Monday, May 4, 2009

Flying a home-built aeroplane

Yesterday, I had a flight scheduled on my regular C-ISLA sportstar aeroplane. It turned out that it had a brake-defect and it was grounded. My instructor, Sebastien, was so kind to take me to a grass strip at King George. He gave me a flying lesson in a Rans S-6S COYOTE II home-built ultra light aeroplane. I raced his Dodge Hemi on my Suzuki from Boundary Bay airport to the grass strip. I finally had a use for the 6th gear on my bike.

The Rans S-6S is quite a difference from the sportstar. Sebastien calls the latter a Cadillac. It has leather seats, glass cockpit, gps, and all the comfort in the world. Now the Rans.... is different. I had a good laugh about the duct tape on it. I kid you not: there is duct tape on the end of the wing. Heh heh ...

Landing this plane on a little grass strip is a lot more difficult than landing a sportstar on a long and wide stretch of tarmac. But it was fun none the less. I did not perform very well, but it was nice to buzz the bald eagles. It's very easy to hit a bald eagle when flying in the Vancouver area. There were lots of them around, hanging around right above the airstrip.