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| By Carmelo Turdo |
Our Flying With The Aero Experience series continues with some brand new material from this week's aerial tour of St. Louis and neighboring rural southwest Illinois. The flight, sponsored by Big River Aviation based at St. Louis Downtown Airport, was a great opportunity for us to get oriented to the photo plane layout and practice crew coordination skills that will be needed for upcoming photo missions. The flight took off from St. Louis Downtown Airport, continued southward down the Mississippi River past Jefferson Barracks, overflew Sullivan Field Airport in Valmeyer, Sackman Field in Belleville and a private airstrip before turning back over the river and around the St. Louis city skyline. We returned to land at St. Louis Downtown Airport, getting a few shots of the GCS Ballpark on approach.
The Aero Experience: Carmelo Turdo
Pilot: Paul Voorhees, Big River Aviation
Aircraft: Cessna 172F Skyhawk
The
Aero Experience recently met with our airshow partner, Patrick McAlee, for a
photo session around the St. Louis area. We are
proud to provide media for Patrick McAlee Airshows ExtremeFlight again for the
2020 season. Patrick McAlee is an extraordinary aerobatic pilot, commercial airline pilot and Midwest Aviation advocate. The Aero Experience
shares ExtremeFlight's mission of bringing the passion for aviation to more
communities, large and small, than ever before. 
Patrick
McAlee's airshow performance incorporates precision tumbling maneuvers,
high-speed smoke passes and vertical climbs that show off the incredible
performance of his Pitts S-1GT, the Blue Demon. But the airshow performance is
just part of the attraction. Patrick McAlee makes a special effort to interact
with the audience at each event, adding to his outreach
and promotional value wherever he performs. He will again be joined by everyone's favorite superhero, Wonder Woman, at the Freedom in the Sky Airshow coming up in Scott City, KS this weekend.
This edition of Flying
With The Aero Experience features the recent air-to-air
photo mission with Patrick McAlee flying around the city of St. Louis. We met mid-morning with our sponsor and pilot, Paul Voorhees, owner of Big River Aviation, at St. Louis Downtown Airport to
prepare for the flight. The air-to-air photo and
video shoot took place over various St. Louis landmarks, including the Gateway Arch, and that media are now being used
in the current marketing materials for Patrick McAlee Airshows. The following photo
essay, and the YouTube video below, put you in the cabin of Big River Aviation's Cessna
172 photo plane to experience the photographer's eye view of the
mission. 
