Bill Stein Is Recognized For Making Airshows Safer With A Top Award From ICAS

The International Council of Air Shows (ICAS) at its 49th annual convention last week presented its highest honor, the Sword of Excellence to an Aptos, CA based pilot in front of nearly 1,000 air show industry professionals attending the event's closing banquet at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel.

Bill Stein was instrumental in the creation and fine-tuning of new FAA guidance that provides direction to air show pilots flying dynamic, non-aerobatic formations. He has also helped ICAS and the FAA to develop reasonable, workable language on "aerobatic energy directed at the crowd," and certification currency requirements.

Serving as a member of ICAS's Aerobatic Competency Evaluation (ACE) Committee for nearly seven years, Stein has worked to improve air show safety while minimizing regulatory intrusion. He has been intimately involved in writing four revisions of the ICAS ACE Manual, the document that, for the past 25 years, has directed a program responsible for a significant and sustained decrease in fatal air show accidents.

Stein also acts as a motivational and frank mentor for new air show pilots. As a pilot, he has combined extensive experience in solo and formation flying with sharp analytical skills and a self-deprecating approach to mistakes he has made during his career to provide many pilots with invaluable safety information. And he has continued to coach and mentor many of those pilots even after they are well established.

For many years, Stein has selflessly helped ICAS, the FAA and the air show community work through the most difficult safety problems by combining air show professionalism with a strong sense of what will or will not minimize hazards in the air show environment.

In 2015, Stein was inducted into the ICAS Foundation Air Show Hall of Fame as a pilot in the Red Baron Squadron.

ANN congratulates Bill for taking the lead in promoting airshow safety through ICAS programs.

(Source and image from ICAS press release)

FMI: www.airshows.aero/