Friends Praise Flier’s Skills, Belief in Safety : Aviation: Lee Manelski was to have spoken about careful aviation the day he and a student died in a midair crash.

Lee Manelski was scheduled to speak about airplane safety Wednesday evening at a Federal Aviation Administration meeting at Camarillo Airport.

And David Tomlinson was planning to help prepare a softball field for a game at Peach Hill Park in Moorpark as part of his job with the Moorpark Parks and Recreation Department.

Neither of them made it.

Manelski, 45, and Tomlinson, 18, died in a midair collision Wednesday afternoon when their Pitts Aerobatic tried to evade a Bell JetRanger helicopter at Santa Paula Airport.

Manelski, a TWA pilot and nationally ranked aerobatic flier, was giving Tomlinson lessons in the sport when the crash occurred.

Fellow pilots said Thursday that Manelski loved to fly and was always conscious of safety procedures.

Melody Rich, a flight instructor at Santa Paula Airport, was amazed by the ironic circumstances of her friend’s death.

“He was striving for aviation safety,” she said.

In a recent article for the magazine Sport Aerobatics, Manelski ended a column on how to fly snap rolls with this advice: “Fly safe.”

Manelski was known as one of the top pilots in his field, friends said Thursday.

“He was a fantastic pilot known for his precision flying,” said Gene Beliveau, chief pilot at CP Aviation in Santa Paula and an FAA flight examiner. Beliveau said Manelski frequently performed at air shows at Santa Paula Airport.

“He was a local favorite,” Beliveau said.

Aerobatics is a sport that calls for executing loops and flips and plunging toward the earth at about 160 m.p.h.

“He was a pilot’s pilot and meticulous about everything he did, including safety,” said Roger Herren of Glendale. Herren, who flies during his spare time, first met Manelski in 1978.

“He was a flying enthusiast who truly loved what he did,” Herren said.

A pilot since 1962, Manelski was a first officer with Trans World Airlines and a member of the U.S. aerobatic flight team. He had planned to journey to the Soviet Union soon to fly with a Russian team.

In an interview with The Times last year, Manelski said he spent about 25 days a month flying--either for the airlines or practicing his aerobatic routines and teaching aerobatics.

“I’ve given up a lot to do the circuit,” said Manelski at the time. He was divorced twice and considered his many hours of flying as a factor in his marriage breakups. “But flying is like a fix--I have to have it.”

Tomlinson was one of a younger generation of flying enthusiasts. Friends said he always knew what he wanted to be when he grew up: a pilot.

“Flying was his thing; that’s what he wanted to do,” Deputy City Manager Richard Hare said. “He wanted to go to the Air Force Academy to fly jets.”

Hare said Tomlinson, a senior at Thousand Oaks High School, had worked part time for the Moorpark Parks and Recreation Department since October, 1988.

Tomlinson had a promising future, said staff members at Thousand Oaks High.

“He’d be the perfect poster boy for Thousand Oaks High School,” said Chuck Severns, the 12th-grader’s counselor. “He had everything going for him.”

Times staff writer Christopher Reynolds contributed to this story.