Following the footsteps of former Alaskan aviator legends, Alaskan Marc Paine brings the thrill of aerobatic flight to his hometown of Anchorage, where he has lived for more than 40 years. Raised on a homestead in Rabbit Creek, Marc has been a pilot for over 20 years and is the founder and Chief Flight Instructor of Unusual Attitudes LLC at Merrill Field, a flight school that teaches Unusual Attitude Recovery, Stall/Spin Awareness and aerobatic flight. Marc is a skilled instructor adept at teaching pilots of all skill levels new ways of thinking about the principals of flight and mastering the airplane in every attitude. He is an FAA Safety Counselor, and a regular speaker on Stall/Spin Awareness at FAA Safety Seminars held throughout Alaska, and nationally at aviation events including Oshkosh and Sun n’ Fun. Marc’s teaching directly targets and impacts the stall/spin fatality rate that plagues Alaskan pilots.
Marc provides regular and recurrent training in Unusual Attitude Recovery, Stall/Spin Awareness and Tailwheel for The pilots of the U.S. Army, National Park Service, Civil Air Patrol, Alaska State Troopers, and for the Flight Inspectors of the FAA Flight Standards District Office. He and training partner Patty Wagstaff have provided the same training in Kenya to pilots of the Kenyan Wildlife Service who daily face low altitude, high risk patrol flights in search of illegal poachers.
He is a distinguished graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and a former U.S. Army Special Forces Officer, Airborne Ranger, and Jumpmaster. He commanded a combat dive A Team and worked projects throughout the Middle East and South America.
EMT qualified, Marc was a member and instructor with the National Ski Patrol and patrolled regularly at Alyeska during the winter months for many years while he isn’t flying and instructing. Now he spends the winters in a satellite location for Unusual Attitudes in Arizona!
Marc holds all airplane fixed wing ratings and endorsements and instructor certificates through Multiengine Instrument. He is an active aerobatic performer as well with an unrestricted, surface level Aerobatic Card, and performs aerobatic routines in Alaska at airshows throughout the state, including the Valdez Airshow and Arctic Thunder at Elmendorf AFB. Marc’s performance is one of the crowd’s favorites because of his ability to showcase the capabilities of the Super Decathlon and the Super Cub in a way that general aviation pilots and audiences can appreciate, relate to and apply to their own flying. He can be seen nearly everyday at Merrill Field flying or instructing in 68W, the blue and white Super Decathlon or the Daytona White Super Cub.
You can visit his website: http://www.unusual-attitudes.com
