Being A Great Airshow Performer Is More Than Stunt Flying; It Also Involves Being A Showman

Greg Koontz has been named the recipient of this year’s Bill Barber Award for Showmanship, according to World Airshow News, and will be presented with the award in front of his peers at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh on Tuesday, July 29, at Theater in the Woods.

Koontz is known throughout North America and parts of Latin America as the foremost authority on American Champion Super Decathlon aircraft. His aerobatic routines in both the Super Decathlon and the new Xtreme Decathlon have been featured at air shows from coast to coast and internationally, and culminate with an inverted ribbon cut in a stock aerobatic training airplane.

His comedy act, “The Alabama Boys,” features Greg as “Clem Cleaver,” who steals a 1946 Piper J-3 Cub and lands it on top of his pickup truck.

In 1969 and still in high school, Koontz learned to fly and got his start in air shows at age 20 with Colonel Moser’s Flying Circus in St. Augustine, Florida. While with Moser’s flying circus, he began perfecting the comedy act, the truck-top landing, and began performing low-level aerobatics in the Great Lakes and the Decathlon. Greg stayed with the flying circus until 1981 when he began pursuing a corporate flying career.

Koontz flew corporate jets in Alabama while flying air shows part time. Today he is a full-time air show performer and teaches basic aerobatics at the flight school/bed & breakfast, called Sky Country Lodge, that he runs with his wife, Cora.

Koontz is a former chairman of the ICAS Aerobatic Competency Evaluation Committee, holds an unlimited aerobatic waiver, and is a NAFI Master Instructor-Aerobatic.

The Bill Barber Award for Showmanship dates back to 1986 and is awarded to air show performers or teams that have demonstrated great skill and showmanship. The award is presented annually by World Airshow News and the friends and family of the late Bill Barber.

(Image provided by EAA)

FMI: www.eaa.org, www.airshows.aero