Day: September 17, 2022

He has been described as a “Sailplane Superstar” and “The King of Sailplane Aerobatics.” And for good reason. Since starting his career flying sailplanes in 1961 at the age of 17 in Hamburg Germany, he’s logged in excess of 5000 flights and accumulated over 2000 hours in at least 60 types of sailplanes. For years he was the only person in North America who competed in glider aerobatic championships. In 1977 he received an award as the “Best Foreign Aerobatic Pilot”. He’s been featured on television shows such as “That’s…

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Matt Younkin is a third-generation pilot. He is the son of legendary airshow pilot Bobby Younkin. Bobby is considered to be one of the greatest airshow pilots of all time. Matt is also the grandson of Jim Younkin who is well known for designing the Century and Trutrak autopilots. Jim is also famous for his antique aircraft restorations as well as building replicas of the 1930s air racers such as The Howard “Mr. Mulligan” and the Travel Air “Mystery Ship”. Matt learned to fly at the age of 14. On…

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His first airshow performance was in 1990. He owns and pilots the Tora 101 plane. We talked with Mr. Jackson about his background and this unique plane he flies. Q – So, you are Douglas “Hollywood” Jackson. A – (Laughs). I’ve been called worse. (Laughs). That actually came out of an interesting little story. When I was flying with the rest of the Japanese replicas, most all of them fly with the commemorative Air Force and do a Pearl Harbor routine. We would fly with eight airplanes and we had…

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