“She learned to fly in a Cessna 185 on floats. Then she became untouchable.”
Patty Wagstaff took her first lesson in 1979 in a Cessna 185 floatplane in Alaska, where she had moved to work in the bush. Her first flight in a small airplane in the Alaskan bush ended in a crash—so she decided to fly herself. By 1985 she had qualified for the U.S. Aerobatic Team. In 1991, she became the first woman to win the U.S. National Aerobatic Championship, a title open to men and women together. She won it again in 1992 and 1993. Her Extra 260, which carried her to the 1991 and 1992 titles, was retired to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in 1993, displayed between the Lindberghs and Amelia Earhart. Wagstaff was not merely a skilled performer; she was a systems-level pilot. She trained with the Russian aerobatic team, flew as a demo pilot for Raytheon’s T-6 Texan II, and later founded an upset-recovery and aerobatics school in St. Augustine, Florida. In 2004, she was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame—one of aviation’s highest honors.
Wagstaff flew low only inside a waivered competition box, after thousands of hours. For everyone else, altitude is the margin: 14 CFR 91.303 requires at least 1,500 feet AGL for aerobatics, and upset recovery needs room below.