The Wright Stuff
With one last glance at the windsock, I took a deep breath, exhaled, and slowly advanced the throttle to full power. I felt my body press deep into the seat as the aircraft accelerated. When the wings began to create lift, I held the control stick forward a few seconds more then relaxed it and allowed the plane to become airborne. Feeling the awesome power of the engine over my head, I brought the nose higher yet to avoid exceeding the speed limit of the airframe. Quickly the ground was left behind as I soared into the air. I felt like the Wright brothers must have a hundred years ago.
Starting with a pile of aluminum tubes and some yellow Dacron, I spent a year rebuilding the ultra-light aircraft, piece by piece, replacing parts that were questionable, adding others, until a whole summer later, I had something that looked like it might actually fly. I diligently consulted the builder's manual, the manufacturer, and other builders to make sure each part exactly where it was meant to be. Finally, everything was just right and I mowed a practice strip in the old hayfield. Back and forth I taxied, feeling the breeze on my face and dreaming of the day when I would fly again. I already had my pilot's license to fly the "real" planes, but this was different. This was mine, my plane that I had built with my own hands.
It got cold that autumn and I took the wings off and put it in storage for the winter. The next year I reassembled it at the airport. Two days later a windstorm loosened the tie-down and I found my beautiful bird with its feet in the air. Once it was righted, I assessed the damage and was relieved to find only a broken tail strut. Two weeks and a special order from California, the plane was good to go and I resumed taxiing practice. The ultra-light handled very differently from the airplanes I was used to flying and it only had seating for one, so I wanted to be very cautious and thorough as I taught myself to fly it.
The day came when I felt ready to try some "crow hops", short flights a few feet off the ground. I taxied out to the runway and pushed in half throttle. As the plane accelerated just above stall speed, I pulled the nose up slightly and the wheels lifted off. "Sputter, sputter, bang, sputter!" Silence. I coasted to the side of the runway and unsuccessfully attempted a restart of the engine. Resigned, I hand-pushed the aircraft all the way back across the airport and tied it down yet again.
Weeks passed and I was no closer to solving the problem. I did all my own mechanic work as no airplane mechanic knew a thing about a two-stroke engine and the liability of aviation scared away the small engine repair guys.
Autumn returned and once again I disassembled the small craft.
During the winter I was feeling quite discouraged as I reviewed maintenance manuals and asked opinions of everybody who professed to know anything about two-strokes. "Points. Timing. Carburetor. Plugs," they speculated. "Nope, tried all that," I'd replied.
As the weather warmed in the spring I didn't even touch the plane. It sat. Summer rolled around and one evening I saw an ultra-light fly over. This got the bug itching again and I pulled out the books and the plane.
"Ignition, I'll start by testing the ignition," I thought. Every engine needs air, fuel and spark to run. This one had plenty of air and fuel, I even put a new carburetor on, but the spark was weak. I checked the coils, the wires, the plugs again, and finally found a bad resistor in a spark plug cap. A few more dollars, two new plug caps, some starting fluid and a lot of rope pulling and the engine was running as good as new. Such a lot of frustration and work for such a simple solution. By the next week I had resumed my taxiing practice at the airport. I did many successful crow hops, lengthening each one until I felt comfortable with the characteristics of the ultra-light, but yet I waited and practiced some more. I was a little scared, and rightfully so. This tube and fabric aircraft weighed less than two of me, had controls opposite that of a real airplane, had unknown flight handling, other than my half-flight crow hops I'd been doing, and that was going to be me up there. I began to reconsider my Wright brothers idea and created for sale' flyers to post around. Yet I continued the crow hops.
About a week later the weather was perfect. Dead calm, sunny, one could see forever. "This is it," I thought to myself, "It's now or never." After three fine practice runs, I set up at the end of the runway, looked at the windsock once more, and slowly advanced the throttle to full power.