World Aerobatic Championships 1996 ESPN

ESPN recording of the 1996 World Aerobatics Championships in Oklahoma, USA.

[@codym8897]

I’m really looking forward to watching this video. The Guns & Ammo American Shooter series is fantastic, and I’m dying to see the 1996 episode. I hope you’ll include the commercials, as they are often very interesting in their own right. Also, it’s a great way to get a feel for what the 90s were like. Please upload the full episode!👍

[@BrooksMershon]

This is amazing, thank you for keeping this footage around.

[@inverted_attitude]

Don Taylor! He was my boss at Eclipse Aviation. A true gentleman.

[@daleevans3112]

Page Field Youkon, OK Just west of OKC Last time I saw John Ford and Randy Gange

[@TsunamiSephi]

I could tell hours of stories about the incredible Russian pilots that participated in this event. Each country was assigned a local airstrip as their training base, with my hometown, Weatherford, receiving the Russian aerobatic team. I was 11 at the time and my Grandfather was the owner/operator of the local airport, making me the ratty little grease money that got to help WORK on the baby blue and pink SU-26s that arrived in pieces in shipping crates. Despite the Russians sweeping the competition that year, it almost didn't happen, as the entire team was forced to sneak out of the country to participate. Young Svetlana Kapenina was the rockstar of the troupe, barely saying a word and exhuding the kind of Russian badass-cool that comes naturally to them. This was her rookie year, where she embarrassed the competition on her first outing, missing the gold by the tiniest margin. She still flies and is just as precice and incredible as she was winning in 1996. Svetlana Kabatskaya was wild! While conversing with the local pilots out watching the practice sessions, she admitted she hadn't learned to drive manual. Moments later, she's in the airport's GMC Cheyenne bucking away learning the clutchwork. Where this story gets fun is when Svetlana disappeared for a few hours. Nobody seemed to be able to find her, until we suddenly saw her blasting down the runway in one of the local's (RIP Mark) bright red FC RX-7. Turns out she found Mark in his hangar with his Mazda collection and scored a test trive, lol. Finally, Nikolai Timofeev, who I believe recently passed, and his infamous morning flyover on day one of practice: I'm with my Granddad riding shotgun in his 93 Dakota, listening to the local country station, on our way to the airport to open up. When we arrive we're greeted by officers. I stayed in the car, but the officers explained to my G-Dad that there were reports of a low flying, upside down airplane in the area and they were investigating the calls. Not long after, a SU-26 touches down *in the grass* beside the runway with Nikolai at the stick ear-to-ear beaming. We had to explain that buzzing the city was frowned upon, unfortunately. The poor guy was just trying to hype up the town for their arrival. All in all the Russian team had such a genuine, fun, but very down to earth demeanor that impacted all of us that had the pleasue of meeting them back in 1996. Fun final trivia: Thomas P. Stafford, our hometown's local hero and Apollo Astronaut has Russian ties, as he was the Commander for Apollo-Soyuz, the first docking in space of a Soviet and American manned vehicle. It cemented a lifelong friendship between Stafford and fellow USSR Cosmonaut and total badass Alexei Leonov. Thank you for coming to my TED:Talk

[@bmpilot]

What city was this in?

[@JukkaSiirila]

Oklahoma City.

[@TsunamiSephi]

Clarence E Page Airport in El Reno, OK, just west of the OKC metro