One Six Right
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
From: atlanta
Keith Leedom Aerobatic Pilot/Skydiver
That film is very good. The flying in there is nice, but if you have ever seen Keith Leedom fly, he flies much harder in training and air shows. I saw him do unbelievable things in the Sukhoi 37. He loved the Russian planes and could tumble them tail-over-nose at about 1,000 feet. Pretty ballsy and even scary to watch-but beautiful, too.
We talked to him at Van Nuys airport once. He had just flown 3 sequences at about +10 and -8 G's, yet he took almost 30 minutes to take pictures with my 13 year old son and to answer questions about that amazing plane and the maneuvers he was working on. He was very hot and tired, but spent the time with us.
As good a pilot as Keith is, and he is incredible, he is an even nicer and very generous person. My son still talks about seeing Keith fly, but he talks more about the time Keith spent with him answering all those questions when it was over 100 degrees! All this from a total stranger.
So many pilots who do what Keith does have died. We are lucky to have those who remain. They are all amazing. I saw that picture of him hanging off of the wing of the Pitts. That picture is simply amazing. It takes your breath away to see him hanging from an inverted plane and so close to the propeller. To be a skydiver and a competition pilot like that takes tremendous dedication adn courage and talent! Whenver I am in CA and at van nuys airport- I look for Keith- he is very well known there by everyone. He calls the van nuys airport "his church".
We talked to him at Van Nuys airport once. He had just flown 3 sequences at about +10 and -8 G's, yet he took almost 30 minutes to take pictures with my 13 year old son and to answer questions about that amazing plane and the maneuvers he was working on. He was very hot and tired, but spent the time with us.
As good a pilot as Keith is, and he is incredible, he is an even nicer and very generous person. My son still talks about seeing Keith fly, but he talks more about the time Keith spent with him answering all those questions when it was over 100 degrees! All this from a total stranger.
So many pilots who do what Keith does have died. We are lucky to have those who remain. They are all amazing. I saw that picture of him hanging off of the wing of the Pitts. That picture is simply amazing. It takes your breath away to see him hanging from an inverted plane and so close to the propeller. To be a skydiver and a competition pilot like that takes tremendous dedication adn courage and talent! Whenver I am in CA and at van nuys airport- I look for Keith- he is very well known there by everyone. He calls the van nuys airport "his church".
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 1,275
Likes: 21
From: London
Sternone
If you like flying you'll like this movie, so if you don't like that movie you're probably not a pilot....
You are however right that it can be had for free, it s available on download sites, at least on Mininova and Btjunkie (torrents)
You are however right that it can be had for free, it s available on download sites, at least on Mininova and Btjunkie (torrents)
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
From: boston, ma
Keith Leedom Aerobatic Pilot in Movie
He is a great pilot and was very nice to beginners. I ran into Keith at VGT in 2009, he was flying a Citation now and he remembered me. What he did in competition was nothing-you needed to see him train in Las Vegas or California-it was awesome. If you ever saw him tumble or torque roll the Su-31 with the smoke on , it was amazing. The smoke covered the entire plane. He flew the Sukhoi at a Paris show and the video is amazing. I think he was the only American to fly in the Paris show and he did it in a communist Sukhoi plane. Very nice guy. He didn't fly under the bridge-that was Jurgis-but he is an amazing pilot and the skydiving picture is unbelievable. He is less than 6' from the propeller hanging off of the wing when the plane is upside-down. Mike Mangheld and Keith were competition pilots and competition skydivers-the only ones who did both. Mike has some world records. Keith had no attitude like some of the others and took time to welcome newbies. Very, very cool person and pilot.
Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 610
Likes: 0
From: France
Zlinn Trener and Jerii Blaha Bankstown 25th May 1961
When I was an upcoming young instructor at the Royal, I was given the oppurtunity to go on a demonstration flight with J. Blaha and his aircraft. What a display he gave for those days. All types of Aerobatics, including inside and outside loops and outside steep turns. I thought that my eyeballs were in danger of coming out of their sockets!.
What a flight, I still remember it to this day.
Tmb
What a flight, I still remember it to this day.
Tmb
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
From: Las Vegas NV
Keith Leedom Pilot and the Movie One-Six Right
I met Keith Leedom in Las Vegas at our Nellis Air Show. He spent 3+hours with our kids and the young eagles program ansering quesitons about aviation and his Russian plane.
I traded rides with in a Hornet for a ride in his Suhkoi and I think I got the better deal!
That guy can fly and do things I have never experienced in an airplane! He tumbled the plane 2x and flew me backwards through the plane's smoke. I literally could not see out of the plane while it backed downward on its tail toward the ground through the smoke. He was cool as ice in the Sukhoi! After that he went to our gym and worked out. I was exhausted after all of the G's.
He is a bad-ass pilot and was very kind to donate his time. He is amazing and nice!
I traded rides with in a Hornet for a ride in his Suhkoi and I think I got the better deal!
That guy can fly and do things I have never experienced in an airplane! He tumbled the plane 2x and flew me backwards through the plane's smoke. I literally could not see out of the plane while it backed downward on its tail toward the ground through the smoke. He was cool as ice in the Sukhoi! After that he went to our gym and worked out. I was exhausted after all of the G's.
He is a bad-ass pilot and was very kind to donate his time. He is amazing and nice!
Joined: Dec 2024
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
From: Beverly Hills
Keith Leedom Famous Pilot
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.
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.
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.
