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PUFA NEWSLETTER
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October 16, 1996
Jeff Rochon, President
Bernie Strotmann, Vice-President
Ken Buck, Treasurer
Glenn Ursel, Secretary
Mail to: Pacific Ultralight Flying Association
102-16071 82 Avenue
Surrey, B.C. V3S 2L6
PUFA Newsletter published by Glenn Ursel
We all know, some more personally than others, T.C and Sandy. They visit us each summer and spend most of their time at Airflow helping out and doing what they love most, being around Ultralights. By now everyone knows that their son was lost in a tragic accident in the U.S. when the MXL he was operating, crashed. Speaking for Pufa, I wish to express our most sincerest sympathies to T.C. and Sandy for their loss.
I attended, along with several other members, a meeting at the Delta Hall on number 10 Highway. The purpose of this meeting was to enable interested parties to speak on the subject of the continued operation of the Delta Heritage Airfield. For those of you who may not know, the airfield is now located in a municipal park. As such, it comes under the jurisdiction of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). Last year the airport was given a five-year probationary approval subject to a yearly report by several committees, including the GVRD.
The hall was slowly filling to its capacity as we arrived. Speakers who wished to give opinions on the airfield were to sign up for an opportunity to speak for up to ten minutes. I noticed retired IWA boss Jack Munroe's Harley parked outside. He was there in a supportive roll for the airfield, but did not speak.
Fred Glasbergan did, and received rousing applause with his theme of "How far do you go to placate detractors of Delta Airfield?" He asked,
"Do we compromise safety?" He said that no amount of appeasement would satisfy the opposing side and they only wished for a total shutdown of the thirty year old field. He also reminded everyone present that new regulations would lower Boundary Bay's Control Zone to a ceiling of 1,500 feet asl, down from 2000 feet asl. He stated, "If people think traffic from Delta bothers you, wait until the big jets come over at the lowered ceilings."
Jerome Carsh spoke and reiterated in an even more militant tone that those that really cared about the airfield should fight in any legal way possible. He reminded every one of Airflow's situation and the success ultralighters were modestly enjoying after battle with city hall. He was also given a huge response.
Many passionate words were uttered at the meeting, including pleas by old veterans to keep the field operating, to users of the dike unhappy to be disturbed on their walks. It was pleasing to witness Pufa's involvement. I personally hope that our efforts were noticed and perhaps might even be reciprocated in the future.
Based on the overwhelming support for the airfield at the meeting, it would seem that the GVRD could only give a positive report and it is likely that Delta will survive, at least until the next battle.
With respect to the last item on our agenda, the President wishes to continue the past President's initiative by holding the nominations of officers at this month's meeting and then conducting the elections at the November meeting which, of course, will be the last one for this year. In this way, we believe it will afford members more time to consider who to nominate, possibly including the offer to stand for nomination themselves. We encourage as many members as possible to attend these next two meetings.
With respect to the content of this month's newsletter, I have another story of "Elmer" a pseudonym chosen by the President to set down some of his recollections of local ultralight characters.
With respect to the balance of the Newsletter, I note that PUFA records of past newsletters are not complete with many of them lost. Therefore, in light of the originality and historical content of much of Fred Baron's writings, I am republishing the rest of Fred's stories that I haven't already printed last spring - his one about the early years of ultralighting in Surrey, the story of Volker Budziak's Lazair flying and Fred's story written in memory of Bert Sanders, an airline pilot and former Royal Canadian Airforce Voodoo fighter pilot who died on July 24th, 1994 while test flying his Spectrum Beaver RX550 ultralight (C-IDKD) near Oliver, B.C. after repairs to the aircraft.
Elmer's Wire Act
Sometimes the best intentions of man, no matter how well conceived, go awry. I know that the results of that day's plan was not what I had in mind.
In the early days, our ultralights were nothing more (or less) than some rags, some bolts, some know how and a large dose of determination. It was in this time that we took on challenges that today I would avoid in the interest of common sense, not to mention safety.
There were characters around in those days that flew above the rules and around this common sense. One of these was a lad of youth and exuberance I'll call Elmer. Elmer could fly well enough but other disciplines such as safety, caution and good flying habits were to be disdained at all cost.
I had witnessed Elmer's antics in the past so I must now plead temporary insanity for my decision to accompany him on that day. My usual role was to stand back and watch in amazement.
Elmer laid out his latest plan. A friend of his had asked him to do an air drop of a bag of dollar bills (remember them?). The exact amount in my recollections was five hundred. The friend ran a used car business and, in a moment of questionable genius, decided to hold an open house at the car lot in which he would have the loot dropped from an aircraft. As publicity stunts go, it seemed reasonable. Elmer needed me to drop the loose bills while he piloted the borrowed Beaver RX550.
"It'll be a cinch" chortled Elmer. I wasn't so sure and I said so. Elmer was quite confident that, if we flew low enough over the car lot, the money would mostly fall within the confines of the property. "What about the wind?" I said. "How can we judge the trajectory of something as flimsy as paper"? Elmer had the answer as I found out later.
It was only a fifteen minute flight to the target. There I was perched in the front seat of the Beaver with a bag full of money on my lap. I had carefully taken note of the wind speed before takeoff. Depending on our altitude over the drop zone, I would make the decision to spill the loot at the appropriate time.
Yes this was a "built up area" readers will want to know; however, it wouldn't be the first time we had shaded that rule a little. We circled at the legal one thousand foot height. Below we could see quite a large crowd at the lot, presumably waiting for us in great anticipation. Elmer set the craft up for a long glide into the wind and dropped the nose. Boy did he drop the nose! Down we went and the crowd in the lot grew larger. I sat a little higher in the seat as we skimmed the power lines and still we went lower. By now we had the audience's full attention. We knew this by the way some were running as fast as they could in different directions while others were staring at us with saucer eyes.
I almost forgot to let the prize go as I glimpsed a sign saying "One Owner $2995". When I did rip open the bag, we were only few feet from the ground. The second I dumped the bag the wind grabbed the loose bills and arrested their forward motion. I figure most of them waited for a millisecond at which time the propeller ran over them doing what might be expected. At least we had hit the proper target. Elmer pulled back on the controls and skimmed the treetops at the far end of the car lot and we were clear. It's anyone's guess as to how many greenbacks survived the prop action. I was pleased that we, at least, were unscathed.
Back at our base I was screaming mad and let Elmer know it. He had scared the hell out of I don't know how many people, not to mention me. Elmer was the picture of innocence. "The guy who owns the lot said to make sure the money falls on only his property" he protested. "I had to go low."
Well, of course, there was more than hell to pay as officialdom got wind of the antics. The owner of the lot and the plane were pressured to reveal the pilot's name. But, such was Elmer's luck. Apparently it wasn't the car lot owner's plan to distribute the cash in the previously described manner and the aircraft's owner was extremely vague about who had "borrowed" his plane.
Elmer survived to fly again and I escaped to document more of his adventure/mishaps. There was the day he took off in a Lazair downwind ....But that's another story.
Jeff Rochon
The Early Years
The early years of ultralight flying sounds like it would be away back in past, but is really only 10 or 12 years ago. This non-aviation type, just a Harley rider with a ring in his ear, was told about these funny planes you could fly and you didn't need a licence. Sounded good to me so I turned up at a local ultralight field on my Harley. There were 3 airplanes (Lazairs) on the field. I watched a training performance as this guy (Vic Claire) ran up and down the field beside a Lazair single-seater ultralight while yelling instructions to the student over the roar of the two McCulloch chain saw engines that powered the machine.
There were no two-seaters in those days. Being a newcomer, I thought that this was normal procedure and was quite fascinated by this well-conditioned instructor holding onto the tail of the aircraft, while running up and down the field.
At another field off 220th Street in Langley, run by Dennis Core, they had a single-seat Kasperwing. Now this is really wild! They had a 2 by 4 on the seat to make more room. Then they had the aircraft attached by a long rope to a car. The two occupants of the aircraft would signal to the driver and then the car would roar off down the "runway" and this strange ultralight would be catapulted into the air. Just watching this was a frightening experience for me, never mind the potential new pilot! I left the field on my safe Harley motorcycle, shaking my head in disbelief. It was a real eye-opener for me and I decided that the Lazair training at the King George field looked better and safer to me.
That was the start of the "flying lawn mower" experience and the biggest, greatest, adventure of my life. It was a glorious, free-spirited adventure with no "Big Brother" regulations and the great enthusiasm of everyone concerned.
A few individuals came up with some great ideas to compensate for the lack of instruments in the aircraft. One fellow (Geoff Way) said he could tell when he was at 1,000 feet. We all asked how he could do that. He then informed us novice pilots of his great discovery that, if he extended his arm out until his thumb covered a Lazair parked on the ground, then he would know that he was at 1,000 feet. And so it went, my introduction to the wonderful world of aviation. I kind of wondered if it made any difference if my thumb was fatter than his, or if my arm was longer.
Another buddy, Ray LaChance said he landed his high-powered machine at 25 mph. I asked him how he knew that because he didn't have an air-speed indicator. Well, he gave me a kind of man-of-the-world look, like a real plane pilot would, and said it was easy. He would look at his pant leg flapping in the breeze. If it was really doing a high-powered quick flap, he was doing about 40 mph (we didn't fool with that silly "knots" business). If his pant leg was only doing a moderate flap, he was doing about 20 to 25 mph. We dealt in very high speeds in those "old" days!
Oh yes, the old days, maybe the good old days with no "Big Brother", none of the instruments or radio or those funny pedals for your feet to push left and right, just a stick and two powerful 6 hp engines. If you were a "real" pilot, you would get a pressure tube with a little wafer in it (the Hall Airspeed indicator) to tell you how fast you were going. It was fun, fun, fun! We all must not get caught up in trying to be 747 pilots, but just a bunch of guys and gals having fun, lots of friends and lots of get-togethers, each one helping their fellow pilot.
Fred Baron
My Friend & His Ultralight
Well, like most people, I am a procrastinator. I subscribe to and join various flying organizations but never contribute anything to their newsletters. I guess I feel rather inept; a lousy speller, a lousy writer. Regardless, I am putting my pen to paper, so let's see now...
My friends and I fly from a small grass airfield known as the "Intergalactic Aerodrome". The very name of the field conjures up visions of the serious type of flying that takes place here. One of these friends, Volker Budziak, holds current private and glider pilot licences, but what impresses me most, is his mastery of the small, 160 lb aircraft that he keeps at our field.
All of the fllight controls for his aircraft are coordinated by the control column; there are no rudder pedals. It's 37 foot wing span is framed with aluminum and covered with a transparent covering called "tedlar". While most of us are buying and flying faster aeroplanes with bigger, more powerful engines, Volker gets aloft on, now here is a shocker, two 6 hp engines. Once aloft, his 150 lb frame and the 160 lb aircraft combine to produce a real performer, but getting airborne on just 12 hp never ceases to amaze me.
Some of his flying feats boggle my mind. He generally flies in the Rosedale or Boundary Bay area, but one of his favourite places to fly is in the mountains, just north of Pitt Meadows where he can shut off both engines and soar in the thermals that easily produce climb rates of a 1,000 feet per minute. His mastery over this tiny "V" tailed craft is evident when I see him flying backward across the fields in a strong wind or listen to the gentle rush of air as he dead sticks the machine to a perfect landing on our little grass strip.
Aircraft like Volker's have a resale value of under $2,000 on the used ultralight market and, with fuel consumption of about one and a half gallons per hour, this is truly inexpensive flying. And get this... you can do your own maintenance. Yes... to me, Volker and his Lazair represent grass roots flying at its very best.
Fred Baron
An Evening Flight
When the sun was getting low in the west and the summer was starting its' glorious beginnings with all beautiful scents on the air, the local airfield pilots (all five of us) were putting our aircraft away for the night.
We heard a faint sound of an engine droning towards us from the distance. Barely audible at first, then louder and louder as it got closer, you could make out the distinct silver leading edge of a Lazair in the northeast as dusk was fast approaching.
The Lazair was descending at a cruise speed of 22 mph. A big 40 foot wing, a dragon fly with a v-shaped tail and mylar covered wings clear as a glass of good B.C. water. It had a canvas sling seat to sit in under the beautiful wings with the visibility to see forever. The engines, rated at a big 6 hp each, were putting out more like 5 hp. Big numbers when you are talking raw power - Pioneer chain saw conversion.
It was a joy to see it come in for a landing, just a whisper of poetry in motion. A pilot and machine as one. A handsome, greying, middle-aged man swung himself out from under the wing. A well-tanned , trim 200 pounder stepping away from a 160 lb airplane, was a marvel to see. It made me think of the aeronautical engineers' calculations of the bumble bee theory of not being able to fly. The well-spoken pilot, with his leather flying helmet and goggles, brought back a bit of the barn storming days of a bygone era.
I was brought back to reality by "Where's the coffee"? It was a pleasant interlude of good old fashioned plane talk - of big thermals to the northeast and of other pilots' recollections of interesting experiences. It all ended too soon with "Well, better get going". At the time, the sun was just a half-red bright glow on our western horizon.
Our pilot would sling himself under the wing of his noble bird, prime the engines, pull the starter ropes to start the engines, adjust his helmet and goggles, tuck his pant cuffs into his socks to keep the wind from blowing up his legs and knock the bugs from the inside of his pitot tube air-speed indicator.
The plane was taxied down the runway into position to take off. The feet were placed on the ground and the engines revved up to maximum power. Feet were lifted and slowly, ever so slowly, it moved down the runway, gaining a respectable 20 mph before lift off. Each foot of height gained was a picture of pilot mastery, of man over the element of gravity. The pilot, at a hard-won altitude of 200 feet, was looking for some thermals to help his noble craft rise to a safe and legal height to carry this bird back to his Intergalactic Aerodrome in Port Kells, B.C. I miss those evenings. I miss my friend.
Fred Baron