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
