Meeting an Aerobatic Champion

This afternoon Mike suggested we go take a drive down to LaPorte. He'd never been there (to the airport, that is). LaPorte is where I did my first solo and was where we did a lot of practice touch-and-go's.

There's a lady named Debby Rihn-Harvey who is an eight-time winner of the Betty Skelton trophy awarded to the highest placing woman in the powered Unlimited category at the U.S. National Aerobatic Championships. She has also been awarded the Mike Murphy Cup, after winning the overall powered Unlimited category at the 2006 U.S. National Aerobatic Championship. This Cup is awarded to a pilot who wins both the overall powered Unlimited category and is the reigning U.S. National Aerobatic Champ.

She is a 13-time member of the U.S. team, and also owns a flight school at LaPorte. I've mentioned to Mike before that I'd love to fly with her, but I think I should remain focused on working toward my commercial license before "having fun".

Debby is also a captain for Southwest Airlines and she keeps very busy between flying for SWA, managing a flight school, flying competition aerobatics, and appearing at air shows. But much to our surprise, she just happened to taxi up to her school while we were there. She'd been over at Katy practicing and had just returned to LaPorte.

I was eager to meet her, and so glad I got to. She's very personable and was quite encouraging. We had a great time talking with her and she even invited me out to go up in her Pitts with her. You can bet I'll take her up on that!