Originally Posted by
Andrew Copeland
Keith still flies out of VNY, but in a Baron and not an aerobatic plane.
Very nice guy once you talk to him. He is a big guy and has a big, kind heart. I think the movie was pretty good.
Very cool that he is still alive, too. He flew very, very hard in the Russian planes but was always very concerned about training properly. Few competition pilots trained as hard as Keith-that is why he won so much. He outworked the other pilots and had natural talent.
I saw him tumble the Sukhoi 31 out at Apple Valley airport when he was training with the Russian team members. He could also put the 31 and 29 into an inverted flat spin from an upline-he spun it upwards-which looked very impressive with the smoke on. That was his first thing he did in air shows. Cool guy and nice to other pilots who were beginners.
Keith Leedom was one of the best. The videos of him flying the Russian SUKHOIS are breathtaking. He flew so hard: +\- 10 g's, multiple times a day when training hard. The Breitling commercial was very cool. I still see it every once in a while on TV.
I ran into him at a restaurant in Westlake Village, California in 2024. He told me about the crash and passing of the great Edan Shalev, one of his former coaches and his very good friend for over 25 years. Edan and Keith kept their planes at Van Nuys airport. Edan crashed on July 4, 2024 in Idaho during a Fourth of July air show.
Keith told me that Edan's crash hit him hardest of all. He went to Edan's "celebration of life" at the Camarillo Airport and said it was really tough to be there.
Keith doesn't fly in any movies, commercials, air shows or competitions anymore. He said that he had lost 11 friends in that sport and just didn't have the motivation to fly like that anymore.
I knew he had caught on fire in a plane and landed it without bailing out of it. I did not know that he also had an oil line back off and made a second emergency landing after killing the power in that plane.
He told me he had seen so much death and thought his time was coming, so he just quit the stunts one day. He's a commercial rated pilot, but never flew for a living. I asked him if he was flying anything now and he told me he had a citation jet but the straight and level flying was boring after all of the competitions, commercials etc.
Still a nice guy. But you can tell he has been affected by the loss of so many friends doing what they all did for so long. Too many of those great pilots are dead from that sport.