Meeting Patty Wagstaff

Right between the posters of the SR-71 Blackbird and the F-14 Tomcat on my wall as a teenager, was a poster of Patty Wagstaff. She was my ‘teen idol’. 

While doing research for my novel, which features an aerobatic performer, I discovered Patty’s school in Saint Augustine and promised myself I’d take a course when I finally got back into flying. I can’t even begin to describe the experience of spending time with someone you’ve admired as long as I’ve admired Patty. While I’ve always been a big dreamer, never in a million years did I imagine I’d get to fly with her one day as an ‘old’ retired pilot. 

Patty was the first woman to win the National Aerobatic Championship in 1991, and won it three years consecutively. She was the International Aerobatic Club champion in 1993, has received countless other honors, and is featured in many halls of fame. Equally impressive to me, for the past twenty years, she’s been training the Kenya Wildlife Service pilots. 

I never aspired to be an aerobatic performer, but I’ve always been mesmerized by their performances. There’s a romance in watching aerobatics that both harkens back to aviation’s early days and showcases the fantastic advances in aircraft performance and airmanship across our history. Learning some of the maneuvers, as I did in flight school, and as I just barely touched on in this course with Patty and her colleague, Spencer Suderman, sharpens a pilot’s skills. It exponentially boosts her confidence and understanding of aerodynamics. 

There was something about that poster, though—Patty, hanging upside-down in her plane, hair tumbling, joyous smile on her face—on my wall at that particular age . . . I didn’t know just how much I appreciated her, as a girl who dreamed of flying, until I was much older. We toss the word ‘inspire’ around without thinking about its meaning: “to fill with the urge or ability to do or feel something” and also “to breathe in, inhale”. At a time with no internet, with no instant access to role models, Patty’s poster INSPIRED me, and fueled my dreams and passion for aviation every day. 

Of course I couldn’t visit Patty Wagstaff without asking her to sign my copy of her memoir, FIRE AND AIR. Excellent read, even if she did tell me not to believe any of it .