benefit is that one’s situational awareness increases. With the pilots themselves flying an average of two to three hours a day in the high performance aircraft, their experience carries over to the students that they teach. And with high performance acrobatic aircraft such as the Pitts Special S-2B & S-2C, capable of +6 and -3 G’s, and the Extra 300L, with it’s plus/minus 10 G’s and a roll rate of 420 degree per second, students will have the latest, safest, and well maintained fleet of aircraft at their disposal.

Tutima flies the latest aircraft and does their own maintenance in house. Ken, also the head of the Maintenance department, has over 25 years experience working on airplanes and holds an airframe and powerplant mechanic’s rating with inspection authorization. With an unblemished safety record, the Tutima Academy of Aviation Safety’s strong work ethic is evident from the classroom to the cockpit. For further information visit: http://www.tutimaacademy.com.