Sean D. Tucker

Sean D. Tucker (born 1952) is an American aerobatic pilot who performs in airshows worldwide for Team Oracle. Tucker is recognized as a leader in the airshow business as well as in the larger aviation industry. He has won numerous aerobatic championships throughout his career and was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2008. Tucker currently resides as chairman of EAA's Young Eagles program.

Career

Tucker, a native of Eagle Rock, California, earned his pilot’s certificate at age 17. Tucker's father, William, was an aviation industry lawyer who had learned to fly as part of his job. Tucker started out as a cropduster, eventually starting a cropdusting business in Salinas, California. In order to overcome his fear of crashing, Tucker took an aerobatics course, through which he "found out you could roll an airplane upside down and it wouldn't fall out of the sky." He has been flying airshows worldwide since the mid-1970s and is considered by many to be one of the world’s premier airshow performers. Tucker's favorite stunt is the "triple ribbon cut", where he uses his plane to cut three ribbons suspended between poles from three different angles. Despite once having a fear of flying, Tucker has flown more than 1,000 performances at more than 425 airshows, in front of more than 80 million spectators.