by skypix » Thu Oct 16, 2014 11:06 am
Hi all, I found the site doing some research for an article I'm doing for EAA Experimenter mag on Quicksilver. Also doing a longer, more personal one for Light Sport and Ultralight Flying (former, and soon to be again, Glider Rider).
I was formerly editor of Ultralight Aircraft Magazine, published in CA, until 1985, after the 20/20 broadcast sunk the ultralight industry pretty good. Still mad at those bastards, it was clearly a set up from somebody with deep pockets and GA ties who didn'lt want all these little gnats of aircraft hogging "their" airspace. Don't get me started...
I was a hang glider wannabe starting in 1971 up in Oregon when I helped build a rogallo (Popular Mechanics plans) with plastic sails, truss cage, and electric conduit. Weighed 100 lbs. We tried to fly it, fortunately we failed, would have killed us on a hill I'm sure...though we tried pulling behind a car which wasn't much better. Could hardly lift the beast, much less run with it.
Bought a Seagull III in 1974, learned to fly it, then taught on it at Cape Kiwanda and other beach dune sites, came to LA and soared Torrance Beach, and that began my career as a Seagull owner, writer and photographer. I owned every glider they made from the III on, including an all-white Seagull 5, with the rudder, that I left at writer Mike Jones house 35 years ago...and never got it back! Hey Mike, where's my glider, dude?
Not that I ever flew it high: it was a complete pig to set up, nearly an hour each time. Quite a difference from today's gliders.
I flew at Grouse Mt. International Meet 2 years in a row (was the emcee the year before, I'd been an actor in the tv series SWAT and had a bit of a name at the time so some doors were opened for me.) I placed in the top 20 in both those meets, I was proud of that as I had a smallish Seagull 10 against Steve Moyes and some Canadian fliers with gigantic floater wings. But I could turn that nice glider very tight and stay in the core, and I guess that's what made the difference: the big floaters were afraid to mix it up in the center of the vortex, they were a bit stiff to turn apparently, and with 50 or more gliders working one big house thermal in front of a sheer cliff of 1500 feet or so, it was hairy to say the least.
I flew and placed for the Nationals at the Utah Regionals in 1980...in a French Alpha...But USHGA threw out the results retroactively because it wasn't a certified glider and made us fly again, this time in Crested Butte. I bought a Moyes Mega which was an Alpha clone, but a real pig itself, 30 lbs. or so heavier. I got it just before the meet, wasn't flying it very well though was in the running until I blew a scratch flight against Dave Rodriguez, the former National Champ. I was winning my heat with him too, he was heading our for the landing area but I was still on the hill, scratching for all I was worth...he looked back, saw me scratching, came back and flew right into the middle of the thermal I was trying to center unsuccessfully and that was that. Well, I won the spot landing contest anyway and won a nice prize so it wasn't all for naught, and was a fun (and harrowing at times) meet. This was in 1980.
I built a Pterodactyl Ultralight that year and flew it from Crested Butte, where I was living, all over the place, even in the winter, over skiiers at Aspen...powered by a 25hp Fuji Robin single lunger. Even then, at 10,000 MSL, it had a 300 fpm climb rate. Later I put a Cuyuna on it...1000 fpm, that was a hoot of an ultralight to fly.
Got out of ultralights after my divorce, had kids to raise, then got into photographing and writing about GA airplanes for Plane & Pilot mag: had kids to raise. Then back into the game for P&P as their Light Sport Editor for the last 6 years. Now they owe me money for 6 months of work that was published but unpaid for, so I quit them and am back closer to my roots anyway with Tracy Knauss and Mike Bradford over at Glider Rider (I wrote a sci fi hang gliding serial for them in the 80s, The Star of Rangormere, which was great fun. Maybe some of you remember that...I keep threatening to rework it for modern times but alas, never seems to be enough time).
What else? I'm still active in the powered flight game, don't hang glide since I sold my Sport 2 a few years back, bum knee and 69 years of aches and pains.
High and safe everybody!
Jim Lawrence
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