Though 80 days out, the 2019 Florida International Air Show already is announcing more of the talent organizers expect to host.
In addition to the signature U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, show managers announced Monday that one of the world's top airshow pilots, St. Augustine-based Patty Wagstaff, will perform at the event, which is scheduled for Nov. 1 to 3 at Punta Gorda Airport.
Wagstaff grew up in and around airplanes. She moved to Japan when she was nine years old. Her father was a captain for Japan Air Lines. Her earliest memories include sitting with her father at the controls of his airplanes. At 10, when her father let her take the controls of his DC-6, her lifelong love affair with airplanes began.
She saw the first plane she chartered for bush flying crash on take off, so Wagstaff decided to learn to fly herself, hiring friend and later husband, Bob, to travel with her in his Cessna 185 floatplane. Since then she earned her commercial, instrument, weaplane and commercial helicopter ratings. She is a flight and instrument instructor and is rated and qualified to fly planes from World War II fighters to jets. Wagstaff's sister, Toni, is a pilot for United Airlines.
The St. Augustine pilot is a six-time recipient of the "First Lady of Aerobatics" Betty Skelton Award. In July 2004, Patty she was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame and was the recipient of the National Air and Space Museum's Award for Current Achievement in 1994. Wagstaff received the industry's "Sword of Excellence" and the "Bill Barber Award for Showmanship.:
In 1994, her airplane, the Goodrich Extra 260, went on display in the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C.
Wagstaff has trained with the Russian Aerobatic Team and has flown airshows and competitions in South and Central America, Russia, Europe, Mexico and Iceland. Since 2001, she has traveled to Kenya to give bush, recurrency and aerobatic training to the pilots of the Kenya Wildlife Service who protect Kenya's elephants, rhino and other natural resources from poachers. From 2010 to 2012, she flew for Cal Fire as an air attack pilot in the OV-10 Bronco, which supports firefighters on the ground.
In 2013 she returned to Florida to start an aerobatic school, "Patty Wagstaff Aerobatic School" in St. Augustine.
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