Rich’s Incredible Pyro

Each year Rich Gibson of Rich’s Incredible Pyro tries to come up with new ways of making more smoke, more fire, and more noise for air show audiences all over the country. 

Gibson, who lives in Rockford, Illinois, will have used less than 500 pounds of explosives for all the pyrotechnic displays at last year’s EAA AirVenture air shows. According to Gibson, “There’s much less explosives than most people think. All of our customers are dollars and cents conscious.”

“One thing my team accuses me of is continually coming up with new technologies. They think they have the routine down and I go and change it,” Gibson said with a smile.

“It’s like building an airplane. You think you’ve got a better idea, you try it on a small scale or test it some way and if it goes the right direction, you pursue it. If it didn’t work out, you try something else,” he went on to add.

Gibson and a team of volunteers start early each morning setting up the day’s show. Working on the east side of the show runway, well separated from the hustle and bustle of EAA AirVenture, the team needs to be completely self-sufficient, carrying their own water, coolers, and food. 

Each morning starts out with a safety briefing. “In over 20 years of doing this we’ve never needed any medical attention,” Gibson said, “If we don’t get one shot off today, and we all walk off this field, we’ll be happy.” But he did add, “Well, maybe not real happy.”

The International Council of Air Shows (ICAS) maintains guidelines and rules for the use of pyrotechnics at events like AirVenture. Gibson helped develop the rules.

Gibson and his team won the Art Scholl showmanship award at the 2004 ICAS convention, a real honor, Gibson believes, for people that work mostly in the background.

Gibson first developed his display in 1981 for a Commemorative Air Force (CAF) warbirds show. This year is the 22nd year for his pyrotechnic presentation at EAA AirVenture.

The team, all of whom travel to EAA AirVenture at their own expense, consists of folks from a wide variety of backgrounds and includes a dentist, first grade teacher, and a college professor. Many of the core group first met while sky diving in East Troy, Wisconsin.

Setting up a show can take an entire day, especially for the larger events like the warbirds. Starting before 8:00 a.m., they hope to have everything in place by noon. Some day's setups take longer if the team battles events like the departure of a C-5 or a broken-down fuel truck.

Gibson and his wife, Dee, arrived at EAA AirVenture several days early to get things ready. One of their main jobs is to cut detonating cord, the primary explosive used in the shows, into varying lengths. They also make up about 50 smoke jugs, a collection of chemicals Gibson has developed over the years packed into a 1-gallon plastic milk container. Each smoke jug requires about a half an hour to prepare.

The displays consist of explosives and gasoline. “Everybody thinks it’s the gas making the noise,” Gibson said, “The explosive’s job is to make the sound and the fuel’s job is to make the smoke and the fire. We can crank either one up or down independently.”

No one member of the team gets the pleasure of setting off the explosives during the show. “A show can have five different firing stations. That pyro is stretched out over approximately 2,000 feet and if you’re only at one point you don’t have the perspective you need to time the shot well,” Gibson said.

To Gibson, keeping an operation like his safe is simply a matter of risk management and people. “Safety, whether it’s in firearms, airplanes, or explosives is entirely up to the human being,” he said. “The last thing I want to hear is ‘watch this.’ All these rules were developed [because of mistakes]. I don’t want any new rules made because of something we did. Let’s abide by them and be safe.”