AeroShell Aerobatic Team

The AeroShell Aerobatic Team is one of aviation’s finest four-plane precision formation aerobatic teams. The AeroShell Team has been performing at air shows since 1985, delighting audiences everywhere with its daring maneuvers and graceful loops and rolls.

The team takes to the skies in four World War II North American Advanced Trainer-6 (AT-6) aircraft, equipped with powerful, 2,400 horsepower Pratt and Whitney engines. The pilots face many challenges when flying an AT-6. The power-to-weight ration makes flying these planes much more challenging. According to AeroShell pilot Gene McNeely, it all boils down to energy management. “On a hot day, we don’t have the luxury of excess horsepower to compensate for high density altitude. The key is knowing when to make power changes and by how much.”

The audience is oblivious to this as the four planes fly in perfect unison, as if they were attached to each other. Crowds around the country flock to see this talented team and its “old birds” perform.

The AT-6
The AT-6 first appeared in 1938 as the NA-16, and eventually replaced the BC-1A basic-combat trainer that was originally designed by the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). The American Aviation Federation (AAF) uses the same AT-6 to train its flight school pilots. Canadians know it as the Harvard; the American Navy knows it as the SNJ, but it is best known as the beloved “Pilot Maker.” The AT-6 is remembered fondly by all AAF pilots as one of the aircraft in which they first learned to fly.

For more information on the AeroShell Aerobatic Team,
visit their website at NAAT.net.