With the Greatest of Ease : Aviation: Aerobatic pilot Chris Manelski sets his sights high. He follows in footsteps of his pioneering father, who died in airport collision.

High above a Santa Paula lemon grove, a small blue-and-yellow biplane climbed vertically for a few hundred feet before stopping suddenly in midair, succumbing to gravity and plummeting nose first, wings spinning madly.

On the ground, Bob Fleming smiled.

“Looks good,” he said into a two-way radio.

Easing back on the stick, pilot Chris Manelski casually pulled the plane out of the dive. Switching to Motley Crue on his headset, he pushed the throttle forward and began another series of hair-raising rolls, loops, tumbles and aerial contortions.

Manelski was having a great time at 3,000 feet, but he wasn’t goofing around. A 21-year-old Thousand Oaks resident, Manelski is an up-and-comer in aerobatic flying, a sport in which every maneuver is planned, tightly controlled and performed with artful precision.

A competitor for less than a year, Manelski is participating in the U.S. National Championships this week over the skies of Dennison, Tex. With two impressive wins in his division in state contests, Manelski comes into the nationals as a young hotshot--but not just any young hotshot.

Manelski is the son of the late Lee Manelski, an aerobatics pioneer who was killed during a routine takeoff 2 1/2 years ago. Flying a Pitts S2-A, Manelski, 46, and an 18-year-old student died in a collision at Santa Paula Airport that also injured actor Kirk Douglas. Federal officials found that the pilot of the helicopter carrying Douglas, cartoon voice Noel Blanc, was probably at fault.

The accident deprived Chris of not only his father, but a teacher. It pains him now that he turned down the chance to learn from his father, a crack pilot who competed for the U.S. aerobatic team in world events.

“When I was younger, I thought it was a waste of his time to be teaching me,” Manelski said. “He was on a world level. I had planned to learn from others until I was good and then have him teach me. I really regret not taking advantage of the opportunity.”

Lee Manelski’s death added a haunting dimension to his son’s participation in the sport. When Chris got his pilot’s license a year ago, he bought a Pitts S2-B, identical to his father’s plane except for an additional 60 horsepower.

Manelski picked the Pitts for its sturdy design, which can resist more than 10 times the force of gravity in a steep dive. But the boxy plane also had a nostalgic hold on him because of his father.

“Dad was my hero,” Manelski said.

Among his early childhood memories: tumbling through space doing barrel rolls with his father and being asked to “take the stick.” As a child, Chris routinely went to work with his father, a TWA pilot for 23 years.

“I remember falling asleep in the cockpit of a 727 and waking up at JFK,” Manelski said, referring to the New York City airport.

Manelski had a premonition about his father’s death “because he spent so much time in aircraft,” he said. “But I never thought he’d go as early as he did. That shocked me.”

Manelski has little fear of flying, however. “I have a much bigger fear of driving a car on the road,” he said, adding that accidents are rare in aerobatics. “There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s a completely safe sport with the proper training and attitude. You don’t let your ego fly the aircraft.”

He’s philosophical about the risks. “If anything happens to me, it happens,” he said. “I’m not going to stop flying because I’m afraid of dying. I’d rather have 25 great years than 100 dull ones.”

The decision to become a pilot initially upset his mother, Joy. But flying is in her blood, too--she’s a former TWA flight attendant whose father and brother flew Navy jets. Eventually, she gave him her blessing.

“Mom’s been very supportive,” Manelski said. “She’s one of my biggest fans.”

But one who keeps her fingers crossed. “This is not easy for me,” Joy Manelski said. “But because I love him, I have to let him go. That doesn’t mean I’m not praying for him. Every time you go up in a plane, you flirt with death.”

After his father died, Manelski attended college in Florida, but his heart was in the sky. He moved home a year ago and got his wings at age 20. Spending part of his inheritance on the $120,000 Pitts, Manelski trained with his father’s friends, world-class aerobatic fliers, and often flew five times a day to the exclusion of almost everything else.

“I pursued the sport like there was no tomorrow,” Manelski said. “I just really wanted it and nothing else. I didn’t care about parties or other social stuff.”

Manelski’s pedigree showed in his first contest at Sebring, Fla., when he was named best first-time competitor. According to experts, Manelski has advanced rapidly through the ranks, going up two levels to Intermediate Division and traveling a fast track toward the Unlimited Division.

“Chris has a God-given talent not many of us have,” said Fleming, a 33-year-old Moorpark flight instructor who coaches Manelski. “In two years, he’ll be a national champion. Within three, he’ll be a world champion. We’ll hear a lot about him for a long time.”

Manelski inherited more than his father’s flying ability. From his flashy smile to “the twinkle in his eye, he’s a carbon copy of his father,” Manelski’s mother said. “People tell me, ‘Although we lost Lee, we see him in Chris. Lee is still with us.’ ”

Lee Manelski began doing aerobatics about two decades ago at Santa Paula Airport, and his son continues the tradition. Although Chris keeps his plane at Camarillo Airport, he uses Santa Paula as a practice base.

“Since the accident, people have asked me if I feel funny coming back here and how can I do it,” Manelski said. “But I feel safe at this airport and safe flying out of here. My dad took me here as a kid. I grew up at this airport.”

Standing on the Tarmac, Manelski buffed the clear plexiglass canopy on the Pitts, which he christened Rock ‘n’ Roll. He chose the name because Let the Good Times Roll was taken and Shake, Rattle and Roll wasn’t the image he wanted to project.

Manelski plays heavy metal when he flies, but not as a diversion--it’s a stimulant. “In a contest you have to do 14 maneuvers in 5 1/2 or 6 minutes,” Manelski said. “The music gets me pumped up. It sets the mood.”

Gunning his 260-horsepower engine before a practice run, Manelski guided the plane down the runway and it quickly banked skyward at a 45-degree angle. Within minutes, he was skimming above the mountains south of the airport, reaching the practice area before Fleming.

Taking up a position in a field off California 126, Fleming turned on his hand-held radio. In aerobatics, the pilot performs moves within a defined space and is scored like gymnastics. It was Fleming’s job to critique Manelski’s practice performance.

Fleming nodded in approval as Manelski pulled off an “avalanche:” a horizontal roll at the top of a loop.

Inside the plane, the vibration and the constant pull and push of gravitational forces hammered away at Manelski. In the topsy-turvy world of aerobatic fliers traveling as fast as 200 m.p.h., the plane is often upside-down, churning the pilot’s internal organs. And with little ventilation, cockpit temperature can reach 125 degrees. Long practices can be debilitating.

Manelski stayed out about 30 minutes and brought the Pitts in. To prepare for the nationals, he practiced three times a day at Santa Paula without worrying about the wear and tear on his body.

“Like a surfer out in the ocean, if it’s a nice day, all you want to do is fly,” said Manelski, a 1990 graduate of Thousand Oaks High.

Sometime this winter, he will take possession of a new plane, a single-wing craft he’s having built. Single-wing planes are the future of aerobatics, and Manelski has to be on the cutting edge to win a world championship, which eluded his father.

“I like to think,” Manelski said, “that Dad would be proud of me.”