Hopefully this guy is just very polished and completely confident. Having been through the aerobatics course a few times, I've come to the conclusion that the parachute is for when the plane is on fire or the engine is dead. Giving a newbie a chute and then taking them through a loop isn't a lot more responsible IMHO, albeit legal. I always thought if I had to ditch the Extra, I'd pull the harness release and then roll it inverted, hoping nothing snagged. Thoughts of getting out in an accelerated spin or in the bottom of a blown loop at 5 g's is laughable. The thing that makes me question the pilot more than anything else is the spins with a civilian, that's almost even odds to filling your plane with kibbles and bits!

Perhaps I over-emphasized the lack of parachutes—my concern there is the disregard for the regs. Whether Canadian regs require chutes or not is irrelevant, since the flight was in Alaska, and chutes are required by US regs under the circumstances. Whether the chutes would be useful in the event a problem arose is also irrelevant—it’s still a regulatory requirement.

Whether we like it or not, we are supposed to abide by the regulations. If we disregard them, not only do we risk losing our privilege to fly, but if we create problems that wouldn’t exist if we followed the rules, we can easily create a black eye for GA. We’re already considered by many non-flyers as rich, careless pleasure seekers, so we really don’t need to tarnish our image unnecessarily.

The pilot's preflight explanation concerned me a lot, too—made me wonder how much he actually knows. FAA records show that he is a private, instrument rated pilot, but because of the way FAA records are reported online, it’s difficult to get an idea of his experience. The combination of his screwy preflight explanation and his willingness to disregard the regulations makes me question whether he has any training at all in aerobatics—and I really do think that’s pretty important for safety.

Cary

Looked like a fun flight to me, thanks for sharing the video