"The Drunk Farmer" Turns 55 – The Aerial Comedy Act With Breathtaking Stunts

The sequence of events depicted above would make a worldwide sensation, becoming the main headline for the evening news. Fortunately, it's all a comedy act performed regularly by one of the best acrobatic aviators of our times, Kyle Franklin. This time, the show happens to be the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2022.

The Drunk Farmer show is – believe it or not – 55 years old and has been running continuously in the Franklin family at airshows. Initially put on by the legendary Jimmy Franklin and perfected by his son Kyle, the comedy has become one of aviation's most sought-after performances.

Interestingly, the airplane you see in the videos has been used on these gigs since day one. It is a Piper Super Cub in which Kyle Franklin learned to fly at the age of eight. Fast-forward 13 years, we see Kyle doing his own acrobatics as a professional pilot.

His act is deceptively amusing and incredibly difficult to pull off. Many tricks performed during the comedy acrobatics were part of Kyle's routine training. "It's a lot of work to fly that badly, actually," Kyle once said during an interview in 2009. And if you watch the videos, you will see precisely why he says that.

His incredible accuracy only equals his acrobatic skill in controlling the aircraft to the point where he taxis on the runway on one wheel and a wingtip. Pulling a vertical climb, falling straight down to the ground, and regaining altitude just inches off the landing strip is a heartstopper that "wows" spectators.

But everyone's favorite part of the act is – quite predictably – the landing. Which, as you might expect, is no regular operation either. Play the videos and watch until the end to see exactly how the stunt is performed. I suggest watching both videos, as one is filmed from the ground, while the other shows the onboard action up-close.

If you wonder where did Kyle get his plane-handling addiction, you should know that he is a third-generation stunt pilot. His father, Jimmy, an acrobatic aviation hall-of-famer, is the only airshow pilot to be "red flared" at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh (it happened way back in 1975, at Franklin's Sr first appearance there).

What happened is this - he had been flying inverted for one stunt, and the aircraft's tail made contact with the ground and left a flare behind it. Using high-visibility red flares, the airshow controllers commanded the pilot to land immediately. The penalty meant he could not fly at any airshow for the following three years.

The Piper Super Cub flown by Kyle is an agricultural airplane with a standard Lycoming O-320 four-cylinder naturally aspirated horizontally opposed direct drive engine. The original 150 hp power output of the 320 ci (5.2 liters) has been tuned up to 180 hp.

The airplane's light empty weight of 930 lb (422 kg) makes it a perfect tool for Kyle's stunts. The large wing area of 178.5 sq ft (16.6 sqm) also helps with the daredevil deeds. Overall, the plane is almost 23 ft long (6.8 m) and has a wingspan of 35 ft (10.7 m).

If Kyle Franklin were to fly it as a plane is supposed to, the Piper could hit 130 mph (209 km/h, 113 kts), with a cruise speed of 115 mph (185 km/h, 100 kts) at 75% power). Its 36-gallon tank (140 liters) gives the plane an autonomy of 460 miles (740 km, 400 nm). The standard engine is suitable for an impressive 19,000 ft (5,800 m) service ceiling, giving a rate of climb of 16 ft/s (4.9 m/s).