It was on one of my frequent visits to the beautiful and in the most part very flat, but financially distressed State of Oklahoma, that I encountered old Bob. Old Bob was a line man at Davis Field, an ex military airfield just south of Muskogee Oklahoma.
A line man in the States is a person who pulls aircraft in and out of the hangars and fills aircraft up with fuel when required. I guess his other hat would be as a standby fireman in case of an emergency on the field.
I was introduced to Bob by my friend and host during those early visits to Muskogee. Terry Randall.
Terry was a big man who heralded from Texas (everything is bigger in Texas as you know) big in voice as well as in stature, although strangely enough he was sometimes difficult to get to have a conversation with. A man of few words, but when he did open up to you, then you had to listen as he had led a fascinating life in the warbird fraternity within the USA.
Incidentally I had first met Terry at Shoreham Airfield, I was repositioning a Prospector EP9 aircraft into wind and I saw this large figure of a man striding towards me and the aircraft. Terry introduced himself in his deep gruff Texan drawl and asked of the whereabouts of the owner of the EP9, a certain Jim Pearce.
I began to describe where Jim’s office was within the Terminal building, I was actually telling him to go to the staircase and turn right when I noticed his eyes had glazed over at my Sussex dialect. Obviously I was speaking in a foreign language to him. You see Americans don’t turn right they take a right, or hang a right.
The EP9 Prospector based at Shoreham
Needless to say I had to lead him to Jim’s office. On the way I found that he had no transport and he had refused to drive, as he put it, “on the goddamn wrong side of the road” So I offered to be his chauffeur whilst he stayed in Sussex. The purpose of his visit turned out to be that he wanted to buy a Spitfire and was interested in one that Jim owned. But that is another story.
At the end of Terry’s visit to England he invited me to visit him in Muskogee and because I worked for American Airlines and had access to staff travel I did visit him, that was how I had found myself at Davis Field talking to Old Bob.
The conversation with old Bob immediately got onto flying (strange that) and he told me he owned and flew an ultralite aircraft, I jokingly said, “You wouldn’t get me up in one of those things” His answer to that was to lead me over to the main hangar where inside sat an Eipper Quicksilver MX. The aircraft was made up of a number of aluminium poles, many stranded flying wires, it had fabric wings and a two stroke engine mounted precariously on the trailing edge of the wings.
“Old Bob” is on the right and “Terry the Texan” is on the left by the wing, he hated this picture as it caught him with his hand on his hip in quite a camp posture. Not like Terry at all. Unfortunately Terry passed away in 2020 and it is his departure that has inspired this story and is dedicated to his memory.
Fair winds my friend and blue skies.
At first sight the Eipper was not very encouraging at all. My thoughts immediately went back to my early days flying Rogallo hang gliders, something I had very quickly given up as I thought it bloody dangerous.
He allowed me to sit in it, or rather on it, I noticed the engine was started by a pull cord and the engine itself, (although I am sure it was maintained well) would have been better suited on a lawnmower.
The only proper gauge on the MX was a small digital rev counter positioned above my head. I looked around for an airspeed indicator until it was pointed out to me that it was positioned directly in front of my face. The airspeed is obtained by a clear plastic tube with an orange disc inside the tube, it had a small aperture at the bottom and as you progressed along and increased speed the disc would start to rise under pressure of the airflow through it. The tube was then calibrated with speeds inscribed up the side. Of course this would mean that the indicator would actually show the wind velocity even whilst the Quicksilver was at rest.
I had seen these before but they were usually only used on the ground to measure the wind speed for pilot information.
Old Bob then suggested we pull it out and give it an engine run, I should have realised then that something was afoot.
The Freddie Flintstone effect
The engine was pulled through and it was very satisfying to find that it started first time. I have to admit how much I was impressed with that. We warmed the engine up and Bob shouted those words which in aviation are seldom taken seriously, “Go fly it Bev” and with that Old Bob walked away saying he had to be somewhere else. I sat there a few minutes wondering how I had got myself into this situation when Terry, who at that time, was the Airfield Manager of Davis Field said “Come on Bev Fly it, or don’t you think you can, you have the airfield nothing is due in but just stay away from the runway”
In America if you are over private land and it is a single seater it is perfectly legal to fly this type of Ultralite with or without a licence. As it happens I do have a PPL, which, at that time, also included an American PPL. So that was no excuse, I had run out of reasons not to fly it.
To be fair old Bob had given me a briefing about speeds and engine revs, which because it was a two stroke engine were uncommonly high to me, 8000 rpm max in the climb, 6000 rpm in the cruise and not to use any continuous revs under 6000 rpm as the engine would possibly flood and stop. Yes STOP!! now that word got my attention.
The flying controls were two axis, meaning it had elevators for climb and descend controlled by a conventional stick input, but when the stick was moved side to side it controlled the rudder on this model. This was most unconventional as normally the stick would control the ailerons and perform the rolling effect, instead this would now perform a yaw action and then as a secondary affect it would lead into a roll.
My apologies to those of you reading this that do not fly and may find it difficult to follow my terminology.
The aircraft had no brakes and no way of steering on the ground apart from use of engine and rudder, which was not much use as your speed would increase by using power and you had no brakes to slow you back down.
So the Flintstone effect came into play here. To change direction whilst at a complete stop you put your feet down, lifted the frame whilst still in your seat and shuffled the craft so that it was pointing in the direction you wanted to go. This was particularly important when you came to taking off where you needed to be pointing directly into wind, that was most important, as I was about to find out.
After my first Successful flight
Old Bob had supplied me with a helmet, but it was too small so after a while I discarded it, at which point I was told that he had now left the field and gone home, so no more briefing from him then it was up to me if I wanted to continue and fly it.
I elected to try some fast taxi exercises down the dispersal. Lifting the frame and placing my feet on the ground I shuffled the little craft approximately into wind. Then I lifted my feet onto the pedals that were placed over the nose wheel. Incidentally these pedals operated lift dumpers in the wings but I had already elected not to try these out.
Davis field has a very large dispersal area in front of the hangars, this area was clear of any aircraft and most importantly away from the runway. The active on that day was runway 13 and the dispersal area faced due south which is where the wind was coming from on the day.
Davis Field, Muskogee.
Adding some power I started across the apron area and got enough speed to get the nose wheel off the ground and tested the rudder control, then taking power off I allowed the nose wheel to come back down. Another Flintstone act and I taxied back to my starting point.
I achieved some smiling looks from the onlookers as they now where quite convinced I had chickened out.
Manually rearranging my nose wheel again to point the Eipper into wind I added power, this time intending to get the main wheels off the ground for a short airborne flip and get back down again quick. In fact the wind had just veered a little bit and was now slightly out of the south west introducing a crosswind to me and my machine, this lifted my right wing and I put in a bit of right stick to stop that. However the stick controlled the rudder and the effect was to actually skew the craft off to the right of my intending direction down the apron and in turn lifting the right wing even more. I was in fear of a ground loop and quickly reacted by taking the power off and scraping my feet along the ground in true Freddie Flintstone style to slow the Eipper down again.
Having got everything back under control and taking note of making it rule number one to make sure you are pointing into wind when taking off.
All the Okies I had met had already made me aware that they believed that the reason the wind constantly blows in Oklahoma is because Texas sucks.
Enough was enough it was time to get the Eipper into the air. I shuffled the little aircraft directly into the current wind and added power. The aircraft was airborne almost immediately and I established it into a climb up to about 50 feet levelled off and reduced the power back to 6000 rpm. This aircraft does pretty much everything at 30 mph, it will climb, cruise and descend at this speed. Apparently the (VNE) a speed you must never exceed is 40 mph on this model.
Straight and level showed no ill effects but the 6000rpm imposed a slight forward stick force to stop the aircraft from climbing, of course there was
no trim tab available so I slowly reduced the power to reduce that force but found that it was down to 4000 rpm before it had eliminated it. Hold on though Bob had said continuous 6000rpm was required or the engine might flood and STOP. So quickly back to 6000rpm and continue to hold the stick with a slight forward pressure.
Climbing away
Next thing was to make a turn to the left in order to make a circuit and to keep east of the runway. I moved the stick to the left and sure enough the nose yawed to the left and then, as expected, she started to roll to the left. I knew if held in the roll it would produce a pitch down which ultimately would end up in a nasty spiral dive, so once the roll effect came in I centralised the stick and added back pressure to continue the turn.
Now I was enjoying myself, this is getting to be a lot of fun. I lowered the nose and brought the aircraft down to a few feet off the ground. At the end of the field was a small wooden fence and I had to raise the Eipper over this and down again over the other side to continue on over a vast flat pasture that skirted the Airfield.
An Eipper fly by
Then it was time to turn left again and place myself on something like a downwind leg. The ultralite had very quickly become an easy aircraft to fly, bearing in mind its lack of ailerons. I came around the hangars to the north of the apron and made a low pass down the flight line that was still empty of aircraft.
After a few of these I knew the time had come for me to get this baby onto the ground. Looking at the windsock and establishing the wind had not shifted again I lined up on the apron and began an approach to land. Passing over the edge of the apron I came in with power on until almost touching the ground and then slowly pulled the power back, it touched down and stayed down. Then my feet came down, scraping along the ground and we came to a very satisfying stop. It was exhilarating and fantastic fun. But over time it would pay a heavy toll on the soles of your shoes.
I flew it a few more times in the next couple of days and I must say had I been able to ship one I would have bought one there and then.
Eipper still make the Quicksilver, it has now got conventional three axis controls and a choice of two stroke or four stroke engines. They also make a two seat version which I flew again a few years later at Davis.
So if the caterpillar had ever said to the Butterfly “you wouldn’t get me up in one of those things” it was wrong, because the caterpillar will inevitably become a butterfly.
Onlyvfr 