The Idle American: When the sky beckons

Decorated aerobatic pilot Kirby Chambliss, whose take-offs and landings have come out even for 50 years, doesn’t remember ever NOT wanting to fly. He’s still at it, this 67-year-old retired Southwest Airlines employee - SWA’s youngest captain ever at age 28 - and now a star of aerobatic air shows.

Alongside is his wife, Kellie, herself a pilot who leaves the derring-do to Kirby. With four aircraft hangared a few feet from their home at Stellar Air Park, Chandler, Arizona, they fly recreationally at least twice weekly, often in their helicopter.

Kirby was a SWA ramp agent for four years before starting his 40-year SWA career. A flight attendant for 43 years, Kellie is still at it, but on a reduced schedule.

She is a graduate of Sul Ross State University, where her father, Herman Hudson, was a three-sport star in football, basketball and baseball.

Kellie, who received her pilot’s license at age 36, successfully saved the lives of two passengers who had throat obstructions. Several years back, she was also employed by an airline company that was well-known for taking skydivers aloft.

On one flight, with 23 male flyers on board, she was unaware that they would take drastic measures to add a few seconds to their drop.

“They got this bright idea that it might help if they shed all clothing, thinking reduced wind resistance would allow them a bit more time aloft,” she said. “So, after dropping all 23 flyers (in jaybird mode), I returned to the airport with piles of clothing.” There were no injuries, and no news coverage resulted in the drop made over an isolated rural location in Iowa.

Reared largely by his late grandmother, Kirby’s first 500 hours in the air were in a Davis, a plane built by his father, a machinist in and out of his three children’s lives.

Kirby and Kellie have divergent views on what retirement means. She’d soon be just as happy gardening, exercising, traveling and flying their helicopter.

Starting aerobatic flying at age 21, Kirby has eased back on his schedule, which typically included more than two dozen shows, but now he participates in about a dozen each year. Kellie says, “He has nine lives, but has no idea which life number he’s living now.”

Considered one of the world’ most talented aerobatic pilots, he has generally dominated, including winning the U.S. National Aerobatic Championship five times and the Red Bull Championship in 2004 and 2006. Winner of the men’s freestyle championship in 2000, he was inducted into the Experimental Aerobatic Club Hall of Fame in 2021. All this by a guy who started flying lessons at age 13 and became

a licensed pilot four years later.

Frequently in the company of the late SW presidents, Herb Kelleher and Colleen Barrett, Kirby and Kellie have repeatedly heard suggestions that SWA should sponsor him in air shows. “They already are,” Kirby answers, “Providing paychecks on the fifth and 15th days of each month.”

Truth to tell, air shows are about as patriotic as any event can be. Flag-waving, firearm salutes, unbelievable feats by skilled pilots, the Blue Angels and the Golden Knights, underscore cooperation between communities and military branches.

Highlights observed at the El Paso event included a jet providing a baby gender reveal with a blue vapor trail, and Kirby’s race 10 feet above a jet-powered Chevrolet pick-up truck. They were neck and neck at speeds of 250 MPH. Jet flames 40 yards long trailed the truck, which won by a length. “Never saw anything like it” is an expression heard many times at air shows.

My chin dropped when he flew a half-dozen feet above the runway, then circled back to perform the same maneuver upside down. That he’s survived two dramatic mechanical failures suggests that he’s in a class of one.

Karly, the Chambliss’ daughter, is an Arizona State University student. Her interest in aviation is casual, but who knows? She might meet an airline captain in a jetway one day. Her mother did.

Dr. Newbury, retired educator, lives in the Metroplex. His website, with archived digital and verbal columns, is www.speakerdoc.com. Phone: 817-447-3872. Email: newbury@speakerdoc.com.