Remembering Gene McNeely
Longtime AeroShell Aerobatic Team pilot goes west
By Barbara A. Schmitz
Gene McNeely, part of the AeroShell Aerobatic Team from 1994 to 2017, died July 5 in his home. He was 83.
Gene first flew right wing and then slot with the team, now known as the Titan Aerobatic Team, which will be performing in their trademark World War II-era AT-6 Texans at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh daily, including in twilight shows on Wednesday and Saturday.
The team posted on Instagram: “Gene always had a smile, a project and a scheme. He was one of a kind. We’re heartbroken, but honored to have shared the sky with him.”
Over his career, Gene logged more than 26,000 hours of flight time. He operated an agricultural business for 20-plus years and an air cargo service using DC-3s, Beech 18s, and MU-2s. Outside of air shows, Gene was active in the Reno National Championship Air Races racing a T-6 and enjoyed building homebuilt aircraft.
In an interview with this reporter a year after his retirement, Gene said that after 20-plus years of flying with the AeroShell Aerobatic Team, he knew the time was right to call it quits.
“My flying was fine, but all the traveling was getting to me,” Gene said in 2018. “We’d leave on a Thursday to go to an air show, do a practice show on Friday, fly the air show on Saturday and Sunday, and then leave on a Sunday or Monday to go home. Then we’d do maintenance on the plane and leave again the next Thursday. At my age, it was just tiring.”
But that didn’t mean he sat at home watching the flowers grow in his retirement. A few years later, he was still flying solo shows, rebuilding T-6s and racing at Reno.
Gene said the team was like a family to him. Only once did he recall getting irritated at his teammates. “It was the year of the 100th anniversary of flight, and we had 33 air shows that year,” he said. “We got a little testy with each other before the year was over since we were on the road for every weekend for 33 weeks.”
But Gene said Oshkosh was always one of his favorite shows to perform. “We’re all family here … and I always look forward to seeing all my friends.”