Posted: April 8, 2015 | By Josiah Patterson
Riverside Municipal Airport hosted its 23rd Annual Riverside Airshow on March 28.
At this event, which has long been a Riverside tradition, thousands were amused with spectacular performances by pilots, including: Spencer Suderman, Chuck Coleman, Jon Melby, Frank Donnelly and John Collver.
“I have thousands of pictures of all these guys,” said Pete Rissman, a photographer who attended the event. “I’ve seen John Collver fly, I’ll bet you, 60 or 70 times. I’ve seen most of these guys. There’s only one airshow pilot here that I haven’t seen fly a bunch of times and that’s Spencer Suderman.”
The event marked Suderman’s debut at the airshow.
“This was my first time performing at the Riverside show and it was fantastic,” Suderman said. “The show organizers hit their mark on every point of delivery and were a pleasure to work with.”
Suderman is known for breaking the Inverted Flat Spin Guinness World Record on March 13, 2014, in which he pulled off 81 full rotations starting at an altitude of 23,000 feet and ending at an altitude of 950 feet.
“I worked very hard to break that record and was successful on my third attempt last year,” Suderman said. “…There was no single thing that made it happen. It was a combination of many small things that I figured out how to mix together in the right amounts. This is the same approach that I am applying to my current program to break my own record later this year with a 100 plus turn spins.”
In addition to aerobatics, the airshow featured replicas, military vehicles and aircraft, helicopter displays, aviation vendors and a classic car show.
Suderman hopes to fly in the air show next year.
“I hope I get invited back next year because I would definitely say yes,” Suderman said.
The airshow left a positive impression on its attendees and participants.
“It’s a good airshow. I’m going to call it a community scale air show. It’s an enjoyable airshow; I like coming here,” Rissman said.
