Flying with Marshall Friedman

“Let’s go find you a parachute.”

Not exactly the words you want to hear moments before loading up in a plane with a pilot you’ve known for less than an hour. But that’s part of the deal when you fly with Marshall Friedman — local real-estate developer and world-renowned aerobatics pilot.

Friedman’s been doing barrel rolls, loops and nosedives for the better part of 50 years. At his peak, he was one of the five-best stunt pilots in the nation. He retired from professional competition a decade ago, but he still gets up in the air on every clear summer day he can to test his limits and taste the rush he pines for.

This past winter, Friedman picked up a custom-crafted biplane that is like only a handful in the world. He invited me to come along for a ride last Saturday and experience that power and rush — I gleefully agreed.

Lightning fast

I met Friedman at the Glacier Jet Center that morning and we spent half-an-hour looking over his new Pitts Model 12 biplane. Tucked in the corner of the eastern hangar, dwarfed by a fleet of corporate jets and personal helicopters, was Friedman’s little pocket rocket.

Its sporty design, with yellow and blue graphics, was striking. Friedman’s eyes lit up as he walked the plane’s perimeter and stroked its glossy wings as if it were the first time he’d seen it. He told me about the physics of aerobatic planes and why this model exceeds all others in performance and power.

In the simplest terms, the Model 12 is lightning fast. Friedman’s particular model features a Barrett Precision engine with 410-horse power — twice the amount of his last plane. He points to a larger plane next to his and shows me how it was built like a Cadillac to be a smooth and comfortable ride. The Model 12 is exactly the opposite.

“It needs to be violent,” he said, in order to pull off aerial stunts. He equates the plane’s power to that of many military fighter jets.

The cockpit is tight and humble. With tandem seating, Friedman sits in the back and his passenger rides up front. It’s not unlike riding tandem on a motorcycle. Tucked snugly beneath a glass-bubble roof, the pilot’s feet are at the passenger’s elbows and there’s not much room to stretch out.

But stunt flying isn’t about comfort and luxury seating. Friedman tells me he often reaches five to six Gs of force during a flight.

I ask him how he combats that force and he lets out a rugged grunt that echoes through the hangar. It sounds like someone just clubbed him in the gut, but he says that helps tighten his core and ward off fatigue.

Feeling loopy

After fueling up and going over the safety check list, it’s time to fly.

Friedman gives me a quick lesson on what to do if we have to actually use our parachutes.

“Don’t jump into the propeller, then pull this cord on your chest,” he says.

Simple enough.

I climb into the front seat and Friedman gets me harnessed in. There’s a leg belt and a full upper-body shoulder harness to hold me in place. A ratchet on each belt tightens me down so when the plane flips I don’t crash through the roof. He asks me if it feels tight enough, and it does, but he puts three more clicks on the ratchets anyway. Now, I can’t feel my legs — Friedman says that how it should be.

Sitting in the back, Friedman mentions he can’t see the runway for take-off or landing and that he just “uses his peripheral vision” to find his way.

After we line up on the airstrip, he punches the throttle and the engine roars loud. The strength of the take-off throws my head back, and no less then five seconds later, we’re 2,000 feet in the air.

We tour around Spencer Mountain and Whitefish Lake, making steep banked corners from side to side. I try to take a few snapshots of the lake’s turquoise water contrasted against yellow larch, but it’s too difficult to overcome the force of the turns long enough to frame a decent photo.

A few minutes in, Friedman tells me he’s going to do a barrel roll. Suddenly, we’re upside down, blood is rushing to my brain, and I know exactly why he kept clicking the rachets on my harness. He holds the maneuver for a few seconds so I can snap off a photo of Big Mountain upside down, then he abruptly flips back upright.

We go for a loop next. This stunt is not unlike a loop on a roller coaster, except that it’s about 85 times more violent than anything Six Flags has dreamed of. There’s a rush of g-force on the climb up that smashes me into the seatback before we are inverted. In that moment of suspension, the cockpit is calm and almost serene. It’s over quickly though, and we’re screaming back down to earth, as g-forces attempt to push each of my internal organs out my esophagus.

We’re only 15 minutes into the flight and I’m physically spent. When Friedman says we’re heading back to the airport, I couldn’t be more relieved.

Friedman’s blind landing is smooth, and soon we’re at the hangar where he’ll refuel before heading back up for more flight time on his own. I crawl out of the cockpit with this strange euphoria, like a cocktail of adrenaline, fear and bliss. My knees are weak, and I’m not quite sure what to say when he asks what I thought.

“You’re a madman, Marshall,” is all I can muster.

And he is. Skiing, biking, kayaking, motocross — pick any “extreme” sport and it still doesn’t match the rush of aerobatic flight. Especially with Friedman at the controls.