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May 25, 2001

Ken Buck, President
Walter Klatt, Vice-President
Glenn Ursel, Treasurer
Daryl Hegyi, Secretary

Mail to: Pacific Ultralight Flying Association
102-16071 82 Avenue
Surrey, B.C. V3S 2L6

PUFA Newsletter published by Glenn Ursel

Editorial Note
by Glenn Ursel

Last year was a great one for travelling for me and, so far, this year is looking to be another good one. First I went to Florida with Josef and Jim Stevens in April to help Josef bring his newly purchased Comp Air plane and floats back to BC. Then Josef and I flew down to Mexico to retrieve our motorcycles left there in December after Josef crashed on a sharp curve of the autopisto north of Tepic. I took the liberty to write a little story on those two epic trips for this month’s newsletter.

In late March I went flying and the day after my back started giving me troubles. I guess it happened due to the effort of trying to force my plane into and out of the hangar over very soft ground. Anyway, I seem to have a pinched sciatic nerve which causes a lot of pain in my left leg. My trips to Florida and Mexico were marred as a result but I still wouldn’t have missed them for anything.

It has been all quiet on the western front these days - no further accidents to report, thankfully.

Despite my back problems, I did participate in the recent fly-in to Hatzic Lake where we had a hot dog barbecue at Ron Bestward’s home again. I have a couple of pictures and some comments on that fly-in in this issue of the PUFA Newsletter.

Finally, I wish to announce that I will be stepping down from the position of PUFA Treasurer and Editor of the PUFA Newsletter at the end of this year. Please let the PUFA Executive know if you would be interested in one or both of these duties.

The Comp Air Purchase

My ultralight friend, Josef Kietaibl, purchased a Canadian built and owned 300 HP Comp Air 6 airplane at Merritt Island, Florida this winter and on Sunday, April 8th, three of us (Josef, myself and Jim Stevens) set off for Florida in Josef’s van. The plan was for Josef and Jim to fly his airplane back and for me to drive Josef’s van back with a trailer and a set of floats that came with the plane but were not currently installed on it. Josef had obtained a map of the shortest route to Florida off the Internet.

The drive down was a marathon effort with all three of us taking turns at the wheel and driving nonstop to Nashville, Tennesse in 43 hours. We overnighted there and then got to Tampa, Florida on Wednesday, April 11 after another overnight stay at Cordele, Georgia.

On Thursday, we attended the Lake Land, Florida Sun Fun Airshow. I was amazed at the great size of the airshow. We spent much of the day trying to get an updated card for Josef’s GPS for his trip back.

Josef again attended the airshow on Friday while Jim and I took the day off and rested.

The next day, Saturday, we went to Merritt Island to see his plane and get his trailer ready to carry the floats back. We installed new trailer lights and wiring and then loaded the floats onto the trailer.

I was amazed to see how large the floats are. The picture below shows Josef disassembling them and it gives you an idea how large they are. They are about 20 feet long and weigh about 500 lbs. Josef says each float can support about 3,500 lbs.

Then, Sunday, we drove to Cape Canaveral and toured the John F. Kennedy Space Centre. We saw the shuttle launch pad in the distance where a shuttle was to be launched the next Thursday, May 19th, to carry up a portion of the planned International Space Satellite that replaces the Russian Mir Satellite that was recently returned to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

We were most impressed by the Saturn V rocket that is housed in one of the buildings. This is the huge rocket that carried Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins to the Moon after blasting off from Earth on July 16th, 1969 and culminating in the lunar module’s landing on the moon on July 20th with Armstrong and Aldrin aboard while Collins orbited overhead in the command/service module.

The shuttle rocket above was developed in the 1970’s to replace the multistage Saturn rocket.

The next couple of days Josef had some preparations done on his airplane including the fixing of a valve lifter in one of the engine cylinders and the installation of some additional trim tabs to correct for the additional propeller torque and weight of the 300 HP engine that had been installed in the airplane after it was built. On Tuesday, April 17th, I departed Merritt Island in Josef’s van towing a trailer with the floats on it. It took me five long days of driving to return to BC without incident.

Meanwhile, Josef and Jim had left on Friday, April 20th and they had some adventures on their flight home. On the first day of flight, they had great difficulty holding the right rudder pedal down. They finally discovered on the next day that the rudder trim tab had been bent to the right instead of the left which worsened the direction of the propeller torque to the right. After bending the tab to the left, the problem was solved. They also flew through a dust storm for more than 2 hours in which Jim had to fly the plane on instruments because they couldn’t see ahead although they could see the ground.

However, all went well in the end and Josef and Jim did a fly by over the King George Air Park on Monday, April 23rd just before landing at the Langley Airport and coming home to Surrey.

Back to Mexico

As faithful readers will recall, I published a short story of Josef’s and my trip to Mexico last December in the January issue of the PUFA Newsletter. Josef and I had motorcycled down the Baja Peninsula to La Paz and then taken a ferry across to Mazatlan where we disembarked and motorcycled down to Ajjic where Josef now owns a winter home. On the way home, he crashed on a sharp curve of the Autopisto just north of Tepic and broke 8 ribs. We flew home intending to return for the bikes.

We now returned by air on May 3rd, 2001 to retrieve the bikes. We stayed at his home in Ajjic for a couple of days, enjoying the salubrious climate and the local restaurants. Then on Sunday, May 6th, we started for Tepic doubling up on Josef’s Yahama Venture to get my motorcycle from the very kind Mexicans that had stored my bike since December.

We arrived safely at Tepic and contacted Raul Franco, the president of the local motorcycle club who guided us to Nacho Paz, the secretary of the club who had stored my bike in his garage. After re-installing my battery and starting up the engine successfully, we thanked both Raul and Nacho profusely and left for Puerto Vallarta where we holidayed for a couple of days before starting the long ride back to BC.

On Tuesday, May 8th, we started back from Puerto Vallarta and rode back to Tepic to begin the journey north. We soon came to the corner where Josef had crashed in December and took a few pictures to commemorate the event.

In the picture below, you can see the speed bumps that we had to go over as we entered the curve. The point of impact seen below is just to the right of the rocky bank that slopes down to the highway above.

After a few minutes of studious reflection on the past events, we carried on and made it to Los Mochis where we overnighted. The Mexican countryside north of Mazatlan was very lush with lots of water evidently available. Because it was getting late in the evening

when we went for dinner, we could only get a shrimp cocktail at the first restaurant we went to so we found a pizza joint to get a pizza. After eating some of the pizza, I was thirsty so I asked for a drink of ice water by using some scanty Spanish words I knew. The waitress said something about no "agua bottella" and that there was only "agua bassura". I indicated that she bring it anyway and gulped down 2 glasses. The next day we realized that agua bassura means waste water or water directly from the tap which is not recommended for us gringos. However, I never experienced any "montezumas revenge" so I guessed that my system must be enured to the Mexican dining experience by now.

The next morning, we got separated and spent an hour or so trying to locate each other. Finally we left and met at the next town after Josef left a note with some soldiers at a military checkpoint, telling me where to meet him.

Later that afternoon, we motorcycled through a desert in northern Mexico where the temperature hit 40 oC or about 104 oF. Man, was it hot! We made it to Tucson, Arizona where we overnighted.

The next day, we rode to LA and saw a dust storm in the distance which we thought was rain. The winds were very gusty and it was sometimes difficult to keep the motorcycles on the road due to the sail effect of the fairings.

We stopped overnight at Bakersfield and then at Yreka, California before finally making it back to Surrey on Saturday, May 12th.

It was a good trip but probably better done a month earlier to avoid the heat we had encountered.

Glenn Ursel

We had quite a few participants including among others: Jeff Rochon, Fergie Erickson, Gordon Denham with Claude Leclair, Fred Baron, Daryl Hegyi, Jim Stevens with Miles Hustler, Rob Leimer with John Elliot, Larry White, Harry Griffen-Beale from King George and Phil from Fort Langley in their Lazairs as well as me in my Beaver.

Ron Bestward again very kindly hosted our PUFA hotdog barbecue at his home on the lakeside. The hotdog event was followed up by a toilet roll drop as the planes were leaving. Don Willougby won the first drop with a hit only 6 feet away from the target. Larry White won the second drop and Daryl Hegyi the third. Jeff Rochon has suggested that PUFA award a small cash prize to these winners and this is planned for discussion at the meeting this month. The event was considered a success, thanks to Don Willougby’s organization. One small improvement for the next fly-in might be the provision of hotdogs and buns by PUFA as some participants to the Hatzic Lake fly-in did not bring their own food as intended.

Glenn Ursel