Vale Chris Conroy

[Doctorross]

Regretfully

 

I join this thread to announce our loss of my great mate Chris who passed aeay last night.

 

Further details due soon

 

Regards

 

Ross Evans

 

 

[Kyle Communications]

A terrible loss , he was a very charismatic person ..Chris did so much promotion for ultralight flying in the early days. My condolences to his family..I was only looking at his FB page last week

 

 

[Robbo]

R.I.P, a great loss.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Yes, CC has been a good friend for the last thirty years and I spent many happy times with him both building and flying ultralights going right back to the days of Chris Conroy's World of Boats.

 

He's always been an entertaining guest at our family BBQs, we'll miss him dearly.

 

RIP Chris and sincerest condolences to Ben, Lachlan, Moni and his extended family and many friends.

 

 

[winsor68]

That is a real shame. It was an honour to meet Chris at Natfly a few years ago. A true gentlemen and a real character.

 

 

[Bernie]

I met Chris a few times sorry to hear of his passing .

 

RIP.

 

Bernie .

 

 

[rotax618]

Sad to hear, was talking to him at the Great Eastern Evans Head. A true pioneer and promoter of the ultralight movement.

 

 

[Blackhawk]

That's very sad news, I've known Chris for about 25 years and kept in touch regularly. He will be missed; Fly high my friend!

 

 

[WayneL]

My condolences to family and friends of Chris Conroy. A sad loss. Chris had a real passion for boats and aircraft and was always designing something new. I first meet Chris in person when I attended the first meeting of the Gold Coast Ultralight Club at Runaway Bay yacht club in the early 80's. As a number of those early members were yachties and because of the restrictions we had when flying over the land, flying off the water was popular. Chris had his Jackaroo on floats, Barry Hughes was attempting to learn to fly with his Rotec on floats and I made my first ultralight flight on a float equiped American Aerolights Eagle canard design ultralight from the broadwater. They were fun times but not always safe times. Unfortunately I remember at least 1 fatality at our Jacob's Well turf farm strip.

 

I remember one amusing event at the turf farm when Chris decided to land on the strip in his float equiped Jackaroo.... it was a safe but quick stop. He decided to try and takeoff on the wet grass with the help of a number of club members pushing while he "gunned it"........it was never going to happen though! The floats had to be taken off and I think from memory it was discovered the floats had holes on the bottom from the skid landing......not good for a water landing! I left the club in the mid 80's after the loss of the field we used on the southern side of Don McClaren's Marina (Horizon Shores Marina) but often talked to Chris at flyins and airshows where he would be promoting his lastest DVD or aircraft. RIP Chris.

 

Regards,

 

Wayne

 

 

[dunlopdangler]

I had the pleasure of meeting Chris on quite a few occassions and extend my condolances to his family and close friends. Thankyou Ross for informing us on his passing.

 

 

[Riley]

I can recall looking at both of the two Conroy Sparrows that came to the west in partial kit form in the early/mid nineties. Both ended up being offered 'partially complete - unlikely to fly' in subsequent deceased estate sales. Apparently Chris came very close to meeting his maker some years earlier during a Sparrow test flight. Anybody have any knowledge if any of the aircraft ever got sorted out and is happily flying under RAA?

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

I can recall looking at both of the two Conroy Sparrows that came to the west in partial kit form in the early/mid nineties. Both ended up being offered 'partially complete - unlikely to fly' in subsequent deceased estate sales. Apparently Chris came very close to meeting his maker some years earlier during a Sparrow test flight. Anybody have any knowledge if any of the aircraft ever got sorted out and is happily flying under RAA?

He never told me of this incident with the Sparrow but then CC did some adventurous things at times, so it's quite likely ... do you know what happened?

 

In Post#9 above WayneL describes CC's landing his float-equipped Jackaroo on the grass at Jacobs Well. Having discovered how short he could land on grass with floats, on occasions after that he also used to fly off the water on the Broadwater and land on the lawn back at his house then winch it back onto the trailer. I have a video of that somewhere, and I recall he used the footage on his Chris Conroy's World of Boats TV show. I think he did crack and have to reinforce the step of the floats on one occasion but that was no biggie for a clever composite wallah, as he was.

 

WayneL's mentioning Barry Hughes brought back memories of those heady days too, Bazza's numerous stories of his excursions on floats on the Broadwater would make you laugh till the tears ran. Particularly the one where he was trying to take off in the Rotec Rally and a big cruiser came close to have a look and the wake flipped him - Bazza's description of nearly drowning while trying to untangle the harness and headset, though rather chilling was hilarious and Bazza's 'compliments' to the water police towing the inverted plane to shore too fast were the stuff of legend.

 

There's a Conroy Sparrow here that has about 500hrs on it IIRC which was bent in a bad landing but I have seen lots of video of it flying before that and it seemed to perform well. It had a DCDI Rotax 503 in it.

 

After the Sparrow CC concentrated on the two seat Sparrowhawks, one tandem and one SBS. I'm not sure what stage the tandem one got to but I've seen video of the testing of the SBS version. The prototype was much heavier than intended - it is all composite compared with the fabric-covered tubular aluminium structure of the Sparrow - but still appeared to fly well. It was/is powered by a Jabiru 6cyl.

 

I know of at least one SBS Sparrowhawk kit that was sold and there may have been one or two others, but I'm not aware of any that have been completed and flown.

 

 

[WayneL]

Yes, I remember Barry's incident with the flipped Rally, more so the story/s which Barry told so well.

 

Some interesting characters back then. One day Col Winton asked me to take some photos of a newly built Sportsman he was about to test fly for the first time. He took it up and flew around low for 5 minutes and got some reasonable shots. On landing he said he was holding in aileron all the time. We discovered one wing was at a different AoA to the other. Out came the drill and a new trailing edge bolt hole was drilled in the fuselage and the wing rebolted to this hole. Next flight he reported it in prefecy trim!

 

Remember looking at Sparrow Hawk at Bundy airshow one year and liking the modular fiberglass wing sections that slid onto the tubular alloy spar. Not sure how heavy that would be though. I thought it was a nice looking design.

 

Wayne

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Yes, I remember Barry's incident with the flipped Rally, more so the story/s which Barry told so well.Some interesting characters back then. One day Col Winton asked me to take some photos of a newly built Sportsman he was about to test fly for the first time. He took it up and flew around low for 5 minutes and got some reasonable shots. On landing he said he was holding in aileron all the time. We discovered one wing was at a different AoA to the other. Out came the drill and a new trailing edge bolt hole was drilled in the fuselage and the wing rebolted to this hole. Next flight he reported it in prefecy trim!

Remember looking at Sparrow Hawk at Bundy airshow one year and liking the modular fiberglass wing sections that slid onto the tubular alloy spar. Not sure how heavy that would be though. I thought it was a nice looking design.

 

Wayne

Yes, characters they were, there seem to be much fewer of them these days ...

 

Even though I'm not really a fan of tubular wing spars that modular wing of CC's is a brilliant concept and so quick to build and assemble. It's actually surprisingly light, the heavy part of the SBS Sparrowhawk is the fuselage, it's way overbuilt. Even so, it was only the prototype and there was plenty of opportunity to build production versions much lighter.

 

The S'hawk certainly has an interesting look, apparently intended to have a nostalgic 1930s feel about it. To get the steel-tube-and-fabric look for its fuselage CC actually took the molds off the fuselage sides of a fabric covered single seat Sparrow, without harming the 'donor' aircraft!

 

For the last couple of years CC had been working on a derivative of it, adapted from the SH molds and to be powered by a Rotec Radial. It's a stand-off replica of a Stinson Reliant. It may not get completed now, which would be unfortunate.

 

 

[kasper]

much clipped ...Even though I'm not really a fan of tubular wing spars that modular wing of CC's is a brilliant concept and so quick to build and assemble. It's actually surprisingly light, the heavy part of the SBS Sparrowhawk is the fuselage, it's way overbuilt. Even so, it was only the prototype and there was plenty of opportunity to build production versions much lighter.

...

Whilst I remember CC well it is best for accuracy to point out that a tubular spar with composite sections slid on and bonded to form the wing was not a idea from CC but from Mr Bede.

Not diminishing the work of CC but just clearing up that this was not CCs original idea but use of an existing idea.

 

 

[Riley]

Apologies for my failing memory ladies and gentlemen - it was in fact, two tandem SparrowHawk kits that came to WA which (as far as I know) never got in the air. This brings into question if it was the Sparrow or the SparrowHawk that nearly ate Chris' lunch during that test flight over Watts Bridge (???) or perhaps Toowomba. Too many years ago. cheers

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Whilst I remember CC well it is best for accuracy to point out that a tubular spar with composite sections slid on and bonded to form the wing was not a idea from CC but from Mr Bede.Not diminishing the work of CC but just clearing up that this was not CCs original idea but use of an existing idea.

Below is an image of Jim Bede's BD wing construction method. It is nothing like the method used by CC, with the exception that things (in Bede's case just the ribs) are slipped onto a tubular spar and bonded to it. Following the rib bonding the rear spar is bonded to the ribs and then the wing skins bonded to the skeleton. Bede's method is similar to the one adopted by Sander Veenstra for his SV series of motorgliders/fat ultralights in the 1980s.

 

CC's wing was built up of complete sections of wing about 400mm long, each molded section had one rib, a length of rear spar, the D nose and the wing skins. The skins had a joggle at one end to allow the next section to lap over and be bonded to it. Though I couldn't personally muster the patience to make all the sections one by one in the molds, I've never seen a quicker way to assemble a complete wing. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of CC's wings during assembly, I should have taken one when I was looking at the molds just a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

[Guest asmol]

Chris Conroy told me the story at the Heck Field Christmas party maybe 3 years ago and from the best of my memory this is how it went.

 

It must now be about 8 or 10 years ago when he took the aircraft down to Narromine for display. It is only done a couple of flights before and he decided to prove its airworthiness by demonstrating its flying characteristics to the crowd. He told me about how he took off from the airfield and immediately after being airborne he had some problems with pitch which he thought may have been weight turbulence from an aircraft in front of him even though the wind was 90° to the runway and should not have been a factor. He then went on to say how the plane started a left-hand turn and wouldn't come out and by the time he stabilised it he was heading in the direction of Darwin but without the fuel to make it there. He told me how we got to about 1500 feet above the ground and he thought this would be a safe enough height to work everything out. He was going to slow down the aeroplane to something like 60 kn and try and work out what was the problem. As soon as he took his hand off the control stick and reduced the throttle the aircraft went into a violent loop. Although this was a very serious problem he made it sound like it was almost a comedy telling the story how as best as he could tell the aircraft did 3 loops in no more than 50 foot elevation, he said his headsets were torn from his head, his glasses went missing and he thinks he may have even blacked out momentarily but when he suddenly got his wits about him the plane was heading to Narromine. It took him about 15 minutes to find his glasses which were broken (and the only pair he had for the trip) without them he was blind and could not read the instruments etc. one of the glass inserts was missing and one of the arms on his glasses were broken off so he went on to tell is how he was wearing his glasses just like Cornel Klink (spelling) out of that old TV show which I can't remember the name of now. The force of the loops and the direction actually tore the plugs off the headsets which were borrowed from another aviator just for the flight so he was pretty annoyed by that fact as well. Without radio communications, without real control of the aircraft and without any proper vision except for his Klink styled eyewear he ended up bypassing the circuit and landing on the wrong runway in use at the time but he didn't care he just wanted to get onto the ground. He told us how he was shaking uncontrollably any taxi back to the area to display the aircraft like nothing had happened. He then went on to collapse a little bit afterwards from the stress and he said that he had a friend, Kevin somebody who was also a customer there to assist him. The next day they decided to pull the aircraft apart to put it in a trailer to bring it back home but nothing would come apart. It was then discovered that just about every bolt that holds the wings in place was bent. He needed to use a hammer and eventually a crowbar to get the bolts out so he could take the wings off any estimated on average is the bolts were bent between 20° and 30° and he still tells us that he uses them as paperweights on his desk when doing drawings (which he was fantastically good at) after this adventure he decided that the aircraft was pitch unstable and had a mind of its own in-flight either then decided to design a conventional elevator for the aircraft instead of the fully flying elevator because he believed this would help the problem, he then mentioned moving the engine forward from memory 500 mm or 600 mm to fix up a weight and balance problem which he knew about before flight but didn't have time to make a new engine mount or new cowlings before the show. He then decided after some time that he would be much better off selling a side-by-side aircraft and off he went to design another variation on the aircraft.

 

Somehow, Conroy used to make the stories of near fatal accidents sound almost like an adventure like climbing Mount Everest dodging falling rocks and avalanches on the way. I don't think it was his intention to ever rip anybody off selling an aircraft that was not really an aircraft but he was more like a mad scientist in my opinion with so many theories and designs, he was almost like an unsuccessful version of Scott Winton but unfortunately he never took anything through to fruition, he would always get distracted when the job was 80% done and move on to something else. Having said all of this I really like the person and he kept us entertained with his stories for hours and hours. He will be missed by many at our airfield, he was a very interesting character and I hope some of his stories can live on.

 

 

[kasper]

Below is an image of Jim Bede's BD wing construction method. It is nothing like the method used by CC, with the exception that things (in Bede's case just the ribs) are slipped onto a tubular spar and bonded to it. Following the rib bonding the rear spar is bonded to the ribs and then the wing skins bonded to the skeleton. Bede's method is similar to the one adopted by Sander Veenstra for his SV series of motorgliders/fat ultralights in the 1980s.CC's wing was built up of complete sections of wing about 400mm long, each molded section had one rib, a length of rear spar, the D nose and the wing skins. The skins had a joggle at one end to allow the next section to lap over and be bonded to it. Though I couldn't personally muster the patience to make all the sections one by one in the molds, I've never seen a quicker way to assemble a complete wing. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of CC's wings during assembly, I should have taken one when I was looking at the molds just a few weeks ago.

 

[ATTACH]40952[/ATTACH]

Sorry but the pic you show is the BD-4C not the original 1968 BD-4 - just wikipaedia it and read:

"An innovative wing structure employed a "panel-rib" constructed in sections consisting of a rib whose upper edge was "extended" horizontally to become one section of the wing surface. The wing was progressively built up by sliding these sections together over the tubular spar and fastening them together where they met. Although the original wing design was easy to build, current BD-4B features a redesigned, more conventional, metal wing with a tubular spar bonded to honeycomb ribs."

 

And the currently available kit for the BD-4C has completely standard metal ribs and skin on a tubular spar.

 

 

[Blackhawk]

The wing construction of the original BD4 - WAS composite - and was built in moulded sections fitted to a tubular spar, Chris used the same construction for

 

the Sparrow aircraft (photos below) where he got the idea from Jim Bede's BD4 (and possibly a set of plans).

 

It is a very simple and strong way to build wings, once you have the mould for a left and right section.

 

I bought a set of plans for the composite wing construction from Bede Corp. about 14 years ago; anyone could buy them and they are probably still available.

 

 

.

 

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Thanks fellas, I stand corrected, I'd never seen that early version BD4 construction.

 

 

[billwoodmason]

I was at Narromine the year Chris had his Sparrow there and I spoke to him briefly - sad to hear he's gone. Log book tells me it was April 2003. Had he been ill or was his passing sudden ?.

 

RIP Chris, condolences to his family and friends.

 

 

[Guest asmol]

he recently had several small strokes but just wouldnt give up the fags.

 

There will be a service for Chris Conroy at Integrity Funerals. Tonga Place Parkwood 11.00 AM Thursday 28th

 

 

[Methusala]

I bought a pair of his wheel pants from him at Narromine - it must have been the same year because he was selling the Sparrow kits. I paid the money and he promised to send them to me in "a few weeks". This turned into months so I phoned him to ask about the delay. He apologised at great length and when I got them in the post he had included a video of "Chris Conroy's World of Aviation", or some such title. It included some spectacular sequences of aerial ballet by Guido Zuccoli in a Spit and then a Mustang. Wish I still had it but lent it to someone who wanted it so bad he never returned it! I think that CC was a gentleman. Regards, Don

 

( I ditched the wheel pants when I found they did nothing to improve the 60 knots cruise.)

 

 

[John Mountford]

Whilst I remember CC well it is best for accuracy to point out that a tubular spar with composite sections slid on and bonded to form the wing was not a idea from CC but from Mr Bede.Not diminishing the work of CC but just clearing up that this was not CCs original idea but use of an existing idea.

You are correct that the idea was from Jim Bede. I worked with Chris off and on for the last 13 years ago and he told me the story.