Early Life
Charlie R. Hillard was born March 22, 1938 in Fort Worth, Texas. At the age of 16, he secretly began taking flying lessons, having saved enough money working at his father's car dealership. He would purchase his first airplane, a Piper Cub a few years later, while attending Georgia Tech.
In 1958, at the age of 20, Hillard joined the US skydiving team, and became the first person in the US to pass a baton in freefall. The same year, he began flying aerobatics at airshows. In 1967, he won the National Aerobatic Championship, In 1970 he competed in the Spinks Akromaster, and aircraft of his own design, and in 1972, won the World Aerobatics Championship, the first American ever to do so.
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