| |
As you may know already, I called it quits for the time being at
Oracle, Arizona. Oracle was not a planned landing site, but it saved
my butt on that last flight.
To summarize what happened on this adventurous attempt to fly a 103
legal powered parachute across America, this is how it happened from
my viewpoint.
After I arrived in Los Angeles I found that I had a lot of help
between Bill Watson and Evan Green. Everything was going great in L.A.
as I caught it in between the storms that plagued the area at that
time. Evan and I got in a test flight to the coast from Camarillo, and
then we caught a window to start the flight 2 days later.
The first leg went fine, and my friend Dave Anderson was waiting for
me to land on the road to refuel and warm up my bones. Dave provided
ground support and everything that I needed from there all the way
across California.
At the end of the second flight I ended up with a broken support tube
on the prop guard ring from the vibrations of the engine at low rpm. I
had to fly above 6500' to get over the mountains, and then descend
back down to land in the valleys. Phil Dietro had met me at the
Hesperia Airport. He is an AFI and knows the area well.
Phil retrieved his trailer for me and hauled the Mini Me to a local
rental business where they rented me the use of a MIG welder and
donated their time to help me repair the broken tube. Once again my
friends helping were making things a lot easier on me than it would
have been if I were out there all alone.
The next morning I took off from Hesperia and flew over the mountains
again as I continued across California, working my way around L.A. and
the big snow covered mountains as I headed for I-10 east of Indio at
Chiriaco Summit. I made three long flights that day, ending at Blythe,
California on the Arizona State line. The plane held up fine and I was
feeling really good about the flights.
At Blythe, Dave headed back home to Hemet and Eddie Wiest took over
with ground support. The support from my friends was abundant and that
alone kept my spirits high. The weather was nice and we spent the next
day visiting and I did laundry and preflighted the plane on the Blythe
Airport ramp.
The following morning Eddie and I were ready to takeoff when he
discovered a problem with his plane and had to abort. I flew alone to
the Tomahawk Truck Stop east of Quartzite, Arizona on I-10 while Eddie
bought some parts to fix his plane and met me there.
During my post flight inspection at Tomahawk, I found another broken
prop guard support tube. It was nothing critical and I wired it back
together and wrapped it with duct tape to get me by until I could get
it fixed properly.
Eddie made that flight and we flew from Tomahawk to Buckeye on the
northwest side of Phoenix. At Buckeye Eddie had to return home and I
was on my own for the first time during this adventure.
Before strapping on the 60+ pound bag of gear that my ground support
had been carrying, I decided to do a very detailed inspection of the
plane. I caught the support tube opposite of the one that had broken
earlier with a crack in it. I went ahead and wired it and taped it
before it broke in two.
Now I had a lot on my mind for sure. The tubing was failing on the
plane, I was on my own, and I had an additional 60 pounds or more to
carry. The takeoff from Buckeye was not pretty and the plane barely
would climb after hopping along before lift off. What a difference
that extra weight made!
Even though I flew at almost full throttle all the way, I made it to
Phoenix regional near Casa Grande on the south side of Phoenix. I knew
of the I'm Fly'N manufacturing facility on the airport from my last
flight across America. Luckily I made it just before they closed and
left for the day. After explaining my situation, they generously
loaned me the company truck to go to Casa Grande for the night.
The next morning The folks at I'm Fly'N asked if I would like them to
make the repairs to the prop guard support tubes, and I of course said
yes! Now I was feeling good about the plane again, at least about the
breaking tubes.
I set out from Phoenix Regional with another long, hopping takeoff and
made it to Coolidge where I was going to refuel and fly on into the
high country. When I did my post flight inspection I was surprised to
see that my muffler support 1" tube had vibrated in two and the
muffler was hanging on by it's springs. At that point I was disgusted,
scared, and grateful all at the same time. While it was bad, it could
have been worse if the muffler would have fallen through the prop!
Thinking of quitting for the first time, I called my friend Larry
Hinton in Marana and asked for help. He drove up to Coolidge with his
service truck and picked me and the plane up and took us to Marana
where he has his shop. Larry is an AFI also and has the perfect place
for repairing and test flying. We started mods to the muffler support
when I did a detailed inspection and found more material that was
breaking out. This time it was a very critical area where the C/G
tubes connect to the top cross member near the engine, as well as the
top prop guard support tube.
I immediately asked Larry to stop work on the muffler and called it
quits with the rig as it was. We quickly considered a few options,
like beefing up the frame and changing engines to a twin cylinder. I
know from experience that a welded frame is fine and that tubes do not
vibrate in two with a smooth engine. Even now with these problems, no
welds were failing, but the tubes were vibrating apart beyond the
welds.
When I called my friend Don Stutts at Airframes Unlimited for advice
and a price for a new engine, he made me an offer I could not refuse.
He felt like I did, that the Mini Me frame was ready for the scrap
yard and not to be trusted. He told me that he had one Pup airframe
left in his collection, and that he would give it to me as a gift from
one friend to another. It did not take me long to think that one over
and began to make arrangements to get me and the Mini Me to Athens,
Texas and to get back to Tucson with the Pup.
I bought a good used pickup truck in Tucson that afternoon and was on
my way to Texas that night. The Pup was designed around the F-33
engine and it would not take long to swap over everything from one
frame to the other. While I was in Texas I put the word out that I was
looking for a person to drive the little truck for me and be ground
support so I did not have to carry the nearly 100 pounds of gear that
I was flying with.
By the end of the week I was back in Arizona with the Pup all ready to
fly and a new crew member from St. Catherines, Ontario Canada, John
Labonte. Was my luck improving now? It would certainly seem so, right?
Well, I made a test flight and everything was good to go. I was making
plans with Larry to fly out in the morning as I was doing a post
flight inspection and found a split in the carburetor boot! This was
on Saturday morning and there were no parts to be found.
On Monday I called the engine supplier and got a couple of boots sent
overnight. I replaced it and ran the engine. All was well and I
planned to fly out in the morning (Wednesday).
The forecast for winds on Wednesday was for a SE wind at 3-5 mph at
Marana and NE at 3-5 mph at San Manuel in the morning becoming
westerly in the afternoon. Beyond San Manuel it was to be light and
variable!
After taking off at Marana I had a nice tail wind from the SW at 3-5
mph and I was making good time. 2/3 of the way to San Manuel the winds
began to change direction and the ride got bumpy. Then my forward
speed slowed to a crawl at 3-5 mph! I began looking for a place to
land as I kept pushing to try and make the ridgeline of the mountain
east of Oracle, but there was not much to choose from. I was hoping
that the winds would lighten up some on the other side of the ridge,
but I could not make it to the ridge. My ground speed was indicating
3-5 mph in an easterly direction, then 3-5 mph in a westerly
direction. A close up look at the track from the GPS shows plainly
that I was indeed going nowhere and zig zagging fore and aft until I
turned around.
I made one final attempt to reach the ridgeline as I dropped down to
about 100' above the ground. That almost proved to be a big mistake. I
found myself in a wind gust that was pushing the plane to the ground.
I went to full throttle and it was still going to the ground. I
gritted my teeth and knew I all I could do was ride it out and keep
flying the plane to the ground. About 20' from the ground and all of
those thorny cacti, I flared a little as I knew I was going to hit,
and the descent stopped. The plane slowly gained altitude as I held
the nose directly into the wind, and when I was back above 100' I
turned around to try and make it to the best looking emergency field
that I had spotted at Oracle.
At the emergency field that I chose I had to decide whether to cut the
engine and land in case of a roll over in the winds to minimize damage
or to fly it in and risk braking a prop but remain with more control.
After the experiences of the wind pushing the plane down and the only
thing that saved it was the engine, I opted to fly it in under power
in case I needed it. That was a good decision and the landing was
perfect. As I was preparing to pack up the wing, the wind grabbed it
and pulled the plane over, but it only bent a steering tube and the
damage was very minor.
I decided on the spot that the flight was over for the time being.
After all of the stuff that had happened so far on the flight path, I
now realized that the little 28 hp engine just is not enough power to
get me through any unexpected high winds that I might encounter. My
window for good winds has also passed while I was running around the
country and mid March is not time to be flying through those mountains
and high desert. The hot summer is not the time either as the winds
really can get fierce then.
My current plan is to use the time between now and when the desert
begins to cool down some in October to put together and test fly under
all sorts of conditions a new Outlaw 103 legal powered parachute with
the Hirth 40 hp engine and gearbox. I will use my Thunderbolt E-310
wing as I could never make the long flights with only 5 gallons of
fuel without it. It makes the plane much more efficient and effects
fuel burn and airspeed.
I am also going to give in to the wind Gods that are looking after
Oracle and San Manuel. :) I have flown into San Manuel before, and I
have flown out of San Manuel, but I have never been able to fly in and
out of San Manuel without the winds kicking my butt. I will find a way
to avoid Mount Lemmon and go around following I-10. I will most likely
start around San Diego someplace and follow I-8 to I-10 to shorten up
the route a little and avoid the big mountains around, and the
congestion of L.A. even though 40 hp should be sufficient to handle
them. I will still have to fly over the high country of new Mexico and
west Texas.
The best part of this whole adventure is the way that everyone pitched
in to make it as successful as possible. People that sell other
brands, fly other brands and people that do not even fly a powered
parachute all did everything that they could to help out. At times I
even had to turn down some of the offers as I felt they were just too
generous.
Already people are offering assistance for the next attempt, and I am
making tentative plans to make it happen this Fall. My wife supports
my decision to stop the flight and reassess the situation. She also
supports my effort to try again in the Fall. She was very shocked when
I told her that I was coming home and she had to ask me to repeat
myself several times because she knows I do not give in so easily. :)
Truthfully, it takes a lot to scare me when flying, but this
experience did put some fear into me, and I have a new respect for
what I am trying to accomplish. This is totally different than when I
flew across America with a big heavy 2 place powered parachute and 10
gallons of fuel. This is MUCH more of a challenge!
As I make progress in the coming months we will update the website
www.americanspiritppc.com with the information and photos of the
plane, new route, etc.
Until the next time,
Thank you for your support and have a good one!
Steve Thomas
|
|
