Getting a Round Tuit

[Soleair]

Hello to all - looks a great forum. Here's my flying history, FWIW.

 

I started flying hang gliders in UK in 1975. There weren't any regulations then, so I just bought a secondhand wing and taught myself to fly. Got fed up with doing top to bottoms off my local hills so took the glider to Brighton and jumped off Beachy Head. It's about 500' high, so there was enough time to figure out the basics on the way down. Then a very long climb back up. Did quite a bit of hangliding, but progressed onto a faster machine that wasn't fully developed. It had radial battens that meant a tip stall if flying too slow. Since in those days we didn't have any instruments, it was tricky to judge airspeed on the downwind leg when soaring cliffs. So twice I woke up in hospital having stalled into the cliff face. At this point my heavily pregnant wife insisted I renounce hang gliding or her. I chose to stay married.

 

Then in 1979 I saw a newsclip of powered hangliders in America, called Ultralights. I reckoned that since these weren't hang gliders I would get away with flying them, so I ordered a kit from the States. It was a Pterodactyl Fledge, a chevron shaped flying wing with tip draggers giving yaw-induced roll with weight shift pitch control. It was powered by a 25 hp 350cc Sachs 2-stroke engine, with direct driven small dia prop. I built the kit in my shed. The last few pages of the build manual started: "OK, now you've built it, here's what to do with it". It went on to suggest long powered taxi runs, progressing to short hops, then long hops, all in a straight line, then circuits. Now that's fine for the wide open spaces of Arizona, but I lived at the time on the Isle of Wight, a tiny Island comprising minuscule farm fields with high hedge boundaries. I found a paddock maybe 200m long, gave the engine full blast, and as soon as I took off I killed the motor so as not to run out of field. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a stall into the ground, with a consequential broken axle. I repeated the same procedure - with identical results - perhaps 5 or 6 times more before I realized I needed a much longer runway to get airborne for a few feet (before crashing again). So I introduced myself to the aiport manager at Sandown airport, the local grass strip, offering a luxurious 800m of grass. Mmmmm!

 

Don was a bit nonplussed, as nobody had heard of Microlights in 1979. He took some convincing that I didn't need a licence, and intended to teach myself to fly, but then agreed to allow me to 'attempt suicide' after 6pm, when the airfield became unlicenced. It didn't take long to get the hang of it (geddit?) with that amount of runway, and I did my first circuit at 1200' on my second evening session. The third evening I went up to 3000' and tried stalls, which were very gentle due to the reflex tip ribs and swept wing. The next night I flew home, cross country, following the roads from 2500'. It was a beautiful calm sunny evening, and that flight is etched in my memory.

 

The direct drive propeller was noisy and inefficient, so I found some curves on propeller design, and extrapolated backwards to reach microlight airspeed and engine power. Based on this, I carved a 40" prototype prop and built a crude vee belt reduction system. I built a test rig with a spring balance to give an idea of static thrust, and to put a bit of time on the reduction drive system, and it all seemed to work. So I installed the system on my Pterodactyl, and took off from a nearby farm field. Wow! 400 fpm climb rate! Result! (I later fitted a 50 hp Robin engine & measured 1000fpm - that was really fun).

 

Did quite a bit more flying, my longest flight being some 130 miles from the Isle of wight to the Isle of Sheppey. I took off before dawn, as I wanted to try night flying. I left the machine in the farmer's field, rigged & pre-flighted, facing in the right direction, and went home to bed. I returned at 4 am, in the pitch dark. There were 7 octas of cloud, but a full moon showing through occasionally. I took off into the darkness, and just let the machine rotate when it felt right. I just kept climbing until I broke out of cloudbase, about 2000' when I was in brilliant moonlight for about half an hour.

 

I climbed to 3500' to cross the Solent, and watched a spectacular sunrise over Chichester Harbour. It was a long flight, and I had to refuel on the way. I found a sportsfield on top of a hill, with a petrol station nearby. Did a couple of circuits to suss it out, landed, unclipped the fuel tank and walked to the petrol station. On returning, what seemed like the whole village had turned out, all milling round my strange machine. They couldn't believe it when I said I'd come from the Isle of Wight, some 80 miles away. I got a couple of guys to hold the kids back, and took off in the length of the soccer pitch. Gave a slow wave, modelled on the way Queen Elizabeth does it from her Roller, and climbed away. Unfortunately, into a cold front. So it took me another couple of hours of very unpleasant low vis flying into increasingly strong winds before I got to my mate's house. Then, cold & tired, I came straight in to his field and was caught in the turbulence behind some tall pines. I was slammed into the ground, and thought I'd broken my back, but after a trip in the ambulance to hospital it was diagnosed as a bruised coccyx (but it really hurt).

 

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Sorry, I've realized this is turning into the tedious ramblings of an old fart. So I'll stop with the reminicences, and just complete my flying history

 

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I designed, built and flew two more microlights, both 2 seaters. Later was Chief Designer of the ARV Super 2, Got my PPL, did a fair bit of demo and cross country flying to help sell the Super 2, also converted to taildraggers on a superb little J3 Piper Cub.

 

Took up paragliding, didn't do much, broke my foot.

 

Dropped out of flying (in favour of sports motorcycles) until 2009. Then I was watching some Red Kites soaring, and cracked. I did a course that summer at Booker Gliding Club mainly on a K13, which was an absolute joy to fly. I got to solo standard, and stayed up for 1 hour 20 minutes on my second solo flight. I only came down then because I could see the toys being put away, 3500' below me.

 

Now I've moved back to Australia for my retirement, and I'm getting around to wanting to fly again. I have a 32 acre bush block near the Blue Mountains in NSW, and I'm toying with clearing some bush to make an airstrip for a simple trike. I'll post separately, but any ideas on simple, low performance, light and easy trikes would be most welcome. Oh, and cheap - I don't have any money left and I'm not old enough for a pension - yet.

 

Sorry to have rambled on for so long. Note to self - be succinct.

 

Bruce

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Awesome story, Bruce! You must have some great memories. Blokes like you pioneered our movement while blokes like me were still getting Around Toit.

 

Great to see you returning to the air. It occurs to me that too many of us are trying to create our own private airstrip.

 

With the thread on Flying Clubs in mind, surely there is a weight-shift group in your district.

 

 

[boingk]

Wow, mate, some story indeed! Couldn't imagine taking off into the darkness in a microlite... let alone one I'd built and then taught myself to fly on! Must have been very rewarding.

 

Hope to see you up in the air again soon.

 

Cheers - boingk

 

 

[Akromaster]

That was some ramble! I loved reading it :).

 

 

[Guest Howard Hughes]

I took off before dawn, as I wanted to try night flying.

What no risk analysis? Them sure were the days and you lived to tell about them!

Love it, great story!

 

 

[J170 Owner]

I guess you're aware that under section 'zed-zed-plural-zed-alpha-A (Aussie Rules)' you need to be sure that other pilots can use your proposed strip for visits, wine tasting, beer drinking and sausage sizzling.

 

 

[ayavner]

[fly_tornado]

nice story bruce. it's good to meet another commoner that can wave like the queen in her roller

 

 

[captbigwings]

Hi Bruce,

 

I've got a Round Tuit, had it for years. Where about is your block of land? I am building a new house near Lithgow, so might be handy strip to know. Will your strip be capable of handling a Sonex by any chance, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

 

 

 

[Guest Howard Hughes]

Plenty of aircraft available here, from about 10k up!

 

 

[Soleair]

Thanks to all for your kind words.

 

Where I live is very hilly, and most of my land is sloping too much to be of use. So I'll be struggling to find a bare minimum for a trike strip. For this reason, I did briefly consider a powered paraglider, but then I remembered the problem I found flying these.

 

This was basically one of penetration . Because there is no pitch control, if the wind gets up there's nothing much you can do to go forwards, other than try & think skinny for minimum air resistance. I found this out when trying to land back on top of a hill. I was being blown backwards towards the rotor in the lee face of the hill, & was contemplating pulling on the front risers to collapse the wing when the decision was taken out of my hands by the barbed wire fence that arrested my rearward progression.

 

So it seems to me - admittedly from little experience - that the flying envelope is quite restricted on these. Too little wind & you can't stay up, too much & you can't go forwards. with only about 10 knots difference between the two wind strengths.

 

Having said that, I did enjoy walking my dog with the paraglider. Got to about 30' above the slope, and beat slowly up & down, with the dog running along underneath. After she'd realized I wasn't being carried off by some enormous bird of prey, and stopped barking maniacally, I think my dog enjoyed it too.

 

So I'm thinking slow speed weight shift machine will be about all I can manage to operate from my land.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Brilliant story Bruce.

 

I'll reluctantly have to remove your name from my list of silly people teaching themselves to fly ! ! ! or paraphrasing Monty Python. . ."Course, we ad it tough back in them days. . . only instructor we ad were a little book bought off 't local market like,. . . .writ by some bloke in 't first world war. . . .read it all. . . bust a few bones on't way, but got there in't end . . .Arrrrr. LUXURY ! ! !

 

Forgot to mention. . .I got paid for doing a job, with an early hang glider in 1974,, and well,. . .sort of had a go at flying it off some dunes. . . .but my Boss and his Son were well into hang gliding and I went with them to a place called Marburg, and after some false starts, had some really fantastic flights of the escarpment and down into the valley,. . .even saw a jet fighter thingy go underneath my on one fo the descents,. . .but as you say. . .derig the bloody thing, and then haul it back up the hill. . . . didn't get into proper wobblywinging until 1983, back in the UK, when I bought a Rotax 503 powered 2 seat Mainair Flash 2. . . .some great fun in that and other flexies. . . . still got it languishing in a shed a few miles down the road ! !

 

Phil