power hang glider accident

wow...ur dad's a tuff chap! hope everything will be allright.

 

Your posts make it sound like your dad was doing the power hangliding, drove back from Mexico, etc.

 

Some people just don't learn. A lot of motorcycle riders are like this after a crash. They think you just get back on again rather then considering it a wake up call. Some risky activities are not worth the price. But hey, it's his life.

 

I used to have a Citabria (a light 2-seater taildragger airplane) in west Oklahoma City. One spring day, with typical Oklahoma City crosswind (which I would not consider flying the Citabria in unless I was caught in it unexpectadly), I am working on the engine in the hanger and observe a couple of guys trailer in a powered ultralight. It had a big delta wing and about a 30hp pusher 2 cycle engine. They assemble it right there on the taxiway in front of the hanger and preflight it.

Interested, a couple of us walk over and say hi. The owner guy tells us that he has been working on it all winter and just couldn't wait to fly it. No, he has no pilot's license nor instruction time, but these things are so easy to fly...etc...nothing we say is going to deter him. He straps on a motorcycle helmet and proceeds to try to take off in about a 35mph crosswind.

Predictably, the wind gets under that wing as soon as he hits flying speed, and cartwheels the poor thing down the grass beside the taxiway. Obviously hurt bad, he asks us to help him heap the remains back up on the trailer, and disappears into the distance. He probably owed his life to the fact that he had not made it more than about 15 or 20 feet into the air.

I never saw him again.

My point is simply this - like any aircraft, these things can be really dangerous to your health if used in a careless manner. With all respect for the departed, did you know that one of the WalMart heirs was killed in a similar accident a few years back?

 

The saddest video that I ever saw was about 10 or 15 years ago on Inside Edition or one of those other tabloid shows. A retired guy had spent the past 10 years building a homebuilt single engine aircraft in his machine shop/garage. It was not an ultralight. It was a real single engined aircraft. Everything was top notch. Very well engineered and built. The glorious day finally arrived for the first flight. He trailered it to the airport and fired it up for the first flight as his friend was running the video camera to document it all. The guy rolls down the runway, lifts off, then starts a slow turn to the right. The plane continued to roll right into the ground about a quarter mile off the side of the runway. Landed in a pig pen and killed the pilot. The entire episode lasted about 20 seconds.

Ten years of hard labor and he ends up dying in a crash into a pig pen.

 

I wish your Dad a speedy recovery.

 

I believe it was the president of a large furniture company that was killed in his seaplane that he neglected to bildge pump the water from the hull (Standard pre-flight check). When he took off, all the water went to the tail and you know the rest. People get into bad situations because they are in a hurry or don't think.

Since my ladder fall, there is not much I do in which I don't stop first and think 'How can I screw myself up doing this'. I bought a Solstice last month and that car made me a better, safer driver, as I dread getting hit in it!

 

Ski-bum,

Sorry about your dad.......

This roommate seems very young. Am I right? Early 20's?