Pilot will be up to her usual stunts at air show

Jacquie Warda prepares for each flight by checking instruments, strapping in and applying her lipstick.

Next to a cluster of digital dials, a bright red button stands out, inspired by the 2000 flick “Gone in 60 Seconds” that reads: “Go baby go.”

“It’s for fun,” said Warda, who took flight school at Felts Field and will perform stunts this weekend in Hayden. “I put it on just for people who look at the panel.”

Warda, 50, of the Bay Area, is one of several pilots lined up to entertain spectators at the Thunder Over the Prairie air show this weekend at the Coeur d’Alene Airport. The show, themed “A Tribute to American Heroes,” will include three Air Force fly-bys, four military aerial combat demonstrations, 21 military aircraft displays, 24 warbirds, 27 antique and classic planes and three cargo aircraft.

Warda is one of seven stunt pilots and will start out with a set of inverted flat accelerated spins, a dangerous maneuver requiring numerous skills and training. But she describes it with ease, using her hand like an aircraft carving a turn.

Since she started stunt flying in 1997, she’s logged about 900 hours in her Pitts S1-T. She logged more than 1,100 hours total flight time in the last 18 years.

“I decided many years ago that the best tool in my pocket would be skill,” she said. “The more skill I had, the better chances I had at surviving a mishap.”

Warda moved to Spokane in 1973 after high school, then to Coeur d’Alene where she took her first job as a waitress at the Iron Horse Restaurant.

She didn’t attend college, but one Tuesday morning in 1985 she decided to learn how to fly. That night, she was in flight school at Felts Field. She said she was “scared to death” at first, being the only female student in the six-week course and facing dozens of dials and instruments.

“I was afraid I wasn’t smart enough to learn to fly,” she said. “It was a typical thought back then. I thought it was really technical.”

But the overwhelming instrument panel came together piece-by-piece and she got her pilot’s license at age 32. While she couldn’t afford her own plane, she kept flying when she could afford flight time. In the meantime, she worked as a secretary at Portland-based Flightcraft Inc. just to be near the airfields.

She remembers her first flight in a two-seater Pitts stunt plane that locked her sights on aerobatics while she was still in ground school.

“As soon as he went upside down I was hooked,” she said, adding a snap of her fingers. “Just that fast.”

In 2000, her husband, David, bought her a factory-built Pitts S1-T from one of the Sky Blues Brothers, an aerial stunt team in Spokane. She retired from office work in 2001 and spends every day racking up her flight time.

Warda learned most of her stunts in California from retired professional Wayne Handley, who has been her coach for four years. Her flight lessons went from about $60 an hour to $300 an hour because of high insurance costs.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how – yes, yes, yes – it was worth it.”

She’s since tested her 885-pound biplane with numerous loops, rolls and spins. She dabbled in competitions, but she didn’t like flying for a trophy. Last year, she started performing for crowds in air shows with Handley.

This year, she’s flying solo and has eight shows lined up over the summer.

“With air show flying, no matter what I do up there,” Warda said, “I land the airplane and people think it was just the neatest thing they’ve ever seen.”