Battle Creek Field of Flight Air Show and Balloon Festival

Jim "Fang" Maroney will be making his Battle Creek debut at this year's Field of Flight Air Show & Balloon Festival. "Fang" is one of the most respected pilots in the world, with so much flight experience stemming back to when he was 4 years old.

Jim Maroney joined the Navy/Marines and began flying T-34C's out of NAS Pensacola, Florida and graduated #1 in 1981 out of 1500 pilots. Just two years later, he received the coveted TOP GUN Trophy for ranking #1 in his class at Naval Fighter Weapons School (TOP GUN) in Miramar, California. His military career would continue following his career with the Navy/Marines when he began flying F-4s and eventually F-16s for the North Dakota Air National Guard. While with the guard, Jim Maroney flew Combat Air Patrols over Washington from September 11th, 2001 to November of 2001. Jim retired from military service in 2002 and has been an airline captain flying 757s since. Jim has always had a love of aerobatics and has been performing aerobatics & airshows for over 27 years.

Jim "Fang" Maroney flies a DeHavilland Super Chipmunk. The Super Chipmunk is a modified DeHavilland Chipmunk. Chipmunks were built in 1956 for the Canadian Air Force as a primary trainer and served numerous years in this role essentially making it a warbird. The Chipmunk became the "Super Chipmunk" by being modified, in numerous ways. The aircraft had 3 feet of the wings clipped off, 30% more rudder added, 10% more elevator, airframe strengthened, inverted oil system added and an upgrade from 145 HP engine to a 260 HP IO-540 Lycoming Engine. This gives the aircraft a top speed of 200 miles per hour and gives it more agility than the original Chipmunk.

"Fang" takes the Super Chipmunk and performs an amazing & breathtaking display. The thrill begins right from takeoff when you see a modified warbird do what a warbird wasn't meant to do. The performance is complete with slow speed flight, fast maneuvers, outside loops and some crazy gyroscopic maneuvers. The performance ends with a "standing ovation"...not necessarily by the audience, but by "Fang" himself. As the aircraft makes it down the flightline, Jim will be standing up in the cockpit waving at the audience with both hands. Talk about amazing!

Website: http://www.superchipmunkairshows.com/